Pitching From Behind
The sad road of Japanese pitcher Hideki Irabu.
Posted Monday, Aug. 1, 2011, at 5:55 PM ETLast week, former New York Yankees pitcher Hideki Irabu was found dead in his Southern California home, having apparently hanged himself. The 42-year-old Irabu, a baseball sensation in his home country of Japan, had a short, tumultuous career in the United States. In his 2004 book The Meaning of Ichiro, Robert Whiting examined the Irabu's impact on Japanese ballplayers as well as the pitcher's struggles in the major leagues. The following piece has been adapted from Whiting's book and has been updated by the author to reflect events since 2004.