Kiki Hirota is the last coach left from the original Seattle Timbers. Once the team's hitting coach, his duties since 1995 have revolved around the organization's minor leagues. In 1997, he served as the manager of the Greens' rookie-ball affiliate in Minoqua and moved with the team when it relocated to New Boston in 1998. Kiki's job is more than managing. The rookie league teams of the Greens' minor-league system, New Boston and Manitowoc, also act as training grounds for the player managers of higher levels. It's here that Kiki and Vanity Rushing in Manitowoc judge the physical and mental talent of recent Green acquisitions and assess who among might be capable of the double duty of playing and managing. "Not all prospects have the talent to manage," notes Kiki. "It's not something you can measure as easy as speed or a glove. But if you can see, see clearly, you see that sixth tool, that acumen."
Although he was born in San Francisco and grew up near Fresno, California, Kiki played outfield with the Hiroshima Carp
in Japan in the 1950s and 60s, before returning to America. Hirota worked as a scout in the Giants organization and then moved to Chicago in the 1970s, where
much of his family resettled after World War II. Hirota scouted for Bill Veeck but returned to Japan in the 1980s to serve as a coach on the Hanshin Tigers team that feature ex-patriate slugger Randy Bass. When Bass was named Timbers' manager in 1993, the Japanese owners of the team asked Hirota to join Bass in Seattle. Hirota subsequently followed Bass to Moline, when the franchise shifted inland. Although Joe Morgan succeeded Bass as club skipper in 1994, Hirota remained in the organization, where his deep knowledge of the game on both sides of the Pacific serves the Greens well.
In his spare time, Hirota enjoys collecting old 78 records of all kinds, though he's partial to the old country and western music he listened to as a boy in California. He hosts a Saturday night classic country show, "Manifest Destiny," on WMOL, the flagship station of the Moline Greens. Kiki met his wife, Jean, at a White Sox contest in 1974. Jean is the Greens' director of marketing and licensing. The two of them spend much of their summer in the garden, raising fruits and vegetables. "Something I picked up in Manzanar," notes Hirota.
Kiki's classic country picks to click:
1. The Maddox Brothers and Rose
2. Spade Cooley
3. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
6. Cigarette Milner and the Road's Scholars
8. Derrick Tyler and the Oil Rigs
9. Adolph Hofner and His Orchestra
10. Jean Shepard
11. Willie Masters and Wagons West
12. W. Lee O'Daniel & the Light Crust Doughboys
13. Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage
14. Merle Travis
15. Gene Autry
18. Bob Skyles and His Skyrockets
19. Patsy Montana