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Two years after the San Jose Giants retired Lenn Sakata’s jersey and packed it off to mark his place in the California League Hall of Fame, somebody will be wearing jersey No. 14 again this season at venerable Municipal Stadium.
“Me,” he said.
“After all this time, it wouldn’t make sense to wear another one,” Sakata said.
After a six-year “retirement” the parent San Francisco Giants have coaxed the winningest manager in Cal League history (757 victories) and veteran of nearly a half-century in pro baseball as a player and coach back onto the field for a fifth stint to work with their young players.
What made the offer to come back hard to turn down was that it came from one of his former players, Kyle Haines, a former San Jose player and now the Giants’ director of player development.
“It made me feel good that I had that kind of an impact, that he would want me back,” Sakata said. “That’s the fun of coaching, You want them to have success and impact them to a positive extent, not just in baseball.”
At his age, “I’ll be 68 in June,” the plain-talking Sakata says, “Guys like me aren’t usually involved in this capacity on the field anymore. I would have to say that I’m gonna be the oldest person that is gonna wear a uniform on the field in the minors (this season). In the big leagues, there is (Tony) LaRussa, who I played for (in Oakland), and Dusty Baker, who I played with (in Oakland). Those are the dinosaurs. The perception of you (among young players) is probably more of a grandpa.”
In this, Sakata, a Kalani high graduate, is a proud “old-timer” and product of what was called the ‘Oriole Way” under the late Earl Weaver. He says, “I would say that my style is old fashioned. So, if I don’t like what they (the players) do, they are gonna hear about it. And it is gonna be blunt because I really didn’t need the job, if you will. I love it (baseball), but I only love it if done the right way. So, the ‘right way’ is the old way because I’m old.”
It is an approach and respect for the game learned across stints with the Brewers, Orioles, A’s and Yankees, a career forged on solid fundamentals and an all-around grit as an infielder that allowed him to rise above a career.230 batting average. Attributes that made him an asset for 11 MLB seasons while being credited as the second American-born player of Japanese ancestry to reach the majors. Pitcher Ryan Kurosaki, Sakata’s teammate on the 1970 Hawaii High School Athletic Association Championship Falcons, was the first.
Sakata earned a World Series ring nearly two decades before some of his players were born and played a key role in the 1983 pennant race. And many of them will, no doubt, be surprised to learn that he was Baltimore’s last starting shortstop before Cal Ripken Jr. began the consecutive 2,632 games played streak that would break Lou Gehrig’s ironman record. That’s if they know who Ripken and Gehrig were.
“Some of them are aware of some of the game’s history and some aren’t,” Sakata said. “But this organization they are with, the Giants, goes all the way back to the New York Giants and has had so many great, Hall of Fame players. I think that gets lost in a sense in a lot of organizations. But, I think it is part of my job to make them aware of it. Whether they choose to love it or not is up to them.”
Either way, they figure to be in for an education.
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Sakata’s Slate
Minor League managerial record
Year Team (affiliation) W-L Note
1988 So. Oregon (A’s) 46-30 Lost League Finals
1989 Modesto (A’s) 23-37
1999 San Jose (Giants) 75-65
2000 Bakersfield (Giants) 80-60
2001 San Jose (Giants) 77-63 Co-Champs
2002 Fresno (Giants) 57-87
2004 San Jose (Giants) 74-66
2005 San Jose (Giants) 85-55 League Champs
2006 San Jose (Giants) 82-58
2007 San Jose (Giants) 73-67 League Champs
2012 Modesto (Rockies) 73-67
2013 Modesto (Rockies) 42-45
2014 San Jose (Giants) 73-67
Source: Society of American Baseball Research.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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