"Even before they knew if the Cubs were going to survive their first-round playoff series with the Dodgers, some members of the Japanese media contingent were thinking of abandoning the team.

Nothing personal, they said.

"They have to leave because there's no demand anymore," Hiroshige Ichioka explained.

Ichioka is a reporter with the Jiji Press Japanese News Agency. He covers Major League Baseball on the West Coast, concentrating on the Dodgers and their two Japanese pitchers, Takashi Saito and Game 3 starter Hiroki Kuroda. And he knows that since Lou Piniella's proclamation that Kosuke Fukudome is out as a regular this postseason, so too is Japan's interest in the Cubs.

Naoko Sato knows this as well. And Sato, with Nikkan Sports, a Tokyo-based daily sports newspaper, knows how this must be affecting Fukudome.

The Cubs' right fielder, owed $38 million over the next three years, was benched after his 0-for-8 showing with four strikeouts in the first two games of the playoffs. He came in as a pinch-hitter in Saturday's 3-1, Game 3 elimination loss and ended up going 1-for-2.

Fukudome was already on fragile ground with Piniella after a September in which he hit just .178.

On Friday, Fukudome was one of several Cubs who chose to skip an optional workout, thus sparking the theory that he was angry over his demotion.

Through his interpreter, Fukudome said that was not the case.

"My family flew in from Chicago and I was spending time with my family," he said Saturday.

Fukudome did not speak with the Japanese media before Game 3, but Sato said the news was probably not easy to take.

"I think K might be upset because nobody expects Lou to say in front of everybody at the press conference what he said. Lou kind of pointed him out," she said. "I think he will be hurt a little bit because it is a players' situation and it was [said] in public, not just in Chicago but all over the country. It's embarrassing. I think he hurts a little."

After the Game 2 defeat in which Fukudome struck out three times, Piniella said, "I don't want to hear about Fukudome anymore as far as whether he's going to play or not. I'm going to play [ Mike] Fontenot or Reed Johnson or somebody else, and that's the end of the story. The kid is struggling and there's no sense sending him out there anymore."

Sato said it's unlikely Fukudome will acknowledge publicly he is upset. "He tries to hide his emotion," she said. But she also said he has received e-mails and phone calls from former teammates and coaches.

"He has very strong pride," she said. "He doesn't show emotion but he has very, very high pride."

It would be inaccurate, however, to say Fukudome is any more sensitive than an American-born player.

"Japanese teams have the same kind of managers [as Piniella]," Ichioka said. "They are even a little more bossy. They yell."

Ichioa acknowledged that "it's a tough year" for Japanese major leaguers. "Fukudome is a good player, but he's not as popular as the mainstream players," he said. "His team is only the third biggest in Japan and not nationally popular."

Sato said the story of Fukudome's demotion was reported in a straightforward manner, as was the fact that he has not been playing well. "But in the playoffs, other Japanese players [like Tampa Bay second baseman Akinori Iwamura] have played really well, and their stories are a little bigger."

Fukudome is in a tough spot back home, Ichioka said."