Interview with Minoru Iwata (Part 1)
Osaka Toin, the champion of Senbatsu, is considered to be the closest to national domination as local tournaments following the summer Koshien begin in various places. The school, which is steadily consolidating its prestigious position, is expected to play an active role as a professional ahead of the crown in high school baseball, and has become a longing target for leading junior high school students.
Under the supervision of Koichi Nishitani, who took office in 1998, the 2001 team was the “starting point” for strength. Although he couldn’t reach Koshien, Takeya Nakamura (Seibu), who won six home runs in professional baseball, hit No. 4, and Tsuyoshi Nishioka (Fukuoka Kitakyushu Phoenix) was in the first grade.
Leading the team with them was Minoru Iwata, a left-handed pitcher who played for 16 years in Hanshin until last year after working at Kansai University.
Minoru Iwata during the Osaka Toin High School
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Weight lost 10 kg in one week after joining the club
“It’s been a tough three years anyway. When I was in junior high school, a senior instructor said,’If you want to go to (Osaka) Toin, you can’t do it now.’ I ran for two hours on the riverbed of the Yodo River, but the practice of Toin was harder than I had imagined. “
Iwata, who weighed just over 80 kilograms and entered Osaka Toin, is said to have lost nearly 10 kilograms in a week. She changed into her uniform as soon as the class was over, and ran for 20 minutes every day on the “Beast Road” from the school to the ground at the foot of Mt. Ikoma.
The pitchers repeated the slope dash while the team practiced basics such as seat knocking. During batting practice, he runs between the poles on both wings, and after the batting practice, the team’s run menu is waiting. In the time run, if the set time was not reached, it would have to be redone, and the abdominal muscles could be stiff.
“I couldn’t run out of time and I just had to start over. But it’s really important to do the numbers. If you don’t do the numbers, you won’t get into your body. At that time, you could throw the number of balls and learn the form.” I used to do that in the days when it was said to be “basic”. Now, with the introduction of scientific thinking, it has changed efficiently while fusing training, but when I was a high school student, I ran and started over. I ran and started over … I was getting stronger before I knew it. “
