My Name is Kobayashi. I Work for Larry Dolan.

Talk about irony. On a day when former Indian and Steely McBeam confidant Kaz Tadano announced that he was returning to Japan, the club again turned to the Land of the Rising Sun for pitching help, and announced the signing of Chiba Lotte Marines reliever Masahide Kobayashi. Kobayashi has over 200 career saves in his nine year career, and the Tribe is hopeful that he can add more depth to the back end of the bullpen.

What I want to know is when are they going to finally sign somebody from my favorite Japanese team, The Nippon Ham Fighters? Mmmm. . .pork chops.

Anyway, my pal the Starfish said yesterday that Masahide Kobayashi is a great name for a baseball player, and I couldn't agree more. If I were a Japanese guy, I think I'd want my name to be "Kobayashi." I dunno, there's just a real Samurai-style coolness to that name.

In fact, it's so cool that I'm not even bothered by the fact that it's also the name of that hot dog eating guy (shown here getting his ass kicked in an eating contest by a giant bear), or that the Star Trek dorks love the name too. As Vinny and I both remembered yesterday, Kobayashi was also the name of Keyser Soze's lawyer in The Usual Suspects ("My Name is Kobayashi. I work for Keyser Soze."), and that 's cool enough to make up for the Star Trek thing.

According to Wikipedia, Kobayashi means small forest and is the ninth most common Japanese surname. Whatever. I hope the guy can pitch.