Japan's oldest baseball club in turmoil at top

A high-profile mudslinging battle is raging at the very top of Japan's oldest and arguably most popular professional baseball club, pitching a powerful media shogun against a former reporter. Hidetoshi Kiyotake, who was fired as general manager of the Yomiuri Giants last week after criticising the club's reputedly untouchable chairman, said on Friday he would take legal action against his sacking, possibly next month. "My dismissal is illegal and unjust and was carried out as a means to cover up a breach of compliance and as a retaliatory measure against me," the 61-year-old former hard-hitting news reporter said. Kiyotake initially emerged as a self-styled whistleblower who said he was fighting misuse of power at the club -- at a time when major Japanese camera maker Olympus was engulfed in a multi-billion-yen accounting scandal. But Kiyotake has since come to be portrayed as a despot himself in the media frenzy that followed his doomed rebellion, which somewhat took the spotlight off the season-closing Japan Series between two other clubs. His target was Tsuneo Watanabe, chairman of both the 77-year-old Giants and Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, which controls a media empire including the world's biggest-selling newspaper and a major television network. Watanabe, an 85-year-old former journalist who has rubbed shoulders with prime ministers, has wielded vast influence in political and other circles especially since becoming president of the Yomiuri Shimbun paper in 1991. On November 11, Kiyotake accused Watanabe of using his "voice from on high" to annul the appointment of Kaoru Okazaki as the Giants' head coach. Watanabe wanted former Giants pitcher and popular baseball commentator Suguru Egawa for the role, a move observers said might restore the popularity of a club that could only manage third place in the Central League this year. Kiyotake labelled Watanabe's intervention a "tyranny" that not only upset the due process of appointment in a professional baseball club but was also a "betrayal of coaches and players as well as fans". Watanabe hit back in a statement the next day, calling Kiyotake's accusation "malicious demagogy" that was tantamount to an "unforgivable abuse of authority and libel against me". It was reportedly the first time that an executive of the club had publicly criticised Watanabe, famous for his high-handed approach to club affairs and Japanese baseball as a whole. In 2004, Watanabe stepped down as the Giants' owner after the club was found to have paid $26,000 to a promising college pitcher in a move criticised as unethical scouting. But he was back in his post before a year had passed. Kiyotake built his career as a hard-hitting city news reporter for the newspaper, covering police and tax administration beats. In 2004, he became the Giants' "kyudan daihyo" (club representative), a post equal to general manager in US major league terms. The club announced on November 18 that it had stripped Kiyotake of all his titles for "damaging the credibility of the club and the Yomiuri Shimbun Group and seriously harming their image". Kiyotake immediately vowed to fight back. But Watanabe declared to reporters a few days later: "I have lined up 10 top-class lawyers. Court affairs are what my side excels in. I have never lost a court battle." He called Kiyotake's allegations "rubbish". Meanwhile, the Japanese press has turned on Kiyotake, with negative articles about his hiring of 10 foreign players without the consent of club staff as he struggled to return the once dominant Giants to winning form. He is also remembered for shutting out reporters when they wrote articles hostile to him and for firing players and coaches without warning. The Giants, often called "the New York Yankees of Japan" for their nationwide fan base and historical achievements, have won the Japan Series title 21 times, but have not added to their trophy cupboard since 2009. They have produced such stars as home-run king Sadaharu Oh and former Yankees slugger Hideki Matsui, now with the Oakland Athletics. Japanese media have mostly remained cynical about the spat, which was described by the popular weekly Shukan Bunshun as "nothing but an internal strife within the Yomiuri group". "Their lack of governance as a club and a corporation speaks volumes about the fall of the Giants," it said. A sports columnist at the Yomiuri's rival newspaper Asahi Shimbun said: "I hope this case will help team proprietors regain an understanding that professional baseball is a cultural public asset." US author Robert Whiting, who has written books on Japanese culture and baseball including "The Chrysanthemum and the Bat" (1977) and "You Gotta Have Wa" (1989), said the problem lay in the way Japanese clubs are run. "In Japan, a team is run as an advertising vehicle for its parent company. So the Yomiuri Giants exists to promote sales of the Yomuri Shimbun." Whiting added Kiyotake might be able to make a case for "unauthorised dismissal" but that "in reality, Watanabe is the shogun of the Yomiuri Shimbun and the Giants. So what he wants goes".