Oh, Meiji! !!
Tokyo Big6 Baseball League has returned to the points system with two wins from this season. It was Meiji University that won the 41st victory for the first time in 6 seasons.
As a pitcher, Minoru Makita (3rd year, Kyushu Gakuin), who was selected as the best nine, won 4 wins, and Kenichi Murata (3rd year, Kasukabe Kyoei), who was in charge of starting the second game, made a full turn of 15 games. As for hitting, short base Souyama (2nd year, Hiroryo) became the top hitter, and I am looking forward to the future more and more.
I think so because the Meiji era has produced many human resources in the professional baseball world in recent years. In last year’s draft, Yakult nominated Kazuya Maruyama, and with this, the draft nominated player was born for the 12th consecutive year from the Meiji era.
If you look at the homepage of the Meiji University baseball club, you will find a lot of names of OBs who are currently active (including not only players but also coaches and staff).
Yakult 4 people
Hanshin 6 people
Hiroshima 3 people
Chunichi 5 people
DeNA 4 people
Orix 4 people
Lotte 5 people
Rakuten 2 people
Nippon-Ham 1 person
Seibu 2 people
Looking at the alumni who are prominently active, in Hiroshima, one of the pillars of rotation, Masato Morishita (graduated in 2020) stands on the back of Carp’s backbone, and this season Takashi Uemoto (graduated in 2013) It has been working well since the opening.
Toshiki Abe (2012 graduate), who appears at the top of the batter ranking this season in Chunichi, and Yuya Yanagi (2017 graduate), who is a pitcher, won the double crown of the best ERA and the most strikeouts last season. And DeNA has Keita Sano (2018 graduate) who won the top hitter of the Central League in 2020 while joining the team with the draft 9th place nomination in 2017.
Looking at the Pacific League, Shuhei Fukuda and Sachiya Yamasaki, who were active in the Japan Series last season, are both classmates who graduated in 2015.
Hiroaki Shimauchi (graduated in 2012), who serves as Rakuten’s No. 4, became the top scorer last season, although he was 6th in the draft when he graduated. Also, I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of activity Kenta Uehara (2016 graduate), who started working on dual wield with Nippon-Ham in earnest from this season, will show in the future.
“What a hell!” Legendary leader
There are so many faces lined up like this, but when it comes to “Meiji baseball,” I can’t forget Kichiro Shimaoka.
Director Shimaoka was the person who commanded Meiji University from 1952 to 1988, and was called “Odai” by the students, and was respected and loved.
