Professional baseball player from the University of Tokyo, demoted to the second army after being beaten by Ichiro, meeting with Nabetsune and Masayoshi Son … A turbulent life looking back on Itaru Kobayashi | Professional baseball | Shueisha’s sports magazine Sportiva Official site web Sportiva

Interview with Itaru Kobayashi (Part 1)

　Itaru Kobayashi, who graduated from the University of Tokyo and joined Lotte in 8th place in the 1991 draft. He attracted attention as a “genius rookie”, but his professional baseball life ended after only two years without any first-team experience. After that, he earned an MBA (Master of Business Administration) from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, and was active in both the university professor and the team front. He looks back on his turbulent life from the University of Tokyo to being a professional baseball player, professor, and team manager.

Itaru Kobayashi, who was involved in the management of the SoftBank baseball team for 10 years from 2005 (right photo)
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[Why I became a university teacher from a professional baseball player]

── Mr. Kobayashi, you played for Lotte for two years from 1992, and in 2002 you became an assistant professor (currently an associate professor) of the Faculty of Sociology at Edogawa University.

KobayashiTo put it bluntly, I chose to become a teacher because I didn’t have a regular job. When I returned to Japan from the United States at the age of 33, I was approached by President Jiro Ota of Edogawa University. President Ota is a famous doctor of science, and he also served as the president of Ochanomizu University. One such person said, “I like your way of life, having entered the University of Tokyo but throwing yourself into the world of professional baseball. It will be a reference for young people. Graduated from the University of Tokyo Literature Department II (Faculty of Economics), MBA (Master of Business Administration) ), I would like him to teach business administration as a full-time faculty member.”

Looking back, I became a freelancer at Lotte in 1993, and on the recommendation of those around me, I studied at Columbia University Graduate School of Business (completed in 1996). The contract fee when he became a professional player was 20 million yen, but he bought a new car (about 2 million yen) in order to pay taxes and go to the stadium. The remaining 12 million yen was spent on tuition (about 6 million yen) and living expenses for two years.

── Did you get a job in America?

KobayashiI got an interview opportunity from the financial institution Goldman Sachs. Many Colombian MBA students aim for Wall Street, but Goldman is among them a longing place of employment. However, somehow I went to study abroad without knowing that, I overslept the final interview and ended up empty-handed.

Under such circumstances, MLB was the only one I was seriously thinking about at work. It was around the time when Hideo Nomo entered the majors in 1995 and caused a huge boom. I appealed directly to MLB’s international manager, whom I finally met after relying on connections, saying, “I want to be a bridge between Japan and the United States,” but there was no connection.

It took about two months after I graduated to finally find a job. Seeing all my friends from graduate school getting jobs and busy preparing to start a business, I grew more and more impatience day by day. Then, when the Atlanta Olympics were over, I found a job at a cable television station in Florida that specializes in golf. However, in 2000, the fourth year, I criticized the company and became a free contract for the second time.