Jay Jackson’s favorite restaurant in Hiroshima doesn’t have a name, and you can’t find it on a map. There wasn’t a secret knock to get in or a password. You just have to know the guy.
“One of my friends owned a steakhouse-type place,” said Jackson. “But he would just get imported really good meat in all the time. Like just different. He got whale meat once; he would get whale liver in. He would just get random stuff [that was] exotic.”
Jackson met the owner of the secret steakhouse through a friend while pitching for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp from 2016 to 2018. The Chicago Cubs had taken Jackson, 36, in the ninth round of the 2008 draft. He bounced around the league for seven years before debuting with the San Diego Padres in 2015. However, he felt his career had stalled. Jackson’s agent at the time, Jeff Berry (CAA), proposed the idea of playing in Japan.
“We had been talking about it for a year or two anyway, but he had told me at the time they weren’t looking for guys who didn’t have any big-league time,” said Jackson.
“I’d been asking them for the past year or two before then because I felt like I’d been stuck in the Triple-A phase, and teams were only telling me, ‘Hey, we want you to be a Triple-A vet,’ which was weird to me when guys had worse numbers and had worse stuff. They were giving guys big-league contracts, big-league invites, etc. But I was only getting minor league deals, and teams were telling me, ‘Hey, we want you to be a Triple-A vet,’ and I was like 25.”
Jackson spent his first four seasons with the Cubs organization before bouncing between the Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, and Pittsburgh Pirates’ systems on his way to the majors. Teams always valued Jackson’s leadership. He is affable and willing to help younger players with the mental aspect of baseball.
“I felt like [major league teams] treated me like a veteran player since the time I was 22, 23,” he said. “I’ve always been looked at as the vet, and I’ve treated it that way. Even before then, I’ve always kind of looked at it as I’m the big brother of the team, of the bullpen, of the pitching staff.
“I just kind of took that mentality. As the big brother, I just try to be as best as I can to help the guys and be there when they need me to be.”
However, Jackson wanted teams to also see his value as a reliever. The Cubs didn’t have much invested in him as a ninth-round pick who signed for $90,000 out of Furman University in his Greenville, S.C. hometown. He wasn’t a bonus baby who carried a high draft pedigree. The Minnesota Twins are the only MLB team that has offered him a guaranteed one-year deal in his career, and this season was the first time he made a team’s opening-day roster.
”I’m thankful and blessed and grateful to have been able to enjoy this journey to this point,” Jackson said before the season started. “Even though it’s taken 17 [years], it’s been a wonderful 17. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Jackson had a 3.74 ERA (112 ERA+) with the San Francisco Giants in 2021 and owned a 2.12 ERA (200 ERA+) with the Toronto Blue Jays last year. However, playing in Japan revitalized his career. Jackson loves playing in the big leagues, and he enjoys playing winter ball in Mexico and Venezuela. But he cherishes the three years he spent in Hiroshima and the season he played with the Chiba Lotte Marines.
“It was more of a baseball decision and just trying to better my life decision,” said Jackson.
“Because I had played in winter ball before, and I saw how other countries embraced me more than the teams in America had at the time, for sure. And so I felt like it was more, if I go over there, I can be myself, and I don’t have to worry about any of the politics or anything. For the most part, I can go over there and just play.”
In 2016, the Carp signed Jackson to a fully guaranteed deal, meaning he’d made the same amount regardless of whether he was on the big-league team or in the minors. Jackson was playing in Mexico when he found out Hiroshima had signed him, and he slept through most of the 13-hour flight. Once it landed, hoards of fans and media gathered outside the airport to greet him.
“It felt like the big leagues,” said Jackson. “I mean, it felt like the big leagues from the moment that we got off the plane because there were fans there waiting who knew our names.”
Hiroshima is a city of 1.4 million located four hours west of Tokyo by train. The United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima during World War II, largely destroying it and killing over 100,000 people. However, it has been rebuilt following the war and has become Japan’s tenth-largest city.
“It reminds me almost of, like, a Philly or Pittsburgh,” said Jackson. “It’s a lot of hard-working people.
“It’s industrial. You have the Mazda plant and a lot of other things there. The town’s kind of small, but it’s a lot of hard-working people. They love baseball, they love sports, and they love to just enjoy their city.”
Nippon Professional Baseball is Japan’s best baseball league. It is comprised of 12 teams, each with no more than four active foreign players. Teams travel by train instead of chartering flights.
“That’s the best thing ever. It was comfortable. The prices of train tickets never changed,” said Jackson. “A lot of times, they would hand you your train ticket after the game or before the game to tell you, like, we’re going to be in whatever city.
“You get on the train with the team, they have a team time train that’s going to leave. Or you can get on the one after.”
The teams didn’t have food at the stadium after night games, so Jackson explored the city around 11:00 pm or midnight to find the best places to eat. “I started figuring out places to go and foods that I liked and different places and people that made good food,” he said. “They would sometimes customize the orders.
“It was literally homemade stuff,” he added. “If they ran out of food, that was it.”
That’s when he met his friend who operated the underground steakhouse. Still, Jackson had to text him shortly after he left the ballpark.
“He either won’t be there, or he won’t have food,” said Jackson. “Because everything he gets his meat and food delivered first thing in the morning. And if he’s done by the time I get there, and I don’t text him, then he’s sold out.”
Sometimes Jackson would text him, and his friend would open the place back up.
“It would be me and three of my friends who would come in and eat,” said Jackson. “So we eat everything in there.”
Jackson would then play video games with friends before falling asleep. The next morning, he would wake up and eat at around 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. “Then just hang out, go walk around the city with my friends sometimes, or maybe go to lunch in the city,” he said. At 1:00 p.m., he’d catch a cab to go to the stadium.
Even with a 144-game schedule, Jackson had time to travel. Teams play six games a week and typically get Mondays off. Jackson would arrive in Japan a week before the season and leave two or three weeks after it ended. Part of it was to fight off jet lag. Part of it was that he loved Japan.
“I love Osaka and Tokyo. There’s just so much to do,” said Jackson. “There’s more Americanized stuff going on. If you want to get American food, you can just go get American food or whatever you want whenever. There’s places to always eat.
“It was a bunch of nice people. I always found stuff to do in each city. I had friends who would come with me or come watch the games and introduce me to other people in the cities.”
Jackson became close with his teammates in Hiroshima. He said that Hiroki Kuroda and Takahiro Arai were his biggest influences. Jason Pridie and Bradin Hagens flew over from America with him. Leonel Campos, Héctor Luna, and former Twins pitcher Kris Johnson had major-league service time. Seiya Suzuki eventually reached the majors. Shota Nakazaki was the closer, and they called him Pete.
“He looked like Peter Griffin,” said Jackson,
Jackson pitched for Milwaukee in 2019, owning a 4.45 ERA (101 ERA+) in 30.1 innings. Still, he didn’t receive any major-league offers despite pitching well in Japan, where the competition is somewhere between Triple-A and the majors.
“I felt like we were truly deserving of how I had played compared to what I’ve seen guys get,” said Jackson. “I’ve seen guys come back over to hear nothing. It was kind of like a slap in the face almost, even though the Brewers signed me.
“They signed me really late, too. It was a minor league deal with an invite to spring training…. But it’s baseball, so I still enjoy playing. I want to go play. I’ve got to provide for my family at this point. Getting back to the big leagues was amazing.”
He returned to Japan for the 2020 season, where he played for the Chiba Lotte Marines. Chiba is a port city of nearly 1 million people an hour west of Tokyo. The Marines had multiple players with big-league experience, including Wei-Yin Chen, Brandon Laird, and Leonys Martin. However, family was the primary reason he returned to Japan.
“For my son,” said Jackson. “That was the main reason. The team from Japan had offered me a contract, and I had a couple of other offers on the table from some American teams. They weren’t as lucrative as the Japanese at the time…. Also, my son at the time had just been born in Japan, and his mom had custody of him at the time, so it would be easier for me to see him if I stayed in Japan, too.”
Jackson had a 3.86 ERA and 12 strikeouts in seven innings with Lotte. But on July 10, 2020, he was arrested on suspicion of marijuana possession. He asked for his release and signed with the Cincinnati Reds. He didn’t play for Cincinnati because MLB canceled the minor-league season but became friends with Twins reliever Matt Bowman while on-site with the team.
Despite pitching well for the Giants (112 ERA+) in 2021 and Toronto (200 ERA+) last year, Jackson signed his first fully guaranteed contract at age 36 this year. He’s enjoyed the journey around the world, cherishing his time in Japan, Mexico, and Venezuela. Jackson said meeting people from around the world, whether it’s teammates or friends he’s made outside of the game, has changed his worldview.
“It really started when I got drafted,” he said. “I started seeing the different ballplayers from everywhere, learning from them, and talking to them. I would hang out with the Latin guys. I would hang out with the guys from Cali or Texas or different parts of the country. And then had a couple of Asian guys here and there.
“I really got a better worldview, though, when I started playing winter ball. And going and being in the countries and being in the atmosphere. Being in Mexico, being in Venezuela and seeing how everybody responds and reacts to everything differently. And then going to Japan and seeing that different culture was awesome, too.
“I’ve been blessed to do a lot and go to different places.”
Jackson is happy to be in Minnesota now, though, because the Twins made it clear they valued him. He misses his friends in Japan, but he’s rooted in America.
“I felt like we all created a bond and kind of like a little family over there,” said Jackson. “So I do miss them. But like overall, like I’m glad to be home.
“I’m glad to have, you know, my family here cheering for me more and being able to see them, being able to have them around me a lot more. So it’s a give and take. Like I don’t miss, I miss my friends, but I’d rather have my family.”
Jackson is like an older brother to some of the younger players in Minnesota’s clubhouse. He’s a middle reliever on a team with a stacked bullpen trying to build on its first playoff series win since 2002.
He may return to Japan at some point, but he’s happy where his right now.
“I try to just live every day like it is,” he said. “Like it’s meant to be.
“I try to be as happy as I can, positive as I can for everybody else around me. And just stay where I’m at because I don’t want to be over there and then miss something here. Everything that’s going on here is really important because this is where I’m at.”
Still, if he finds himself hankering for some whale liver at midnight in Hiroshima, he knows he’s got a guy.
