By chance, I had the opportunity to participate in the voluntary training of Isamu Nomura of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
Is it because Mr. Hikaru Kusakabe, the director of Shiga High Jumps, is a senior from his time at NTT West? I don’t know much about that, but anyway, the Shiga High Jumps players also participated in the voluntary training.
I attend three times a week, usually only in the morning.
Of course, the main participants in this independent training were not the Shiga High Jumps players, but Isamu Nomura and two KBO (Korean Professional Baseball) players who had come all the way from South Korea.
We are just supporting ourselves.
Preparing the equipment before practice, setting up the net, putting the ball into the machine, and depending on the person, playing the batting pitcher or knocking.
I play first base, so when I was knocking, I got thrown to first base.
Our Shiga High Jumps players found free time and space to practice.
When I first saw Isamu Nomura play, I was really shocked.
I’m good at hitting the ball farther, so there weren’t many players on the same team who could hit the ball farther than me. So, I was a little bit of a tengu, and for better or for worse, I can take pride in that.
However, when I saw Isamu Nomura bat for the first time, all of my precious pride was destroyed. I was hitting the ball so hard that I couldn’t even compare it to the current situation. Moreover, it was January, and it was snowing and the temperature was about 3 degrees Celsius.
The ball flew out of bounds in the left-center field of the Koka Municipal Stadium, which is 100 meters from both wings and 122 meters from the center. With incredible batting speed.
At the same time, I realized that the distance I was confident about when I hit that ball was crap, but at the same time, I didn’t want to lose in terms of distance! ! I felt that feeling grow.
I can’t stand it at all now, but someday.
On defense, even when Sanyuma hits a ball that seems like a misknock, he catches up with enough time to make it look like he’s trying a little hard, and his throws are strong even if he’s in bad position. I don’t know this kind of baseball.
He caught up with the ball that looked like it was going to miss the center field and made a strong throw from there. There are people who can catch up with that ball. The shock came one after another.There are many players who I thought were good at defense, and the infield when I was with Kitakyushu Shimonoseki Phoenix seemed to be the strongest ever, but now that they’ve surpassed that, my eyes are on the line. . .
The ball he threw from shortstop was a trajectory I had never received before, and the ball was fast and growing. I was stung several times.
Is this the sense of speed of a professional? ! ! !
It’s normal for someone who was playing shortstop for Japan’s No. 1 team, but the level was so different that it felt like I was being forced out of my comfort zone.
I think my eyes lit up at every moment, whether it was when I saw the ball fly out of bounds, when I saw the aggressive defense, or when I received an extremely fast throw.
It was like a baseball boy watching professional baseball for the first time.
I think there was a young boy named Kurata who had just started playing baseball.
I wonder when I forgot that feeling.
After all, NPB players are amazing, I guess this is what it means to give them dreams.
I realized once again that I want to be the kind of baseball player that goes beyond people’s imagination and that people want to become.
I want to get better at baseball. Towards greater heights
I feel like my enthusiasm, which had been fading for some time, has returned 🔥
I was on the fence about quitting after last season, but after this experience, I’m really glad I didn’t quit there.
I am grateful that they provided an environment where I could practice on the field even though it was the off-season, and I am also very grateful that I was able to have the valuable experience of participating in voluntary training.
Thank you to Mr. Kusakabe, Mr. Isamu Nomura, and everyone else involved.
Conclusion
The number of fans who came to see Isamu even though it was a weekday, the long lines that formed at the end of practice, the number of presents, the number of media who gathered on the day when the independent training was released,
Everything was amazing. It was great to be able to see such a world up close, and I thought it would be great if Shiga High Jumps could become a team that gets that much support. Of course I want to be like that too!
To me, he’s a hero and he’s amazing, but when you talk to him, you realize that he’s just a normal human being. In other words, it’s probably because of the talent he originally had, but more than that, I feel it’s the result of the steady efforts he’s made over the years.
From the perspective of baseball boy Zouta Fujiwara, professional baseball players were special people, but as his own level rose, he began to see that ordinary people worked extremely hard to stand on that stage.
This is obvious, but I do weight training on the morning of the game, practice before the game, and then participate in the game for the full time.
If you want to be in the same world as people who spend that much time on baseball, you’ll have to put in more effort than that.
I have to try harder
“His batting is quite a puncher! Once he gets the hang of it, I feel like he can put in a back screen or something like that!”
“Did you go to the gym in the morning? That’s okay!”
“You have fast legs!”
These are the words I was especially happy to hear from Isamu during this independent training.
If I get compliments on my batting, I want to get better! If I imitate Mr. Isamu and go to the gym in the morning and train and receive praise, I will want to leave the house early every morning and become even faster! I think so.
Really simple.
But I guess I was like this when I was little, I was happy to be praised, I was happy to be recognized, so I worked harder and harder.
During this voluntary training period, I was always a baseball boy.
Kurata Fujiwara
