Micah Franklin shakes hands with Hanshin Tigers official Katsuyoshi Nozaki during a press conference Thursday at the club office in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.

I'd like to think Micah Franklin took my advice.

The switch-hitting outfielder has been transferred from the Nippon Ham Fighters of the Pacific League to the Central League Hanshin Tigers, and I hope something I said to him back in March helped lead to his being wanted by the Tigers.

Despite hitting 30 home runs and marking 80 runs batted in for the Fighters in 1999, Franklin figured in the spring there was little chance he would play varsity ball for Nippon Ham this season because of the quota limiting two foreign position players to each club's first-team roster. The F's also had former PL home-run king Nigel Wilson and slugger Sherman Obando, and Franklin expected he would be the odd-man-out once the season began.