It’s being reported that one of my least favorite Yankees to ever don the pinstripes bit the dust at his Los Angeles home this past Wednesday. While Hideki Irabu’s suspected suicide at the ripe age of 42 can only be described as tragic, this doesn’t change the fact that the Japanese-born hurler’s face was at one time emblazoned in my personal baseball hate pit.  Looking back at the man’s career, however, I suppose there will always be a special place in my heart burrowed out for the man George Steinbrenner once referred to as a “Fat Pussy Toad.”

As a young kid I distinctly remember the time leading up to the bombers signing Irabu, and the excitement that came along with his migration stateside. Up untill Irabu skipped across the pond, Hideo Nomo was essentially the only Asian to really thrive in the MLB, and I recall his starts being electrifying. Considering the reports that claimed Irabu had the kind of stuff that would put Nomo to shame, I had already started to count the rings that would result from the arrival of our new starter. Couple all this hype with the fact that Irabu kind of resembled a fat Japanese Babe Ruth, and I couldn’t have been more excited at the prospect of this pitching unknown.

Fast forward through the first couple months of Irabu’s career as a Yankee, and any excitement that the pitcher had at one time elicited within me had basically been stomped out. Statistically, Irabu was generally just horrible, amassing a 7.08 ERA in only nine starts. Somewhere along the line though, Irabu became one of those rare players that were so bad you couldn’t help but root for him. You knew something horrible was going to happen every time the dude approached the hill, but this made regular season games more interesting in many respects. Despite the fact that Irabu was playing for a veritable juggernaut of a baseball team, he still managed to come off as an underdog, and who doesn’t like rooting for those guys. Also, when your team is winning constantly, there is a perverse pleasure that comes along with seeing a member of your rotation get shelled out on the mound.

Anyway, by the time Irabu decided to hang up the cleats, the pitcher had supposedly pieced together a perfectly mediocre career, statistically speaking. While this fact may be true, the damage had already been done in the minds of baseball fans nationwide. I completely lost interest in Irabu after the Yanks had dealt him to the now defunct Montreal Expos in ’99, but I suppose that’s what happens when you’re sent to a failing Canadian franchise on the brink of collapse. All I had left to remember the pitcher by, was an oversized T-shirt with his mug on the front of it, that was bound to get ripped playing street hockey within the then foreseeable future.

If it seems like I’m trivializing the life of this professional athlete, and mostly tragic figure, it’s because I  am. Looking back though, Irabu represented one of the quirky characters that comprised the Yankees teams of my youth. These squads produced myriad lasting memories, and eventually hooked me on the sport as a whole. While Irabu may have been only a minor component of these teams, he was still a two-time World Champion, and this fact really can’t be swept under the rug. Also, I apologize ahead of time if the title of the post came off as insensitive… I couldn’t help myself.

- Zaius