ORIENTED TO THE ORIENT DODGERS' COLBORN AN ARCHITECT OF ASIAN INVASION.

Byline: Tony Jackson  Staff Writer

DENVER - As lies go, it wasn't one of those innocent little white ones. This was a whopper, the kind Jim Colborn knew might one day get him into trouble at home.

It was December 1989. Colborn had just taken a job as pitching coach for the Orix Blue Wave of the Japanese Pacific League, and he was trying to convince his very reluctant family that life would be enjoyable in a foreign land, where they wouldn't know anybody and speak very little of the language.

It was right about then that Colborn, whose children at the time ranged in age from 10 to 18, took a calculated risk.

``I had to lie to them,'' said Colborn, now the Dodgers' pitching coach. ``It was the middle of the (school) year, and I finally said, 'OK, let's just go for a semester, and if you don't like it, we'll come back.'''

Then, with a sly grin, Colborn delivers the punch line.

``What they didn't know was that I had already signed a two-year contract.''

By the time Colborn had to come clean, it wasn't a problem. He wound up staying four years, with the full approval of his well-acclimated family.

``They had friends, and more freedom than they had ever thought of,'' Colborn said. ``They got to ride the trains alone, went to great schools. I had sort of taken the job with them in mind, just for the education of it. It became a serendipitous opportunity.''

Indeed.

In what little time remained between Colborn accepting the job and the family moving to Japan, a Japanese language instructor squeezed in about four group lessons, teaching the Colborns as much as they could learn in such a small window of time. But with those lessons, a seed was planted. Because in the years to come, Dad would combine his ability to speak the language with the vast knowledge he would accrue of the Japanese baseball landscape, parlaying all that into one of the most rewarding jobs he has had in the game.

``It's up there,'' said Colborn, speaking of his five years as the Seattle Mariners' Pacific Rim scouting director. ``Mainly because there are so many of these high-profile Japanese guys that I watched who turned out to be great players.''

After four seasons with the Blue Wave, Colborn returned to the United States and managed in Oakland's minor-league system for three years. But the Mariners, who because of Ichiro Suzuki and Kazuhiro Sasaki always will be seen as a pioneering organization when it comes to importing Japanese stars, contacted Colborn in 1996 about running their Pacific Rim operations.

He couldn't say yes fast enough. The job entailed a lot of overseas travel, and Colborn was responsible for overseeing all the club's scouting operations in Japan, Taiwan, China, Korea, Australia and even Europe - all of which he visited regularly - for a year.

Through no fault of his own, though, Colborn's new gig got off to a rocky beginning.

``My first year, we scouted (Shigetoshi) Hasegawa,'' Colborn said. ``I had coached him in Japan the year he was rookie of the year over there. He came over to the States so several teams could look at him, but what nobody knew was that he was using our house in Ventura as a base. We let him stay there as a favor to the agent I had (Ed Kleven) when I was playing.''

All of which should have given Seattle an advantage in what effectively was a free-agent sweepstakes. But in a world where timing is everything, Hasegawa's couldn't have been worse from the Mariners' standpoint.

``He wanted to play for the Mariners,'' Colborn said. ``It got to the point we flew him up there and showed him around. But they were waiting to get funding from the city and county to build Safeco Field, and if they didn't get it, they were going to sell the team and the team was probably going to move to Tampa (Fla.). Unfortunately, I had to tell Hasegawa that the Mariners weren't going to sign him.''

Hasegawa signed with the Angels. The next day, the Mariners got their funding.

But in the grand scheme of Colborn's time with Seattle, that amounted only to a small hiccup. He later proved instrumental in the signings of Sasaki and, on Nov. 18, 2000, Suzuki, who a year later was the American League Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player, and became a bona fide global icon.

It has been nine years since Dodgers right-hander Hideo Nomo, having established himself as a dominating pitcher with the Kintetsu Lions, became the first significant Japanese import in the major leagues. There are a handful of them now, mostly pitchers. But Colborn said it took someone such as Nomo to blaze the trail for all the others, if for no other reason than simply to prove it could be done.

``When I would ask players over there if they wanted to come to the U.S., most of them would say, 'No way, the players there are too big and too powerful, and I could never do it,' '' Colborn said. ``But I used to tell them they could play over here if they wanted to. You had to have that pioneer at first, a guy with a lot of confidence. That guy was Nomo. He had the right personality. He was extremely confident, as was Sasaki.''

Colborn said flamboyant outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo, who signed with the New York Mets several years later, was just as important a role model despite the fact he was a role player in Japan and remained a role player after he got to the States.

``He was kind of a fourth outfielder over there,'' Colborn said. ``But he was a fan favorite because he had so much charisma.''

The major leagues are still waiting for an influx of Japanese position players to join Suzuki, primarily because hitters in Japan, generally speaking, don't fit the prototype of what American scouts are looking for.

Colborn believes even that eventually will change.

``My guess is there probably will be more of them,'' he said. ``The American teams are starting to realize that it isn't necessarily big stars who win games. It's baseball players that win games, and those guys are good baseball players. They don't make a lot of mistakes.''

Colborn eventually left that job with the Mariners to return to the field as the Dodgers' pitching coach, joining the staff of new manager Jim Tracy for the 2001 season. His Japanese has become fluent over the years, a tremendous asset when it comes to coaching pitchers Nomo and Kazuhisa Ishii. Moreover, the Dodgers posted the lowest team ERA in the majors last season by almost half a run.

But if baseball's Pacific Rim invasion continues at its current pace - and there is no reason to think it won't - Colborn will forever be known as one of its original architects.

``I had an impact, yeah,'' he said. ``I signed some of the Mariners' prospects that are just coming up now, including two Korean kids (pitcher Cha-Sung Baek and outfielder Shin Sho Cho) and a couple of Australians (outfielder Chris Snelling and pitcher Travis Blackley) who are all among their top 10 prospects. When those guys hit the big leagues, it's only going to reinforce to baseball that there is a lot of baseball talent in other countries.''

Tony Jackson,[phone]

tony.jackson(at)dailynews.com

DODGERS at COLORADO

When: Today, 6 p.m.

TV/Radio: FSN2; 980-AM

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) Dodgers pitching coach Jim Colborn, center, first realized the potential of Asian players about 15 years ago.

James A. Finley/Associated Press

(2) Jim Colborn, working with closer Eric Gagne, finds his past job as the Seattle Mariners' Pacific Rim scouting director invaluable in dealing with the Dodgers' Japanese players.

Richard Drew/Associated Press

Box:

DODGERS at COLORADO - Tony Jackson