St. Louis Cardinals Gameday – June 2018

LA N D OF OPPORTU NITY

Orix has given him since his original signing

• a notable accomplishment for a foreign-
  born pitcher. Historically, Japan has lacked
  native-born power hitters and looked abroad
  for home run boppers, but homegrown
  quality pitching has been plentiful. The
  foreign pitcher who has achieved longevity in
  Japan, let alone with the same team, is rare.
  Dickson’s sustained success, he feels, is in
  part due to his adaptability.
  “I’m pretty open to new things and not
  just stuck on doing things one way. I don’t
  have something I consider ‘my way’ and do
  it whether you like it or don’t like it,” he
  says. “I’ve been open to the ideas Orix has
  had about my pitching. I listen to what they
  have to say and I’ve adapted to the culture
  and the style of play over here.
  “And being likable is one reason that
  they’ve wanted to keep me around.”
  The pitcher who arrived in Japan relying
  on physical ability now possesses mental
  resources that come with experience. He
  better understands hitters, in-game situations
  and is more aware of which pitches he needs
  to make, and those that hurt him.
  Taguchi offers another reason for the
  righthander’s success.
  “He loves Japan,” Taguchi points out.
  “There are a lot of guys who come over here
  and aren’t a good match for the lifestyle
  or the brand of baseball played here. I see
  a lot of similarities between him and me
  in that I loved St. Louis and that was an
  important fact in my transition there. I liked
  Ted Drewes, I liked everything about it.
  He’s the same. ... If you’re happy in your
  environment, it carries over to the playing
  field.”
  And Dickson and his wife are plenty
  happy. Along with their 2- and 4-year-old
  daughters, they live in a foreign community
  on Rokko Island, a manmade island in the
  Port of Kobe.
  “I even find that food I didn’t like at
  the beginning, I’ve come to love, like udon
  noodles,” he says. “My tastes have changed
  being over here so long and now I love so
  many things that I never imagined I would
  be eating.”
  And don’t get him started on Kobe beef.

“It’s absolutely fantastic,” Dickson raves.

“It’s the best meat I’ve ever had in my life.

I go to a place called Zen Steakhouse all the

time. I love that place. One offseason, I had

Kobe beef at a restaurant back home just for

comparison, and it was not even close. Here,

it’s like cotton candy; it just melts in your

mouth.”

CULTURE CURVEBALLS

Coming around to the cuisine

necessitated a bit of adapting – Dickson

figured the food would be different – but

some of the formalities of Japanese baseball

required a wholesale evolution.

For his entire professional career

stateside, the place to put on his uniform

had always been the same: the team’s locker

room. But in a small island country, where

space is a premium (including at ballparks),

he discovered road teams are expected to

utilize their hotels, rather than stadium

facilities, for changing into game-day attire.

Now he’s grown used to donning his

Dickson’s knuckle curveball, which he wasn’t asked to throw much in the U.S., translates

well in Japan. “Our catchers love that pitch,” he says. “Batters just don’t square it up much.”

CARDINALS MAGAZINE 63