UD AL-BAYDA, United Arab Emirates – Everyone should be so lucky that they get to do the thing the love — whatever it may be — and enjoy doing it.
At 44, former Seattle Mariners, Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago Cubs, and Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks infielder Munenori Kawasaki popped back up again in Baseball United with the Mid East Falcons, bringing his banana-colored bat, outsized personality, and veteran leadership to a team with 14 Japanese players and leading them to the upstart league’s inaugural title.
When Kawasaki spotted a World Baseball Network reporter on the field watching him take soft toss the day before the United Series began, he brought out his hammy personality, saying, “Rice ball is Japanese steroids!” With each slash of his yellow bat, a baseball flew into the soft-toss net, and Kawasaki yelled, “Rice ball!”
He may be eight years removed from playing for a top-level professional team, but his sense of humor remains what scouts would call “80-grade.”
But Kawasaki, a limber, slap-hitting second baseman who has played in lower-level Japanese leagues since his career in MLB and NPB came to an end, is more than just a jokester.
“He’s pretty much the leader of the Japanese guys. And he does a great job of keeping everybody informed and loose and playing hard,” said Falcons manager Dennis Cook, himself a World Series champion with the Florida Marlins in 1997 and a veteran of 15 MLB seasons. Cook noted that Kawasaki had done a lot to help 18-year-old Japanese shortstop Manato Tanai.
Kawasaki has more fun on the field than just about anyone you’ll ever meet. Mid East manager Dennis Cook said he’s the leader of the Japanese players and helped young shortstop Manato Tanai develop this season. Cook also said Kawasaki is in charge of his own banana supply.
— @leifskodnick.bsky.social (@LeifSkodnick) December 12, 2025
Kawasaki reemerged last year at the Caribbean Series in Mexicali, Mexico, with the Japan Breeze, the team of Japanese minor leaguers and industrial leaguers that proved that there are no secrets in baseball. While the Breeze were blown out of the Caribbean Series with an 0-4 record, Kawasaki went 3-for-5 with an RBI in three games.
During Baseball United’s regular season, he batted .381 over nine games, getting 16 hits in 42 at-bats and scoring seven runs. But it was his personality, keeping everyone on the Falcons loose, that got him the Elvis Andrus Clubhouse Award at the end of the season.
Asked if the team had secured a sufficient supply of bananas for Kawasaki, Cook said, “I think he’s got to do that for himself.”
Between Kawasaki and Alejandro de Aza, the Falcons hand more than 1,000 games of MLB experience in the dugout, and it went a long way with the younger players.
Asked what he’d learned from the two veterans, Jake Hjelle, a 24-year-old outfielder and corner infielder from East Grand Forks, Minnesota, said, “You never know when they having a bad day. You never know when they’re having a good day. So just kind of the maturity level of them and like their mindset towards the game.”
In the United Series, the man with the yellow bat went 5-for-12 with a key ground rule double in Game 2, and went 2-for-5 in Game 3 with an RBI and a run scored on his way to winning the series MVP award.
Always smiling, always cutting up, Kawasaki never seems to be having a bad day. The day before the United Series, in an interview with World Baseball Network, he was asked where WBN would see him next.
“Where go ‘Kawa’? Everywhere,” he said. “Uchu! How you say ‘Uchu’? Earth, outside?”
Told that the Japanese word “uchu” translated to “space,” Kawasaki said, “Space! I want to go to space!”
Ladies and Gentlemen, the @BaseballUnited United Series MVP, @52munekawasaki of the @MidEastFalcons ! #MonkeyNeverCramps #Bananas pic.twitter.com/bnnpDiQPil
— @leifskodnick.bsky.social (@LeifSkodnick) December 14, 2025
After Game 3, clutching the MVP trophy, Kawasaki declared his intention to play next year.
“Next year I will be 45 years old,” said the native of Aira-gun, Japan. “But I wanna try [to play]. I wanna try my best. I have bananas. I have bananas, no problems! I see you guys next year!”
Will there be a league on Mars next year? If a team can get bananas shipped to Mars, they might just be able to sign Kawasaki.
WBN Baseball United: https://worldbaseball.com/league/baseball-united/
Photo: Munenori Kawasaki of the Mid East Falcons went 5-for-12 in the United Series with a key ground rule double in Game 2, and went 2-for-5 in Game 3 with an RBI and a run scored on his way to winning the series MVP award. (Photo courtesy of Baseball United)
