1.   And Thursday night, Hideki Irabu will be much more prominent than he ever was in Japanese baseball.

2.   At least one Japanese baseball fan is flying from Tokyo to New York, to witness the end of this era.

3.   At any rate, Bonds has not been faced with anything like the blatantly protective wall in Japanese baseball.

4.   A Japanese baseball team, the Yukult Swallows, also hang out here for a few weeks for training.

5.   A watershed for Japanese baseball will be the fate of Yomiuri Giants superstar outfielder Hideki Matsui, who is eligible for free agency after next season.

6.   But for Marty Kuehnert, a longtime commentator on Japanese baseball, there is no explaining away the disparate attention that Japanese fans accord native and foreign players.

7.   But not everybody is filled with gloom about the future of Japanese baseball.

8.   But Japanese baseball officials have said that Irabu will not be a free agent.

9.   Clearly Japanese baseball has players who can play, and often excel, at the major-league level.

10.   Fortunately for Japanese baseball, somebody noticed.