Kazuhiro Sasaki
Souhan stirred some controversy when he and fellow sports writer Bill Ballou refused to include Hideki Matsui on their Rookie of the Year ballots due to his age. Yankee owner George Steinbrenner responded by pointing out that this had not prevented either writer from voting for Ichiro Suzuki or Kazuhiro Sasaki, both of whom had previously played in the NPB for several years and were the two oldest players to have received the award, and stated that he felt Matsui had been robbed.