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The Honolulu Advertiser
Updated at 4:50 a.m., Wednesday, March 25, 2009

MLB: Can Kosuke Fukodome still fit Cubs to a T?

By Rick Morrissey
Chicago Tribune

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Kosuke Fukudome returns to the Cubs' spring training camp this week after helping Japan defend its World Baseball Classic title.

MARK J. TERRILL | Associated Press

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As the weather improves, the Fukudome T-shirts are starting to reappear, ghostlike, around Chicago.

If they had been given proper burials at the bottom of drawers after last season, this wouldn't be a problem. You wouldn't have scary reminders that the guy who hit .188 in the final two months is returning soon to a batter's box near you.

But no. People plunked down good money for the shirts; they might as well wear them. So now you see fans, heads down, floating around in No. 1 shirts and jerseys. They would prefer you pay attention to the Cubs' logo on the front, although, let's face it, some of them are self-conscious about that, too, given the haste with which the team left the postseason.

Cubs fans want to believe in Kosuke Fukudome again, and you can't fault them for it. That first game last year — 3-for-3 with a game-tying home run in the ninth inning. Hard to beat it for sheer adrenaline rush. And that first month — the guy was an absolute revelation, hitting .327.

Cubs fans loved him, and they loved as only Cubs fans can, which is to say totally and with no regard for their own emotional safety. He would take the Cubs places they hadn't been! Even after he began to slow down, he still hit .279 in the first half and was an All-Star Game starter.

More than the player himself, Cubs fans loved the idea of him even more. Our own Ichiro!

But he wasn't that. As a new season beckons, people would settle for .270 out of him. Some of them would sacrifice their firstborn for .270 affixed next to Fukudome's name at the end of 2009.

Now that the scintillating quilting bee known as the World Baseball Classic is over, Fukudome is headed the Cubs' way again. And what they're left with is crossed fingers. They're hoping the Fukudome who shows up in Mesa, Ariz., is not the one who hit .217 with three homers and 22 runs batted in during the second half of 2008.

But the truth is, the club has no idea what it's going to get. You're supposed to have an idea when you sign a guy to a four-year, $48 million contract. Four years and $48 million say you think a player is a mainstay on your team. It says you have decided he's a core member of your organization.

But if Fukudome isn't what general manager Jim Hendry thought he was, then he remains a question with no good answer. Continuing to stick him in the lineup because you want him to turn into a player is like trying to dry yourself with a wet towel.

We have heard all the reasons the Cubs need him. They would like a left-handed hitter in the batting order. Sure, they would. But they don't need a left-handed hitter who is in danger of corkscrewing himself to China with that awkward, twisting follow-through when he strikes out.

It's why more than a few observers were scratching their heads in spring training when manager Lou Piniella all but said regular action in center field would be waiting for Fukudome when he was done playing in the WBC. Fukudome? The player who couldn't hit in the second half? That player has a guaranteed spot in the lineup when the Cubs are facing right-handers?

We get that Fukudome has a huge contract. We don't get why he has been handed a job after such a disappointing season.

There are those of us who don't understand the Reed Johnson snub. We understand that he doesn't bat left-handed. But all we see is a guy who can play baseball, and play it with heart.

The Cubs are hoping — "hope" always being the operative word on the North Side — that Fukudome's problems last season had more to do with cultural barriers. He had to get used to playing in another country. He had to get used to being away from his family. He had to get used to playing more games.

The alternative — that he can't hit American pitching — is something they would rather not have to face. But if you listen to some of the Japanese who are familiar with Fukudome, they were more bewildered by the huge expectations surrounding him in Chicago last year than by the way he couldn't hit at the end. The Cubs would gladly settle for a happy medium.

For a few months last year, the true believers couldn't get enough of Fukudome. It wasn't too long before they had seen enough. Don't feel bad for having believed. He was very good. But he turned out to be more curiosity than star.

He's a good outfielder. But right now, he's a question custom-made for a talk-radio show: Is he the Cubs' version of the Sox's Brian Anderson, only with a much larger price tag?