Kei Igawa: The Lost Yankee

[DylanBradbury]

I found an interesting article on the Japanese star turned minor league wanderer, Kei Igawa.

TRENTON — In the middle of a bright Manhattan summer afternoon, the Yankees’ $46 million pitcher steps from his fashionable East Side apartment building and slips into a waiting Lexus for a chauffeured ride to the ballpark. But the car does not turn north for the five-mile drive to Yankee Stadium. The destination is instead Trenton, N.J., or Scranton, Pa., where for the last five years Kei Igawa has pitched for two Yankees minor league teams. Day after day, start after start, complete with the return trip to Manhattan.

Plucked from a Japanese baseball all-star team roster in 2007 and introduced at a lavish news conference, Igawa was expected to be a staple in the Yankees’ starting rotation. He lasted 16 games, most of them regrettable outings that were sometimes spectacularly inept. Booed off the field, he was called one of the worst free-agent signings in Yankees history.

You can read the rest of the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/sports/baseball/kei-igawa-the-lost-yankee.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1