Dodgers lead the league in Asian players

"I can't say that we planned it," Kohrogi said. "It's a product of all the efforts that we've made throughout the years."

Efforts that date back more than half a century, to when the Brooklyn Dodgers made a goodwill trip to Japan in 1956, then invited some of the Yomiuri Giants to train at Vero Beach the next spring.

Under former owner Peter O'Malley, the team began reaching out to the rest of Asia in 1980, sending coaches and Manager Tom Lasorda to stage clinics in Korea and China, building baseball fields in two Chinese cities and, in 1998, becoming the first big league team to open an office in Asia.

Partly as a result, the first Korean (Park) and first Taiwanese (Chin-Feng Chen) to play in the majors all made their debuts in Dodger uniforms.

"Throughout the history of the relationship with Asia [there's been] a tremendous amount of exchanges and friendship helping develop baseball in Asia," said Kohrogi, who, along with father-in-law Akihiro Ikuhara, a former assistant to O'Malley, headed many of those exchanges. "We continue to do these things. We're in the game there, very closely, because of these relationships. We help them and they help us."

There were 21 Asians -- including 16 Japanese -- on opening day major league rosters this spring, though no team other than the Dodgers had more than three.

"I was hoping when I first came more Asian players would come to the major leagues. And the dream came true," said Park, who broke in with the Dodgers in 1994. "It's more comfortable. It's more fun. This is a great thing."

But, Kohrogi said, with the popularity and strength of domestic summer leagues in Asia, especially Japan, that part of the world will never rival Latin America in terms of players in the majors.

"Not every ballplayer is going to want to come to the United States," he said. "In Japan some of the teams draw over 3 million people. They have established leagues. They have established development systems."

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