Quote:
Dodgers lead the league in Asian players
With two Taiwanese (Hong-Chih Kuo and Chin-lung Hu), two Japanese (Hiroki Kuroda and Takashi Saito) and one Korean (Chan Ho Park) on their roster, the Dodgers have what is believed to be the most Asian-born players of any team in big league history. But that's not something that happened overnight, says Acey Kohrogi, the team's director of Asian operations.
"I can't say that we planned it," Kohrogi said. "It's a product of all the efforts that we've made throughout the years."
Efforts that date back more than half a century, to when the Brooklyn Dodgers made a goodwill trip to Japan in 1956, then invited some of the Yomiuri Giants to train at Vero Beach the next spring.
Under former owner Peter O'Malley, the team began reaching out to the rest of Asia in 1980, sending coaches and Manager Tom Lasorda to stage clinics in Korea and China, building baseball fields in two Chinese cities and, in 1998, becoming the first big league team to open an office in Asia.
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All very talented players, to boot - this doesn't surprise me, though, seeing as the Dodgers have a history of breaking barriers... in fact, I'm fairly certain that Hideo Nomo was, in the very least, the first big-name Japanese player to head stateside.
Dodgers the 'Most Asian Team'
Dodgers the 'Most Asian Team'
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