Japanese Ambassador turns Commissioner...

In this morning's Washington Post, sports columnist Thomas Boswell writes a fascinating piece on the commissioner to be of the Japanese Major Leagues, Ryozo Kato.  

Highlights:

"A lot of people in Japan have been green with envy. They want to know what I did to become commissioner," said Kato, who, after a 60-year affair with the game, may have no rival anywhere in grasping the sport in both its Eastern and Western forms. Binding encyclopedic knowledge with decades of firsthand connections in the United States, Kato is unique. Not that he'd say it.

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What Japan gets in Kato may be an amalgam of Bud Selig's sense of history, Bart Giamatti's literary temperament (and inexperience), Peter Ueberroth's international business acumen, plus Fay Vincent's aspiration (usually thwarted) to be more than an owners' man. Also, like Bowie Kuhn, who worked the Griffith Stadium scoreboard, Kato seems charmed and incredulous that he will soon run the sport that he played as a boy.

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"We have mixed feelings. We are very proud to see our heroes do well in America because, in baseball, the U.S. is number one," said Kato, not mentioning that Japan -- rather than the U.S. team of MLB stars -- won the first World Baseball Classic in 2006. "But we also have a kind of sadness at seeing our stars go -- like a 'brain drain.' "