That ol’ Kawamoto coach. He was a wise one. He knew when he was beat. Play the game, but don’t be played by the game. He said things like that. Protect the kids. Make em play hard, but don’t be afraid to let them save face. He was what you call a “feeling” coach. Some might say he was kind of an original in the Japanese baseball world.
Remember the time he forfeited the game in the second inning because his pitcher had thrown too many pitches? Just to protect his pitcher’s arm. The boy was tired. You should have seen the look on that boy’s face when coach sidled out to the mound. Eyes filled with fire and tears.
Sure, the boy had thrown 250 pitches, and the score was 66-0. But that ol’ Kawamoto coach…he knew when to pull the plug.
“At that pace the pitcher would have thrown around 500 pitches in four innings,” Kawamoto’s coach was quoted as saying. “There was a danger he could get injured.”
That Ol’ Kawamoto coach. His compassion knew no bounds.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Gary Garland // Apr 19, 2008 at 1:40 pm
This is hardly the first time this has happened in Japan. A number of years ago, during a prefectural high school tournament, one team beat the other 220-0. The winning team didn’t want to back off because it would have insulted its competitor (yes, that is the thinking in Japanese schoolboy baseball). The winning coach was hoping the eventual loser would forfeit, but they kept at it.
Fortunately, Japan’s High School Baseball Federation has enacted the mercy rule and you will probably never see this kind of thing again. Or so I hope.
2 simon // Apr 20, 2008 at 3:24 am
I hope.
Highschool baseball really need to set up regional leagues. Currently, teams only play official games in knockoff tournaments. So, a kid on a highschool baseball team could theoretically only play 3 official games in this entire 3 year career, even if he was a starter from year 1. That’s no way to instill in game instincts into the players. Though, the bootcamp drills every day surely helps in developing sound fundamentals (defense, defensive team work, bunting and other small ball stuff) through endless repetition.
3 Shinsano // Apr 20, 2008 at 8:27 am
This is going on in Korea as well and now that I’m going to a lot of high school games I’m seeing it in full effect. Duing my first tourney I saw a kid, “a closer,” throw three innings in relief to end a night game, and then be used as the starter in the championship game the next day. He threw the entire game, even though he was clearly tired and not very effective. He was still the “best pitcher” so the coach left him out there.
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