Okajima's civilizing influence

UPON WINNING an Internet election for the 32 d and last spot on the American League All-Star team, Red Sox rookie reliever Hideki Okajima, speaking through a translator, said he is "still the hero in the shadow." The pitcher who received 4.4 million online votes insisted that the real hero -- the teammate casting that shadow -- is his younger compatriot, Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Much has been said and written about the lessons these two hurlers from Japan have had to learn about playing ball in the Majors and about American mores. But if Okajima's modesty may be considered as much a cultural quality as a personal trait, then it seems obvious that many Americans in the limelight -- and not merely that special breed, the millionaire athlete -- could stand to learn a thing or two from the gracious Okajima.

The possibilities seem endless. Imagine Hillary Clinton winning an early primary and saying she is still "a hero in the shadow of the greater hero," Bill Clinton. Like Okajima's bow to Matsuzaka, such a Japanese-style gesture from Hillary would derive its virtue from the widespread belief that it is true.

Or what if Rudy Giuliani, drawing on his reputation as mayor of New York during the Sept. 11 attack, came first in the Iowa caucuses and suppressed his notorious ego to the point of saying, "I am only a second-string mayor in the shadow of Michael Bloomberg." There is no telling how much a verbal pirouette of this kind might enhance public perceptions of Giuliani's character.

In President Bush's case, the self-effacing modesty of Okajima would need to be supplemented with another Japanese tradition: the expectation that a disgraced leader should apologize in public for his misdeeds. By combining a version of Okajima's honest deference to Matsuzaka with a show of contrition for the debacle in Iraq, Bush would be able to say he is naught but a secondary bumbler in the shadow of Dick Cheney.

Once public figures tread the path of an Okajima-style humility, there would be no end to the unaccustomed gestures they might make. Donald Trump might intimate that he has been lucky enough times in real estate to look like a genius, but admit that he is merely a piker in the era of Bill Gates. And Rupert Murdoch might say he still doesn't measure up to William Randolph Hearst.

Here in New England, Patriots fans will be eager to see if the Okajima example somehow rubs off on the irrepressible Randy Moss. Perhaps that loquacious receiver will catch a couple of touchdown passes in a game next September -- and declare that he is only a supporting player in the shadow of Tom Brady. There will be no doubting that, in a triumphant example of cross-cultural influence, Japanese traditions of modesty are transforming American habits of braggadocio.