‘Mr. Omnipresent’: How Giants coach Taira Uematsu pursued a dream and made history
Posted by
JD (aka Jason Dean)
Dec 21 '21, 08:38
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C/P due to The Athletic
Fourteen years after he joined the Giants as an unpaid bullpen catcher and training room assistant, Taira Uematsu broke a barrier that even he didn’t realize existed.
After being the first to arrive at the ballpark every day for more than a decade, after saying yes to every thankless task from filling water jugs on back fields at 6 a.m. to catching a pitcher’s side session on the off day of a road trip to throwing thousands upon thousands of center-cut batting practice fastballs, and after making himself utterly indispensable to two managers, he will become the first coach in major league history who was born and raised in Japan.
“It’s a dream come true for me,” said Uematsu, whom Giants manager Gabe Kapler promoted from a support staff position to assistant coach in November. “I didn’t know I was the first. That’s awesome. But it doesn’t change anything. I wasn’t thinking about that. I just wanted to be a part of this team.”
Kapler didn’t realize the significance, either. He didn’t intend to make headlines or history when he promoted Uematsu to backfill a position that opened up when assistant coach Mark Hallberg was elevated to replace retiring third base coach Ron Wotus. It was just the obvious thing to do.
“Taira was tenacious in his work to support the rest of the staff,” Kapler said via text. “His work ethic is really second to none. He made it impossible to deny putting him on the staff.”
As a result, the first native Japanese speaker on a major league staff isn’t a former star player. He isn’t a respected coach or manager from Yomiuri or Hanshin or Hiroshima. He’s a 38-year-old from Tateyama City, a town at the end of the Boso Peninsula and on the opposite side of Tokyo Bay, who felt rejected by Japanese baseball but so fervently desired a life connected to the game that he left home as a teenager to chase a solitary dream a continent away.
“I knew nobody here,” he said. “I came here because I can start from zero.”
“Go to Santa Barbara.”
Those were the four words Uematsu repeated to himself on the trans-Pacific flight to Los Angeles. They were the only English words he knew. He stepped off the plane as a 17-year-old and somehow made it onto the right bus. He remembers arriving at the depot in Santa Barbara and staring at a payphone, wondering how in the world he would call his host family, whether they were coming to get him or whether he needed to get on another bus.
He wanted to be a professional baseball player from the time he was in the third grade. His dream was to make it to Koshien, the national high school tournament that is as hyped as any other sporting event in Japan. His father, Shinya, played baseball at Chuo University and supported Taira’s goals, so he was sent to a boarding school whose team often advanced to the top of its prefectural tournament.
When he arrived on campus, he soon realized that nearly everyone on the team was bigger, faster and stronger. They teased and bullied him, once even lighting his mattress on fire. There were times when Uematsu was miserable. He was almost relieved when the season ended.
“I was a No. 1 player before high school,” he said. “That was a tough experience. I lost all confidence in baseball. I lost all confidence as a person. I had nothing. I lost everything.”
As his high school graduation approached, he didn’t know what to do with his life. He had been so focused on baseball that he didn’t have the academic credentials to get into a university. That’s when his mother, Motoko, made a suggestion. One of her friends had a daughter who got a student visa to study English in an extension program at UC Santa Barbara. What if Taira went there? And if he passed his TOEFL exam, what opportunities might he have at an American university?
“My friends told me that sports medicine is a way to get closer to the players,” he said. “Okay, I’m gonna do that. I was thinking, ‘If I can go to college afterward, that’d be awesome. And if I can have a job with baseball somehow, that’s gonna be perfect.'”
The host family found him at the bus depot. He studied every night for a year and passed his English exams.
Uematsu’s father made the next suggestion. He owned a small agricultural distribution company, and one of his best customers had a son who was a senior at Southern Illinois University. The more Taira researched their sports medicine program, the more convinced he was that Carbondale, Ill., was the place for him.
He enrolled, majored in kinesiology and was overjoyed in his junior year when his clinical assignment was with the baseball team. He was supposed to assist the players and coaches as a trainer, wrapping ice packs and treating injuries. But being around the game brought back all of his competitive impulses. He wasn’t with the team long before he asked an assistant coach if he could help by throwing batting practice.
The assistant laughed him off. But SIU’s head coach, Dan Callahan, approached Uematsu the next day with two questions. Was he serious? And did he want to play catch?
“You throw it straighter than I do,” Callahan told him.
So began Uematsu’s expanded role: a trainer who threw batting practice, caught bullpens, made road trips that work-study trainers weren’t supposed to make and became almost another member of the team. Uematsu’s assignment was only supposed to last one season; kinesiology majors move on to another clinical appointment. But Callahan lobbied to get him back for his senior year.
“He did so much for me,” Uematsu said of Callahan, who was 52 when he died of a rare skin cancer in 2010. “The number one thing is he cared about me.”
Callahan treated Uematsu just like any of his players: It was his job to help carve a path for them in baseball. Through Callahan’s connections, Uematsu was able to experience a one-week externship for the Minnesota Twins. From there, he got an offer from the White Sox to be an unpaid intern at their minor league complex in Arizona and help with instructional league. Uematsu couldn’t have accepted a salary — he was still in the U.S. on a student visa — but the internship didn’t include housing or any other stipend, either. Uematsu was going to take it and ask his parents to send money when Callahan pleaded for him to hold off for something better.
Callahan knew a scout who was acquainted with Bobby Evans, then the Giants’ assistant GM, and a phone call was well-timed. The Giants were looking to create a full-time bullpen catcher position at Triple-A Fresno.
“Dan felt very passionate about Taira,” Evans said. “He described Taira and talked about his experience and what he offered. We were seeking more help at the minor league level. Too often, your Triple-A bullpen catcher is one of your catchers who is on the DL or something. It wasn’t the best or most fair utilization of someone’s career time. Taira was one of the first bullpen catchers we hired.”
Uematsu accepted the temporary job with the Giants and was immediately put on a flight to meet the team in Salt Lake City. When he arrived at the team hotel, the front desk didn’t have a record of his reservation. That’s when Uematsu met his first player in the Giants organization.
“Brian Wilson was in the lobby,” Uematsu said. “He came over to help and we got everything straightened out.”
Wilson, the future Giants closer and World Series icon, was the friendly (and at the time, clean-shaven) face that Uematsu needed upon arrival. But he couldn’t contain his nervousness when catching in the bullpen that first night. Adding to his anxiety: The bullpen at Salt Lake was in center field. If any ball got past him, it would skip into play and the game would be interrupted. But he kept every pitch in front of him and remained with Fresno for the rest of the 2006 season.
He was so well-liked that there was never a question about bringing him back the following year. “It was very apparent to all of us that Taira worked tirelessly,” Evans said. “He did not take shortcuts. He was eager. He was always available. So when we needed help at the All-Star break in 2007, we immediately turned to Taira. He was an easy selection to invite up.”
Uematsu didn’t just walk into a major league ballpark ready to catch bullpens in July 2007. He walked into the middle of the league’s All-Star festivities. The Giants hosted the game that year and Uematsu was assigned to catch in the bullpen for the American League. The undersized catcher who felt ostracized on his high school team was catching All-Star pitchers like Francisco Rodríguez, Bobby Jenks, J.J. Putz and Johan Santana.
Not only did he have his own locker in the AL clubhouse, but also he blinked with disbelief when he saw who stood directly across from him.
“Ichiro was very nice,” he said. “I got a picture with him.”
This still wasn’t Uematsu’s big break, though. That would come the following year. He was back in Carbondale helping out the SIU team when Evans called and asked if he’d be available to report to the Giants’ spring facility in Scottsdale, Ariz., a few weeks ahead of the reporting date for pitchers and catchers. Some of their pitchers had reported early and needed a catcher. While Uematsu was there, he caught a few free-agent pitchers who were showcasing themselves for a contract. One of them was a right-handed reliever, Keiichi Yabu, who had been a solid pitcher for 12 seasons in the Hanshin Tigers rotation and who pitched out of the Oakland A’s bullpen in 2005.
Yabu threw well enough to get a major league contract. And Uematsu sensed an opportunity.
“I knew Yabu needed an interpreter,” Uematsu said. “That was a job I could do.”
Uematsu summoned all the courage he could muster, knocked on Bruce Bochy’s office door and told him that he would like to be considered for the job. To this day, Uematsu blushes at what he viewed as jumping the chain of command. He never wanted to be seen as pushy, or be someplace where he wasn’t wanted. But he knew this was no time to be shy.
“I had heard about Taira and how he could do everything at Triple-A,” Bochy said. “So we brought him up to help us, and I’m being honest here: I’ve never been around a harder worker on any staff I’ve been on. He was just always there. I nicknamed him Mr. Omnipresent. Every time I looked up, there was Taira. It could be 5:30 in the morning. He was the first one in the trainer’s room. He’d be in meetings with Groesch and his staff and then he’d come down and listen in on our meeting, then he’d be on the field running stations or catching bullpens. He’s the most tireless worker I’ve ever seen.”
Trainer Dave Groeschner took Uematsu aside one day and expressed concern: He’d have to pick being a bullpen catcher or helping in the trainer’s room. There was no way anyone could do both.
“Taira was stretching guys, he did treatments and we were happy to have the extra set of hands,” Groeschner said. “But he kept getting pulled away. Taira became so popular with all the pitchers that they all wanted to throw to him. And I’m not sure he knew how to say no. I don’t know how his arm is still attached.
“Then at the end of the day, he’d help us break down and set up the trainer’s room. And afterward, he’d go work out. He put us all to shame. He was willing to do anything to be a part of the team and he never wavered from that, even to this day.”
Uematsu’s duties in the trainer’s room were curtailed, and his involvement on the field continued to expand. He’d show up on days off to catch pre-draft workouts. He even became the designated driver for a staff member or two. It wasn’t a bad assignment. It came with a free dinner, after all.
The Giants. though, didn’t re-sign Yabu after the 2008 season. General Manager Brian Sabean was ordered to make cuts to the clubhouse staff. He submitted Bochy a list. Uematsu’s name was on it.
But Uematsu had made the same impression on Bochy that he had made on Callahan: He was indefatigable and indispensable.
“Brian, I could be gone, any of my coaches could be gone, and the game will go on,” Bochy told Sabean. “But it’ll all stop if Taira isn’t here. He brings so much value to the team. He does everything.”
At Bochy’s insistence, Uematsu remained with the Giants.
Hideki Matsui with Uematsu (Courtesy of Taira Uematsu)
As he continued to gain the respect of the players, Uematsu worked on the side to improve his skills. When Giants bench coach Hensley Meulens took leave to manage Team Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic, he took Uemastu along to be the Dutch bullpen catcher.
His presentation behind the plate kept getting better and better. He became adept at learning pitch shapes and repertoires and what pitchers needed to work on. He began to feel more confident about giving feedback or making comments between pitches. He even grew comfortable warming up Tim Lincecum, which was no easy assignment.
“It looks like the ball is coming from 30 feet away,” Uematsu said. “He was different. First of all, the ball is really hard to see. He hides it well. And he’d throw a fastball you think will bounce but it stays straight. It had so much movement.”
Then there was the time in the spring of 2017 when Hunter Strickland threw a changeup that moved so much it crushed Uematsu’s right, catching thumb and prevented him from beginning the season with the team. He had surgery and was supposed to be out a couple months. He was back catching 95-mph fastballs in barely three weeks.
“He caught that whole season with his fingernail torn off,” Groeschner said.
Many of the players saw him as more than a willing body with a chest protector. He and outfielder John Bowker became lifelong friends. Barry Zito would invite him to breakfast and engage in long, philosophical talks.
One time Zito noticed that Uematsu was laboring to throw the ball back to the pitcher’s mound. He knew that a bullpen catcher might view himself as an expendable piece and that Uematsu would be afraid to speak up. So he took Uematsu aside and asked him if anything was wrong. When Uematsu acknowledged that his elbow was killing him, Zito sent him to an orthopedist, arranged for physical therapy sessions and paid for all of it.
Uemastu was told that his ulnar collateral ligament was almost gone. If not for the rehab sessions, and advice to change his mechanics, he says he almost certainly would have ruptured it. And then he would have become a liability. Teams don’t much invest money in the health of their bullpen catchers, and that includes their salary. Uematsu was making poverty wages. Evans found ways to ease the burden: Uemastu received a housing allowance along with meal money at home, and the clubhouse staff waived his obligation to pay dues.
His appetite became the stuff of legend. Uematsu spend several hours every day squatting behind the plate and then he’d clean a few more in the dining room. Bochy called him “Spreadcrusher.” Groeschner recalled one night in Miami in 2008 when TV director Jim Lynch invited more than a dozen members of the Giants traveling party out to dinner. The broadcasters, trainers and coaches ordered off the appetizer menu like the kitchen was about to close. Hardly anyone finished their main courses. When Lynch insisted that everyone order dessert, the cakes and flambées arrived to groans and protests.
“And Taira ate every single dessert,” Groeschner said. “He must have had 10 desserts. Here we were loosening our belts and watching in amazement.”
The next day, Groeschner asked Uematsu if he was still full. That’s when he learned that Uematsu had gone out again. Before he accepted the dinner invitation, Bowker had asked him if he wanted to get sushi.
“He had been invited and I guess he didn’t want to say no,” Groeschner said. “He ate an entire second dinner.”
When the Giants won the World Series in 2010, Uematsu finally could afford to pick up his own tab. The players voted him a full share, worth $317,631. And 29 cents.
Why not? After all, he was part of the team.
“He really did get in the fabric of the team, which is not easy to do,” Groeschner said. “Players are tough critics if you’re not doing a good job or you aren’t working hard enough. Taira always had a good feel for what people need and how to help. And he’s also really personable. Not only did guys like throwing to him, but he had fun with them.”
He finally felt the acceptance and belonging that he wanted so desperately to feel in high school, when he was bullied and his confidence was at its lowest point. He started a family, too, after meeting his wife, Yumi, in 2016 and welcoming their daughter, Hannah, two years later. But he aspired to do just a little bit more.
It was the first full-squad workout in the spring of 2020 and Uematsu scanned the workout schedule as soon as it was posted. For the last several years, he had become the No.1 batting practice pitcher who threw to the first group — a detail that might seem trivial to some but was as important as being first chair violin in a symphony orchestra.
He looked at the assignments. Someone else was throwing to the first group.
“Oh no,” he thought. “I’m gonna get fired.”
Bochy had retired and cleared out the manager’s office. His replacement, Kapler, arrived with more than a dozen new coaches, many of them from unconventional backgrounds armed with new ideas. A side session in the bullpen had become a data goldmine. The BP fastball was deemphasized in favor of more challenging practice against machines that could simulate pitch shapes at high velocity.
“Everyone was so smart,” Uematsu said. “I was nervous around them. I was thinking about it all day, every day: This is going to be it for me.”
A few weeks into spring camp, the COVID-19 pandemic put the world on pause. In the uncertain months that followed, Kapler and his staff devised ways to keep the conversation going. Assistant coach Alyssa Nakken took charge of starting a book club over Zoom. Uematsu was invited. Once again, he didn’t say no.
The first selection: “The Culture Code” by Daniel Coyle.
Uematsu turned the pages and learned about the nuances of group dynamics, the importance of safe spaces and the difference that can be made when an organization puts goals ahead of prestige. He no longer saw his baseball future limited to being a valued and accepted member of the support staff. He began to think he could coach others.
“The book changed my life,” he said. “I’m not exaggerating at all. My story can’t exist without it.”
When the season finally began under stringent protocols a few months later, Uematsu was a bit bolder about soliciting advice from the other coaches. In the past, he’d always try to stick to a back wall in meetings and learn through listening, not inserting himself into the conversation. He felt comfortable speaking up now.
Hallberg, a former Arizona Diamondbacks minor league infielder who was Buster Posey’s roommate at Florida State, became Uematsu’s next important advocate. Before the Giants convinced Hallberg to manage their short-season club in Salem-Keizer in 2019, he had spent six seasons as a teacher and administrator for an international high school in Saudi Arabia. He recognized Uematsu’s ambition and his thirst for knowledge.
They began working together to break down scouting reports and assist with game preparation. The more Uematsu contributed, the more he became confident that this was something he could do. Who better to notice if a pitcher is tipping than someone who has watched hundreds of thousands of release points from behind the plate?
If there’s anyone who has seen more pitches than a major league catcher, it’s a major league bullpen catcher.
“Oh, no question, Taira has a reference,” Bochy said. “If something stands out with a guy’s release or mechanics, it’ll set off a little alarm for you as a catcher. You pick up on things.”
Kapler’s coaches didn’t merely respect Uematsu’s work ethic or the fact that he never said no to a request. They respected his ability to contribute beyond the grunt work. They encouraged him to express himself and share thoughts without fretting about things like prestige and deference.
They valued him for what he did, and also who he was.
And he never had to wonder whether he’d be welcome in a meeting or a discussion. They included him in everything. When Nakken got married in November, Uematsu and his 3-year-old daughter, Hannah, tore up the dance floor.
“This group is the only one I can show my vulnerability besides my family,” he said. “Because I know they fully support you and they have your back. They are like my other family.”
After Wotus announced to the team that he would step down after 24 seasons on the major league coaching staff, Uematsu walked into Kapler’s office. He was still nervous. But not because he was afraid of breaking protocol.
“I want to step to the next level,” Uematsu told him. “I’ve been catching bullpens for 14 years and I know some things that can help the team get better. And I think as a coach, I can apply my skills even better than before. So that’s why I really want to be a coach.”
Uematsu’s wife, Yumi, was concerned. What if the Giants didn’t see him that way? How would he handle the disappointment?
“She knows me,” he said. “When I find something that I want to achieve, I just tell people what I want to do.”
In mid-October, a few weeks after the Giants concluded a season that included an NL West title, a franchise-record 107 regular-season victories and a narrow defeat in an NL Division Series with the Dodgers that went the distance, Kapler found Uematsu working out in the gym. He asked him to follow him back to his office.
“The job’s yours,” said Kapler, who waited for a reaction. “What do you think?”
Uematsu didn’t have to look at the menu. He knew what he wanted to order.
Taishoken is a legendary restaurant that was founded in Tokyo and invented tsukemen, a variation on ramen in which cold noodles are meant to be dipped in a rich and delicious soup that is nearer to gravy than broth. There are over 100 locations across Japan. There is only one in the U.S., in downtown San Mateo.
Uematsu ordered the tsukemen. And a chashu don, or bowl of roasted pork over rice, too.
“I don’t eat as much as I used to,” said Uematsu, as his two entrees arrived. “But I still like to eat.”
His lunchtime interview was one of many media requests he’s received since the news of his promotion became official. Now his name is known and respected across Japan. He left home as a 17-year-old with shaken confidence and nearly no English language skills, hoping to find someplace where he belonged. He found it, and more.
He downplays the significance of being the first born-and-raised Japanese major league coach. But he acknowledges that perhaps the next person who looks like him or comes from a similar background won’t be overlooked or underrated.
That is Kapler’s hope, too.
“Having a native Japanese speaker on our staff is important not only for representation and reflecting the diversity of our game and society, but also for the overall effectiveness of our staff,” Kapler said. “Another background and upbringing contributes a different vantage point and potentially a different way of relating to a player or understanding their experiences.”
That’s why Kapler made sure to add a native Spanish speaker, former Phillies hitting assistant Pedro Guerrero, to replace Donnie Ecker within his hitting group. Who knows? And whenever the Giants acquire another Japanese player — free-agent star outfielder Seiya Suzuki, anyone? — they would have a staff advantage that nobody in baseball can match.
“I find that stunning, absolutely stunning,” Evans said. “I never would have imagined there haven’t been other major league coaches from Japan, especially as good as the baseball is there and as many contributions as we’ve seen from Japanese players over the years. It’s an honor I’m proud and excited for Taira to wear.”
Kapler said he wasn’t surprised to learn that Uematsu’s hiring broke barriers. He’s well aware that baseball has an inclusivity problem that goes back to the sport’s origins.
“It’s just a little crazy, frankly,” he said. “We don’t work hard enough — and I include myself in this analysis — to see beyond perceived cultural and language barriers. Japan has a rich and reputable baseball culture. The country produces world-class talent. There is clearly a large pool of capable coaches that can make players and teams better. In the same way we don’t have enough Black coaches, we don’t have enough Asian coaches.
“Taira is a clear indication that we don’t always see what’s right under our noses.”
This season will mark the first time since 2007 that Uematsu isn’t in the Giants bullpen. His work duties will shift behind the scenes to the batting cage behind the dugout, where he’ll support the hitting group to prep players for opposing pitchers.
It’s an important role. The Giants not only set the major league record with 18 pinch home runs last season, but also their 406 pinch plate appearances obliterated the major league record set by the 1965 New York Mets.
As Taishoken began to close its lunch service, Uematsu dipped his last noodle, looked up from his two empty bowls and considered one more question.
Yes, he is hungry for more. Yes, he has another ambition. Eventually, he wants to be a major league base coach.
“But I’ll be focused on the main things I have to do,” he said. “Everything motivates me. Everything is exciting. I can’t wait to go to spring training.”
It’s where he belongs.
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