Serialization “Why am I a professional baseball player⁉”
The 4th Shinya Kayama, Part 1 (Read from the 1st >>)
Professional baseball is a world of weak meat and strong food. It is a fiercely competitive society filled with elites who have been touted as child prodigies since childhood, but there is a person who has a unique career that makes me wonder, “Why did this player enter the professional world?” A series that focuses on such baseball players, “Why am I a professional baseball player !?”. Shinya Kayama (Softbank) will appear in the 4th edition. An ordinary Okinawan high school baseball player weighing 56 kg becomes a “left-handed killer” representing the ball world. I would like to introduce an anecdote that everyone involved says “I can’t believe it.”
Softbank’s Shinya Kayama, who became the “left-handed killer” representing the ball world
──What kind of impression do you think you would give when you see yourself at the age of 18?
When asked, Shinya Kayama distorted the baby’s face, which does not seem to be 31 years old, and muttered, “‘Impossible’ … isn’t it?”
“I never thought I could be a professional, and it was a world I couldn’t imagine.”
It’s not humility, it’s an unmistakable true intention.
It has become an indispensable “left-handed killer” for the ever-winning corps Softbank. As of June 1, he has pitched in 354 NPB games in total, and his estimated annual salary is said to be 140 million yen.
However, when he was 18 years old, Shinya Kayama always had a ball speed in the low 120km range. He was a high school pitcher on a remote island who lost his first match at the Okinawa tournament. Is there anyone other than Shinya Kayama, such as a professional baseball player who weighed only 56 kg in high school?
That baseball life deserves to be called “Ishigaki Dream”. Let’s follow in the footsteps based on the testimony of the person and the people concerned.
Shinya Kayama was born and raised on Ishigaki Island in Okinawa Prefecture until the age of 18. In 2006, Yaeyama Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which owns Yuta Omine (currently Lotte), participated in Koshien in a row in the spring and summer. It is causing a remote island whirlwind.
Shinya Kayama, who was one year younger than Omine, stared at the fever like someone else. Shinya Kayama was enrolled in Yaeyama Agricultural and Forestry, not Yaeyama Commerce and Industry.
There are only three high schools on Ishigaki Island. When asked why he didn’t go to Yaeyama Commercial and Industrial, Shinya Kayama mumbled a little and replied:
“I didn’t want to fall (for the entrance exam). I thought it would be okay if I could enter Agricultural High School (Yaeyama Agricultural Forestry).”
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