New York Times article

March 25, 2001

TAMPA, Fla., March 24: The conversations were always the same and Alfonso Soriano longed to talk about something other than the weather or baseball, but he had no choice. He was 17 and playing baseball in Hiroshima, Japan, and only one person with the team spoke Spanish, Soriano's native language.

Soriano liked him well enough, but the man, an employee of the team, was from Japan and he and Soriano had little common history. So they talked about the weather and baseball, baseball and the weather, and Soriano would glance at the clock and visualize what his mother and his friends were doing back home, in the Dominican Republic, at that moment.

Soriano is 23 now, and in the last two weeks the Yankees have asked him to switch positions twice. First, after his batting average hovered near .500 and he established himself as the team's best player in spring training, the Yankees moved him from shortstop to left field, to ensure that he would have a place in the team's lineup once the regular season begins, on April 2. Then last week, when Manager Joe Torre and club officials reached the consensus that throwing jitters had conquered the defensive play of second baseman Chuck Knoblauch, Knoblauch was shifted to left field and Soriano moved to second base, a switch that will probably last throughout the 2001 season.

There is much talk of change now and the ability to adapt. Playing second base is completely different than playing shortstop because the angles are different, and when turning a double play, the second baseman has his back to the runner before throwing to first - a distinction that can be disconcerting if the infielder is afraid of the unknown, of getting targeted and blindsided by the runner. Soriano will be a good second baseman, said Trey Hillman, his Class AAA manager. He is fearless, Hillman said.

Dozens of major league shortstops were raised in San Pedro de Macoris, Tony Fernandez and Mariano Duncan and others. Soriano was born there in 1978 and, as a teenager, he began attending a Japanese baseball academy and eventually signed with the Hiroshima Carp. There was some talk in his family of waiting to sign with a team from the United States, but this was the opportunity before him. As Soriano explained last week through an interpreter, Leo Astacio, he and his mother and a friend who was advising him all agreed that baseball was baseball, in America and Japan. As a teenager, he could not have fully understood that there were differences.

Soriano boarded a plane for the first time, at age 17, and made the 19- hour journey to Japan. The training regimen in Japan is exceptionally difficult, compared to those of the professional teams in North America; it is like the difference between a military boot camp and a genial job orientation program. Players work for hours, the coaches scream and Soriano, of course, understood little of what they yelled.

His first assignment there lasted three months, three months of talking about baseball and the weather, and thinking about home, the food, his mother. "Every day, I thought about going home," he said. Phoning home was problematic, and he called only twice, for 15 minutes, after getting up overnight to account for the time change. "I called just when I felt like I was ready to explode and needed someone to talk to," Soriano said.

The conversations helped, and hurt; they merely exacerbated his desire to go home. But Soriano went back in 1996, for 10 months, and for 10 months in 1997. By the end of his second year, Soriano spoke Japanese well enough to function on his own. He never seriously considered quitting.

His time in Japan was hard, Soriano said, "But I thought it was good because it was going to be to my benefit. It was going to be good for me and it would help my family, and I've always thought that way. Once I was there, I could dedicate myself and keep my mind positive."

Soriano's assignment with Hiroshima ended because of a contractual error; otherwise, he would have been tied to the Carp for another decade or so. He signed with the Yankees in September 1998 and immediately established himself as a rising star, impressing scouts in the Arizona Fall League. Soriano reached the majors the following year and Yankees infielder Luis Sojo told him to say something in Japanese to the former Yankees pitcher Hideki Irabu. "I think he surprised Hideki," Sojo said, smiling.

Soriano struggled last season in spring training, fumbling grounders, swinging awkwardly at breaking balls. But the Yankees never dealt him, despite the fact that his name was included constantly in trade discussions, and he has thrived this spring. Sojo is sure Soriano possesses extreme confidence, which surfaces from time to time in a joking manner. "He'll say, `Let's see, how many hits will I get today?' " Sojo said. "He'll say the pitcher is in trouble."

Derek Jeter, interestingly, often makes similar comments early in games, saying aloud after a strikeout that it is only a matter of time before the opposing pitcher is going to crumble. Soriano is understated and not brash, like Jeter, teammates say. If a group of players go out together, Soriano might tag along, or might stay in, alone. Sojo believes Soriano is very comfortable with himself.

He often sits in the clubhouse and chats breezily with teammates in Spanish, about baseball and the weather and other matters. He sometimes talks in the English that is slowly overtaking his Japanese. Alfonso Soriano is learning how to play second base, and there is a lot of discussion here about change and the ability to adapt.