Being Bass' Mouthpiece (Part 1)

My experiences interpreting for a legend of Japanese baseball

I had the experience of a lifetime earlier this month. I suppose technically it was the second time in my life it’s happened. When you get right down to it, maybe it was the third. But it felt different this time around, and was probably the most memorable of them all.

Randy Bass, former Oklahoma State senator, came to Japan to meet a bunch of his fans. Obviously, they were more familiar with his clutch performances as a slugger for the Hanshin Tigers in the 1980s, whilst quite ignorant of his political career in the US. So when I say he had fans here, I meant it. He is probably more famous than all of the current Hanshin Tigers players combined. Not even exaggerating.

The Tigers are celebrating their 90th year as a pro sports team this year, and throughout the season, they have held “Legends Days.” On each of the days, they invited great players from yesteryear to take part in a pre-game ceremony. One day was for famous shortstops (the late Yoshio Yoshida, Taira Fujita, and Takashi Toritani). Another was for guys who earned the “Mr. Tigers” moniker (Koichi Tabuchi and Masayuki Kakefu). Yet another recognized some big-time heroes from championship teams (Akinobu Mayumi, Akihiro Yano, Tomoaki Kanemoto). But they saved the best for last, and the last was on July 1. On this day, the team and its fans remembered the most iconic moment in team history: back-to-back-to-back home runs to dead center against their rivals, the Yomiuri Giants.

The year they did it was the same year they won the Japan Series for the first time ever. And so, the legends were invited onto the field before the game to recreate the scene.

Batting third, wearing #44 and playing first… Randy Bass!

Batting fourth, wearing #31 and playing third… Masayuki Kakefu!

Batting fifth, wearing #16 and playing second… Akinobu Okada!

To be honest, it was rather cheesy, but when your legends are pushing (or beyond) 70 years of age, what more can one expect? To-Lucky mimed a pitch to each of them, and they swung at air while the announcer did his best to replicate the moment. The fans cheered politely but more than anything, they were just happy to see their favorite players from yesteryear donning the Tigers’ pinstripes once again.

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But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, shall we? The title of this article implies that I was somehow involved in Randy Bass’ life while he was back visiting, and that is what I want to focus on here. So, where to begin? I think we need to go back to October 2017…

A few important events from my past converged to make this present-day position possible, after all. Bass’ then-agent, Marty Kuehnert, was accompanying him as he did a bunch of business in the Osaka area. Knowing that I was a big-time Tigers fan (he had read my blog and my JapanBall newsletters), Marty reached out to me. “If you can come to our hotel lobby tonight around 5:30 pm, you can have 15 minutes with him. We are between jobs but only have a small window.”

And so I jumped at the opportunity, arriving at the hotel lobby before they did, ready to ask him all sorts of interesting questions - at least as far as I was concerned. In particular, I asked him for his thoughts and memories of the Curse of the Colonel. His response was a bit jumbled and showed me that he did not really have the facts straight. (Click here for a full transcript of our interview.) Nevertheless, contact had been established, and this picture got taken.

It wasn’t a month later that I got interviewed by Daily Sports because of my English Tigers website. (That article can be found here, and its English translation here.) Through that interview and the journalist who wrote the article, I was given a monthly column with Daily Sports Online the following April. That column had a solid 7-year run, and at roughly the 5-year mark, Daily reached out to me about doing some interpretation work for them.

Akinobu Okada, the third of the trifecta that hit the back-to-back-to-back jacks, was being rehired as manager of the Tigers for the start of the 2023 season. He was the manager of the most recent Tigers champion team (back in 2005) and was quite vocal about some of Akihiro Yano’s managerial decisions from 2019-22. Well, as a surprise to him, Randy Bass was being called upon to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day.

Daily Sports was granted an exclusive interview with Bass during his time here, and my editor (who made my writing sound a LOT better than it actually was) requested that I serve as interpreter for the interview. Naturally, I immediately accepted the offer. A few days later, I got a phone call…

“Trevor, it’s Marty. I hear you are going to be interpreting for one of Randy’s interviews with Daily Sports.”

“Yes, they called me and asked me to do it.”

“Oh. Well, usually I am his interpreter. I know him better than anyone, and I can answer any questions he gets asked, before he gets asked, and probably answer them better than he could. But since Daily asked you, you can interpret for him this time. I will be there, though. I will not interrupt you or say anything until you make a mistake. Otherwise, I’ll leave you alone. See you there.”

GULP. So now, the pressure is on. I arrived at the hotel and got comfortable with the Daily Sports reporter and camera crew. One problem: I forgot to take out my notebook to jot down what Randy is saying! The reporter next to me graciously handed me his spare notebook, and I got down to work. Afterwards, Marty came up to me and said, “Great job. You didn’t make any mistakes. The only reason I spoke up that one time was because I wanted to supplement Randy’s answer.”

I PASSED! Daily was happy, Randy was happy, and Marty was satisfied. The groundwork was set. (Here’s an English translation of the interview, posted on my site with permission from Daily Sports.)

In Part 2, I will write a bit about last year’s interpreting gig (for Koshien’s 100th anniversary celebration) before tackling the exciting experiences I had with Randy and others this year.