A week ago, I started reading Robert Whiting's book You Gotta Have Wa. Published in 1989, the book is an examination of baseball in Japan, and how American players adjusted to playing in Japan. The first chapter of the book focuses on Bob Horner, a star player for the Atlanta Braves during the 1980's who signed a large contract to play for the Yakult Swallows in 1987. Because of the book, I was thinking of Bob Horner for the first time in many years. And then yesterday I read that Bob Horner died. The universe is so strange sometimes.
Horner was treated like a deity when he first arrived in Japan, and his every move was documented by the Japanese press with a fervency usually reserved for pop stars or heads of state. Inevitably, Horner fever cooled, as he fell short of the 50 home runs that the Swallows wanted him to hit—they even issued him uniform number 50, to drill the point home. Horner played in 93 games for Yakult, hitting 31 home runs and batting .327. Excellent numbers, but not 50 home runs. After the 1987 season, Horner returned stateside, signing a deal with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Bob Horner had an unusual career in baseball. A college standout at Arizona State, he went directly from college to the major leagues. It worked out well for both Horner and the Atlanta Braves. In 1978, his first season in the major leagues, Horner smashed 23 home runs in only 89 games and won the NL Rookie of the Year award. Horner would go on to rack up 3 seasons of 30 or more home runs, with a high of 35 homers in 1980. In 1986, Horner became one of a select group of players to hit 4 home runs in a single game.
After the 1986 season, Horner seemed to be on top of the baseball world. He had just completed his 9th major league season, and he had hit 215 home runs in his career. He wasn’t even 30 years old yet. Horner was looking for a deal that would pay him $2 million a year. He had been making about $1.5 million per year in his previous contract with the Braves. But the owners of major league baseball had decided to illegally collude with each other and not sign any big free agent deals. Future Hall of Famers like Tim Raines and Andre Dawson hit the free agent market and expected an abundance of offers. They got crickets. Dawson famously handed the Chicago Cubs a blank check and told them to pay him whatever they thought he was worth. Dawson took a 50% pay cut, as he went from making over $1 million dollars in 1986 to a salary of $500,000 in 1987. It fueled his competitive fire, as Dawson slugged 49 home runs and drove in 137 RBIs, both figures leading the league, and he won the MVP award.
No one was making a move on Horner, so he signed with the Yakult Swallows, novelist Haruki Murakami's favorite baseball team. Murakami has famously said that the idea of becoming a novelist occurred to him at a Swallows baseball game, when he saw Dave Hilton smack a beautiful double into the outfield. I'm not sure what Murakami thought of Bob Horner, but I'm sure he could write a short story about a chunky, blonde American third baseman coming over to Japan to play for the Yakult Swallows and igniting a fever throughout Japan.
Horner didn't always practice before he played baseball. Shoot, when it got hot down in Atlanta during the summer, ol' Bob would just roll up to the stadium in his t-roof Camaro, pound a Budweiser in the clubhouse, put his uniform on, and just start to playin'. No batting practice, no fielding practice, no nuthin. He reckoned, why tire yourself out like a fool practicin' before the game even got goin'? They don't call it Hotlanta fur nuthin, ya know. This was anathema to the Japanese, who revered tough, brutal practice sessions that often left players on the verge of keeling over. Suffice it to say, Horner's way and the Swallows way were not always compatible.
When Horner returned to the United States in 1988, he appeared in 60 games for the Cardinals, hitting a paltry 3 home runs, before injuries wiped out the rest of his season. In the spring of 1989, Bob Horner retired from baseball at the age of 31. His career stands as something of a "what might have been," those first 9 seasons being the summit of what he could achieve in the game, which was substantial. And then that gap year of 1987 in Japan, followed by just a feeble return.
Bob Horner did not become a Hall of Famer. Few players do. It is rude to criticize a man for what he is not. Better instead to celebrate him for what he was. And for 9 years, Bob Horner was a hitter who struck fear into the hearts of pitchers in the National League.
