Álex Ramírez and Juan Francisco Puello, President of the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation
When it was first announced that Japan was entering a team in the Caribbean Series in 2025, I was left pondering what the angle was like many others. What team would be representing the Japanese league? Would it be a team of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) players? What city would they represent? I was left with more questions than answers. So, I did what normal people do when posting a question and «googled it.» I found out on my own quest that the Japanese Baseball System is much more complex than the systems we have in place in the Western Hemisphere. I needed help understanding which players would play for the Japanese team in the Caribbean Series.
Following the advice of my children, I put down the 90’s search engine and picked up something much more helpful today: social media. I reached out through the team’s Instagram and immediately got a response. After trading messages on Instagram, I received one of the team’s general managers’ emails, and he would put me in contact with the team manager. I quickly learned that I would be interviewing a person who, in Venezuela’s rich baseball history, is the second person to be inducted into a professional baseball Hall of Fame.
The Manager of the Japan Breeze is a gentleman named Álex Ramírez. He is from Venezuela, and if you open his Baseball Reference page, you will realize why Ramírez has the influence he has in Japan. Ramírez played 13 years in NPB and hit for a career average of .301, hit 380 HR, and in the history of NPB, he was the first foreign-born player to hit 2,000 hits. He is a 2X NPB Champion, an 8X NPB All-Star, and deservedly became the first non-Japanese-born player to be inducted into the NPB Hall of Fame.
Now that I know who oversees the Japan Breeze (Ramirez is also the GM of the team), I have more questions. After the Breeze’s long flight from Hiroshima to LA, to Mexicali, and the team’s first full day of practice, Mr. Ramírez was cordial enough to give me a few minutes of his time so that we could get to know the Japan Breeze a little better.
«This team did not come out of nowhere,» stated Ramírez. «This has been a few years in the making. A man named Erwin Miyasaka was one of the main engineers of this idea». According to his LinkedIn page, Miyasaka is the CEO of WeConnect Venezuela, a non-profit organization that oversees strengthening the cultural relationship between Japan and Venezuela. «What we did,» added Ramírez, «were we began a company from the ground up. This team is a company, an enterprise, so to speak. It is comprised of baseball players who have been part of Japan’s complex baseball system and were not drafted. These players were expected to be drafted and were not, so this team is giving them a chance to compete and get exposed. This is not a team from NPB. Maybe there will be a relationship in the future, but at the time, we are not there yet».
The Japan Breeze has a mix of veterans and young players. One of those veterans is Munenori Kawasaki, a 43–year–old veteran of 276 MLB games, who was part of the 2016 Chicago Cubs, a team that won the World Series. Ramírez stated, «Kawasaki has been instrumental in helping the young players in the Japan Breeze.»
When asked about the quality of the players in the Japan Breeze, Ramirez stated that he believes that «one or two players could break Spring Training with an MLB team right now.» I asked him again to ensure I heard him correctly, and Ramírez doubled down: «Yes. Right now, there are two players in the Japan Breeze who could make an MLB roster». Ramírez also stated that this team plays a lot of small ball. «We do not have the power other teams have, so expect us to play small ball. To move the runner over and make all the crucial plays.
One thing is for sure: Ramírez stated that the Japan Breeze are not here to participate; their goal is to put together a strong tournament and win it all. He also hopes this debut tournament will be another avenue for Japanese players to develop.
«It is an honor for me to be an ambassador of the game for two countries: Japan and Venezuela. We are honored to be here. We hope we can give the fans a great show,» asserted Ramírez.
