Baseball: High school lefty Kikuchi torn between Japan, U.S.+

TOKYO, Oct. 20 Kyodo - After interviews with 12 Japanese and eight major league clubs over four days, Hanamaki Higashi High School left-hander Yusei Kikuchi said Tuesday it has gotten harder to decide which side of the Pacific he will be on next year.

''Both leagues are appealing to me. I can't make up my mind just yet,'' Kikuchi
told a press conference following Tuesday's talks with the Seattle Mariners,
the New York Mets, the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians.
''If possible, I want to take both leagues. It has gotten more difficult for me
to make a decision,'' he added.
A day earlier, the 18-year-old met with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Boston Red
Sox, the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants.
Hanamaki Higashi manager Hiroshi Sasaki, who accompanied Kikuchi throughout the
interview process, said, ''I don't think we can make a decision in a day or
two. But we'd like to decide by early next week after consulting with his
parents.''
''Some Japanese clubs say they would even consider having Kikuchi in the
rotation immediately, while major league teams plan to train him in a
development program before promoting him to the big leagues,'' Sasaki said.
Japanese baseball will hold the amateur draft on Oct. 29. Last year, Junichi
Tazawa refused to be named in the Japanese draft and signed a three-year deal
with the Red Sox -- the first such move by a top Japanese amateur player.
Kikuchi helped Hanamaki Higashi of Iwate Prefecture to a runner-up finish at
the national high school invitational tournament in April and to the semifinals
in the national championship in August.
His fastball clocked as high as 154 kilometers per hour in the third round of
the national championship, the fastest pitch ever thrown by a left-hander since
the radar gun was introduced in national high school baseball tournaments in
1980.
==Kyodo
2009-10-20 23:41:44