When I started blogging, both in 2004 at my baseball blog and again 19 years later in this space, I worried. I worried that I was sharing too much about myself and my family, I worried that I would say something irrevocably stupid, and I worried about putting my work into the world for people to judge. I worry. That’s what I do.
One thing I did not worry about in 2004, not even a little, was that people might think that I was an actual latino man named “Jose Melendez.” Why would I? I made it clear enough in the regular content of the blog that I was not actually Jose Melendez, my government name was easy enough to find in connection with the blog, and it was only 10 years since Jose Melendez had played for the Red Sox.
Oh yes, the real Jose Melendez. Jose Melendez was a promising Puerto Rican relief pitcher whom the Sox acquired from the Padres in 1993 for outfielder Phil Plantier. Melendez was a decent pitching prospect, but I, like much of Boston was greatly enamored of Plantier who had shown some real pop with the bat and had a strange batting stance where he appeared to be sitting on an imaginary stool. No one in Boston liked the deal, especially radio host Eddie Andelman, who railed against the trade (and by extension Melendez) relentlessly. When Plantier, in his first year in San Diego, hit 34 home runs and 100 RBI, the agitation only intensified despite Melendez pitching well in limited work in Boston. Despite the fact that over the course of their careers both men would have a WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of just 2.3, I continued to think of the trade as a debacle. This perception was, no doubt, enhanced by a Sports Illustrated story imagining how the 1994 baseball season would have ended if not for the strike that cancelled the World Series. The piece, imagined that the Red Sox and Cubs, neither of whom were in contention when the players went on strike, would emerge from the pack and meet in the World Series. In this imagined struggle of legendary losers, Jose Melendez was the man on the mound when the Red Sox lost. So, I was holding him responsible for something that literally did not happen.
Long after his Major League career ended, Jose stuck in my mind. I liked the name. I named my first computer hard drive “Jose Melendez Hard Drive.” So when I joined the Red Sox fan message board Sons of Sam Horn (SoSH) just a couple of days after Aaron Boone’s home run in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS broke my heart, there was no doubt what name I was going to use for a handle. Lots of site members used obscure players as their usernames, and no one ever thought that it was the real player. On the occasions when real players did join the site, they used handles rather than their actual names. Most famously, when pitcher Curt Schilling joined the site as he the Sox were contemplating a trade for him after the 2003 season, he used the user name Göring88. (Note: Not really, but, as it turns out, he probably wanted to… because he’s a nazi sympathiser. And not just in an “oh he’s really conservative” way. He has an actual collection of Nazi memorabilia.)
In time, the blog, Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME, that was initially born on SoSH became reasonably popular, but I was pretty sure no one thought I was the actual Jose Melendez. Occasionally, I would fill out forms asking if I’d ever used an alias, and I always answered “no.” After all, I wasn’t actually pretending to be Jose Melendez and the fact that Jose Melendez the blogger was in fact Dan Kobayashi was easily available public information. Hell, I put it on the covers of collections of blog entries I published as books. Me listing Jose Melendez as an alias would be as silly as Harrison Ford listing Han Solo, Indiana Jones, or Henry from regarding Henry.
Sure, over the years, a few people I knew, upon discovering that I was Jose Melendez were shocked. “It’s like finding out your friend Peter Parker is actually the Amazing Spider-Man,” one said. “You owe me for all of the time I wasted reading you,” said another. But that was on them for not paying attention. And none of them ever thought it was the actual Jose Melendez.
Thus, when I started expatriarch, I never worried that anyone might get confused.
This, it turns out, was a mistake.
With the kids in school full-timeish now, I’m promoting the blog a little more aggressively, including trying to cross promote with a few other bloggers I know. One, Cranky Dad, a great read by an even older dad than me, is run by a former professional collaborator. He happily agreed to trade links but then asked, very reasonably, “Who is Jose Melendez?” This was the second or third time this had happened, so I think the message is clear; I need to pull back the curtain and reveal myself.
My name is Dan Kobayashi not Jose Melendez. My name has never been Jose Melendez, and I have never pretended it was. I am not from Puerto Rico, I never pitched in the majors, and I was not the losing pitcher in an imaginary World Series Game 7.
I am just a middle-aged white American dad who lives in Switzerland and writes a blog instead of working for a living. (Note: Parenting is real work.)
But this is where it actually gets a bit complicated.
You see, I am both a white guy, and I am not a white guy. On the one hand, look at me. On the other hand, I have a Japanese last name, the result of having a Japanese great-grandfather who immigrated to the U.S. on a whaling ship in 1903 at the age of 17. That makes be 1/8 Japanese. That’s 12.5%.
When given the choice to identify myself by more than one race on forms, I check “white” and “Asian or Pacific Islander.” If there’s only one choice, I pick “white.” I don’t know any American of Asian origin who has ever been the least bit bothered by this. Indeed, I’ve been invited to join any number of Asian-American groups. Generally I have not joined, but that is because I am not a joiner, not because I am not Asian.
The people who seem suspicious of my identifying as both white and Asian are a small group other white people. They seem to have some notion that I am working an angle, as if being a white/asian/jewish hybrid is some social advantage. (Note: Apart from the white part, which really is an advantage.) In fairness to them, I kind of get it.
Yes, if I were an eighth black most of America would regard me as black, as depicted in the amazing sketch Asian Enough, but under America’s ridiculous racial conventions, Black people get treated differently than every other racial or ethnic group. But I look really white. The only person who ever came close to guessing without knowing my name was a security guard at an office I worked at in Boston who asked one day “Dan, are you a little Chinese or something?” Yes!!!! I am or something!
But on paper, I am Japanese. I’d never really thought about it that way despite a lifetime of confusing people, until a colleague who is an expert on Japan pointed it out to me. She is a Black woman with a nondescript American name, who has frequently been assumed to be white based on her resume, so she knows. And she’s right. One time, I started a job and the senior boss had once worked in Japan. After I’d been there for a few weeks, he asked my immediate managers “Is Kobayashi ever going to show up for work?” When I noted that I was Kobayashi, he got a shocked look. And why wouldn’t he? I never held it against him. He made an honest, reasonable mistake.
But I want to try to limit the mistakes. And I don’t want a 59-year-old former reliever getting credit for my work, any more than, I imagine, he want me getting credit for his 2.3 Wins Above Replacement.
"Are you a little Chinese or something" made me laugh for two days. My great-grandfather came over from the Philippines with the Navy, maybe in 1909? You mostly could not tell from looking at his great-grandchildren.
Nice work, Dan. As both a baseball die hard and the father of a blond-haired, pasty white son who’s 1/2 Chinese, I got a kick out of this post.