Mr. Motonobu Tanishige, who participated in 3021 games, the most by Japanese players, and wore a mask in 2963 games, exceeding the 2427 games of Ivan Rodriguez, who boasts the most appearances in the majors as a catcher. As a professional baseball player, what is the “magic ball” chosen by the famous catcher who has received more balls than anyone else in the world?
Mr. Motonobu Tanishige, who participated in a total of 3021 games and wore a mask in 2963 games.
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cut ball pioneer
When I transferred to Chunichi in 2002, my first impression when I received a ball from Kenshin Kawakami was “He’s a powerful pitcher.” He’s not that tall (180 cm), but he has the angle and the release position is pretty close to the catcher.
Above all, Kenshin’s pronoun is “cut ball”. It is said that he developed the ball based on Mariano Rivera’s (former Yankees) cut ball, a closer representing the major leagues. He used a slider that bends a lot and a cut ball that bends sharply with a higher speed than that. Although it is now clearly distinguished, the term “cut ball” was not widely used at the time.
He has experienced four no-hitters and no-runs as a catcher, including a complete match in a succession, but the first was Noshin (August 1, 2002 / Giants / Tokyo Dome).
Kenshin was running straight that day, so he was able to use the breaking ball effectively. He was conscious of no hits and no runs when he struck out Hideki Matsui in the bottom of the 7th inning.
Looking at the next day’s newspaper, there was a sentence saying, “I struck out the third from Matsui with a 143-kilogram cut ball,” but there was also a sentence written as “a high-speed slider.” . In fact, I gave the sign to the slider, and I think Kenshin was throwing the slider and the cut ball separately.
From the batter’s point of view, there is no doubt that cut balls are difficult to capture. As soon as you swing thinking it is straight, it changes subtly. I think it was Kenshin who popularized the cut ball in the Japanese baseball world, and it left a strong impact.
