Ron Antonelli/New York Daily News
Hiroki Kuroda, who received multiyear offers elsewhere in offseason, prefers Yankees? pitch: a one-year, $15 million deal to stay in Bronx, where he thrived last season.
TAMPA ? When Hiroki Kuroda became a free agent last fall, many wondered whether the veteran righthander would fulfill his desire to finish his career back in Japan.
Kuroda wasn?t one of them.
The 38-year-old has read one report after another claiming that he plans to close out his career back home, but Kuroda said Saturday he has made no such decision.
?I have never said on record that I want to end my career in Japan,? the Yankee righthander said through his translator. ?What I have said is that if I go back to Japan, I will play for my former team, the Hiroshima Toyo Carp. But I have never said that I am going to end my career in Japan.?
So why does everybody act as though that is a foregone conclusion?
?Maybe they want to make up good stories,? Kuroda said. ?I don?t know.?
The Yankees became the beneficiaries of Kuroda?s desire to continue his major league career, signing him to a one-year deal worth $15 million. Kuroda weighed multiyear offers from several clubs, including the Dodgers, with whom he spent four seasons before joining the Yankees last year.
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With his wife and two daughters living in California, returning to Los Angeles was an attractive option. And while the multiyear offers would have guaranteed Kuroda more money, he decided that a one-year pact with the Yankees was more appealing.
?Taking it year by year works for me,? Kuroda said. ?I want to give everything I have for one season instead of thinking about a multiyear thing. My great teammates ? especially the ones with incredible track records that are older than me ? I have been able to learn from them. It?s the perfect place for me.?
No teammate seemed to mean more to Kuroda than Andy Pettitte, with whom he struck up a close relationship shortly after Pettitte ended his retirement to rejoin the Yankees.
?We?ve got a very good relationship,? Pettitte,40, said. ?We help push each other, even though there?s that language barrier there. It?s crazy. You know if a guy is cut out of the same mold as you are. We are.?
Like Kuroda, the veteran lefty was heading back into free agency last fall, unsure whether he would pitch another year or hang up his spikes for a second time. As the season came to an end, neither Pettitte nor Kuroda knew what the future held, but they both hoped their respective roads would lead back to the same clubhouse.
?Neither one of us really knew what we were going to do, so it wasn't like we could tell each other, ?I?m coming back,? Pettitte said. ?But I think both of us at the end of the year were like, ?Hey, if I?m coming back, you?ve got to come back.? ?
On Nov. 20, Kuroda agreed to his deal. Eight days later, Pettitte signed his own $12 million contract. With CC Sabathia and Phil Hughes returning, the Yankees had the same four-man rotation that pitched to a 2.04 ERA in the AL division series against the Orioles and a 3.01 ERA overall during the postseason.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nydnrss/sports/baseball/~3/hm2NZ-dVfBA/story01.htm
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