At last, Fielder glad he changed Tiger stripes BY GENE GUIDI Free Press Sports Writer TOLEDO - If not for his agent, Cecil Fielder's Tigers' uniform probably would still read "Hanshin" instead of "Detroit." "I loved the year I played in Japan,' Fielder said Monday on the first stop of the Tigers' winter press tour. "There's nothing I can say bad about the whole deal." When Field- Cecil er's agent, Jim Fielder Bronner, said he wanted to terminate the contract and return his client to the United States, Fielder said: "I argued against it. I told him he was crazy. Things were going so well that I really didn't know if I wanted to come back." But Bronner finally convinced Fielder, 26, that the move to Detroit was in his best interests - especially when the Tigers gave him a $1.5 million signing bonus, plus a two-year contract worth $500,000 this season and $1 million in 1991. "Now that I'm back, I'm looking forward to playing in the American League again," said Fielder, who hit .243 with 31 home runs and 84 RBIs in 220 games spanning four seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays. "But I'll never forget that year in Japan. And neither will my family." Fielder said his wife, Stacy, and their five-year-old son, Prince, had no trouble adjusting to life in Japan. "My son got to meet a lot of Japanese kids, and my wife took language lessons for three months," said Fielder, a right-handed-hitting first baseman and designated hitter. A nearby store sold American-type provisions, and his son attended an American school. Fielder said he lived in a three-bedroom apartment in Kobe "with a beautiful view of the ocean." Hanshin picked up the tab for everything, from the furniture to the knives and forks. An interpreter provided by the club would pick up Fielder every morning and take him wherever he wanted to go. Fielder soon was well-known among Japanese baseball fans, who he said "are the best I've ever seen in my life." "There are only 65 home games in Japan, and still they draw 2½ million people," Fielder said. "Tickets for average seats go for $25, but people fill the stadiums." But Fielder won't miss spring training in Japan. They have two-month spring training camps out in the boonies," Fielder said. "You have to be out on the field at 10 a.m. every day, and you work out until 5 p.m. It wasn't like being in Florida, where it's warm. In Japan, we would go out to practice and it would be in the 30s with maybe even a little ice on the field." Cecil But the Japanese teams don't let a little ice and cold interrupt practice. "In fact, they consider practice just as important as the game," Fielder said. "If a player doesn't warm up, good before a game, he won't start.' How do the Japanese players compare with the Americans? "I don't think the position players could play in the major leagues," Fielder said. "But some of their young pitchers can throw as good as the pitchers over here. "The problem is that the Japanese make their pitchers throw so much between starts, it wears them down by the end of the season." Fielder hit 38 home runs in 384 atbats last season before suffering a broken little finger on his right hand with 24 games left. "I threw my bat because I got mad, and it bounced back and hit me in the hand," he said. "But it's just fine now." Another thing that's just fine is Fielder's weight - a problem for him when he played for the Blue Jays. "I remember seeing Cecil in Toronto when he looked like he weighed 250 pounds," Tigers manager Sparky Anderson said. "But he looks great now." "I'm down to 225," Fielder said. "I've lost weight in the winter before, but I didn't do it right and would put the pounds back on after I got to spring training. "Now that I did it as part of a lifting and strengthening program, I'll be able to keep it off."