Would've Been a Bu-Bu

Derek Jeter, his arms held in front of him like a lineman about to face an oncoming rush, jumped in front of Hideki Irabu and puffed up his chest.

"Don't worry Bu-Bu, I will block all trades," Jeter said to the Yankees pitcher. "I will protect you."

There is something special about these Yanks, something that bonds them despite the myriad of languages and ethnicities and personalities that has the team clubhouse looking and sounding like a United Nations hallway. That is why it would have been a shame to break them up, to try and infuse them with a part that wouldn't fit, no matter how lethal of a left arm that part might possess.

Jeter didn't block Irabu from going to Seattle in partial exchange for Randy Johnson. The Mariners messed up that trade all by their lonesome, choosing instead to sent the Big Unit to Houston for a few beads and some catfish. The Yankees dangled Irabu's name in front of the Mariners, then yanked it back before Seattle could bite.

The offer might have been serious, or it might have been one of those tricky Yankee ploys designed to keep the Mariners panting all the way to Friday's midnight deadline. The carriage turned into a pumpkin, Johnson went to the Astros, Seattle got a couple of minor leaguers and Irabu's fairy tale continued unabated.

He would not admit it, of course, because more than anything Irabu wants to be remembered as a team player, as a Yankee. He didn't want to say he was thinking of himself when the witching hour struck and he was still on the mound, pitching seven-plus dominating innings in a game in which he would strike out six and give up six hits, three of which were solo homers. When he signed with the Yankees in 1997, his compatriots back in Japan maligned him for being wagamama - selfish - insisting he should have done what was best for Japanese baseball and not for himself. The charge still stings.

After he picked up the 5-3 victory and went into the clubhouse and saw on TV that he could keep his beloved pinstripes, Irabu would say all the right things - that he wasn't aware of the clock ticking, that he knows baseball is a business. He was anything but wagamama.

"It's not good when you're playing with a team to be thinking about what might happen to me," Irabu said through his interpreter. "I have to think that I'm part of a team. That's a natural way to think."

And then Jeter, the lineman, strutted over and yelled, "Bu-Bu, you're still here! I told you I'd block that trade."

Irabu laughed out loud, something he does a lot these days. Yesterday morning, as he and manager Joe Torre stood in the men's room washing their hands, Torre turned to Irabu and said, "Are you happy you're still a Yankee?"

The smile on Irabu's face had enough wattage to light the Kingdome.

This is not the same Irabu who last year was better known for his temper tantrums and lack of control on the mound. This Irabu has poise and command, mixing a fastball in the upper 90s with a splitter that is one of the nastiest pitches in baseball. He is 10-4 with a 3.23 ERA, and happier than ever now that the threat of him becoming a Mariner has dissipated.

"You can't really ask him how he's feeling but he was really pumped up," said Jorge Posada, Irabu's catcher Friday night. "You could see in the way he was throwing the heat that he wanted to show that he belonged here."

And not just on the field. Irabu knows more English than he lets on, picking up quirky phrases and odd sayings from the cartoons and Clint Eastwood movies he watches late at night.

"Word up, Boomer," Irabu will say to fellow pitcher David Wells.

"Kanjiru," Wells will say to Irabu. It means, How do you feel? Wells just likes the way it sounds, repeating it over and over again. The two have an odd but binding friendship, talking for hours over sushi or steak dinners about Wells spending his childhood with Hell's Angels, or Irabu's upbringing in Hyogo, Japan, where he, like Wells, grew up worshiping the Babe.

Irabu's assimilation works both ways. When Tino Martinez and Paul O'Neill were injured, each asked Irabu if they could borrow the magnets that cling to his body and ostensibly increase circulation. On off days, Jeter takes Irabu to trendy SoHo bars where the models and actors hang out.

"But we learned not to make him dance," said Jeter. "Bu-Bu's got no rhythm."

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