Johjima's first day brings jokes, line drives _ and a nickname

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PEORIA, Ariz. -- Jamie Moyer peered off the bullpen mound down to his catcher during the first drill of spring training for the Seattle Mariners.

Moyer then feigned shock.

"Who are you?" he said to Kenji Johjima.

"Joe ... JOE!" the Japanese catcher said Thursday morning, sounding surprised the 43-year-old with whom Johjima had been playing catch for the last month in Seattle and in Arizona didn't know who he was.

"Joe? Joe Who?" Moyer asked. "Joe Mama?"

The first catcher from Japan to play in the major leagues doesn't have command of English enough to recognize teasing.

He doesn't even have the ability to talk to his manager, his pitcher or his teammates around the lunch table without his interpreter, team employee Ken Barron -- whom Johjima calls "my partner."

Barron, wearing a polo shirt and khaki slacks over team-issued baseball shoes, popped up everywhere Johjima spoke Thursday. Halfway to the mound when Moyer was trying to tell Johjima to move farther away from home plate for a pitchout. Behind the batting cage when manager Mike Hargrove patted Johjima on the back after a hitting session. In the clubhouse while Johjima chatted with his locker neighbors.

But as his first day with the Mariners proved, Johjima does have the leadership, energy and line drive-spraying bat that made him a perennial all-star and seven-time Gold Glover during his 11-year career in Japan.

That is why the 29-year-old Johjima received $16.5 million over three years to immediately fill a Seattle black hole. Seven catchers started at least nine games last season, one of the many reasons the Mariners lost 90 times for the second consecutive year.

Johjima also has a 30-person media entourage from Japan following him. He has three, custom-made, fire-red catcher's mitts designed with deep pockets.

And, oh yes, he already has a team nickname. Teammates yelled it all day.

"I don't know. Why Joe Mama?" Johjima said in English after morning catching and batting practice.

Why not? His camp debut proved he is no Joe Schmoe.

New hitting coach Jeff Pentland asked the catchers during one drill to focus on hitting exclusively from left-center to right-center field. Johjima then stepped in. Hargrove, general manager Bill Bavasi, vice president Lee Pelekoudas and player development and scouting vice president Benny Looper all watched intently.

Johjima dutifully sprayed six consecutive line drives from gap to gap. Alas, his accuracy left him on the seventh swing, a towering home run over two fences beyond straightaway left field.

Pentland turned to Hargrove behind the cage. He smugly nodded his head up and down.

"Johjima was great. He caught my eye," Hargrove said.

While the manager was hesitant to "reach" any conclusions yet, Hargrove could already conclude Johjima will be a leader and an engaging teammate.

Just before stretching, he played around and laughed with Rivera, his backup. Just before the end of the 2½-hour workout, he smiled as closer and team jokester Eddie Guardado raised Johjima's right arm to acknowledge two teenage girls who were yelling "Johjima!" from about 30 yards away.

In between, he repeatedly and exuberantly yelled "Good job!" and "All right!" as the habitually precise Moyer threw successive pitches into the strike zone.

"When I don't say anything, it's not a good pitch," Johjima said, through the interpreter. "Over half the time today, I didn't say anything."

The first time Johjima cheered one of his strikes, a startled Moyer didn't know what to say -- except, "Thank you."

"I almost felt like he was my dad," Moyer said. "When he continued to say it, I was like, 'I'm not going to say thank you every time.'

"I was trying to get him to say it as many times in a row as I could."

Moyer said time will tell if the language issue will become an issue on the field. Fellow starter Jarrod Washburn said it will be odd to discuss strategy through an interpreter.

Johjima had a live-in English tutor in his native Sasebo, Japan, from November into January. He is meeting with a tutor twice a week during spring training.

"I'm doing the best I can so I don't have to use (an interpreter) so much," he said, through Barron.

Moyer said he knows not all days will be as good as Thursday.

"It's Day 1. There are 200 more to go," he said. "There's going to be a learning curve. But he's only going to get better -- and that's great."

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press

This story is from ESPN.com's automated news wire. Wire index

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