Giant’s Sakamoto’s Photo of Betrayal and Melodramatic Photo with “The Beauty of the Gymnastics World”
They look happy, smiling and perfectly positioned against each other’s cheeks. The man is Hayato Sakamoto of the Giants. The woman is Rie Tanaka, a former gymnast who was called the “fairy of the gymnastics world.” This photo was reported by “FRIDAY” in March 2014. There is a reason why we republished this photo from eight years ago.
An article in Bunshun Online published on September 10 is causing a stir. According to the article, Sakamoto had continuous physical relations with a woman in her 20s, often demanding extreme play and sexual intercourse without contraceptives. When the women told him they were pregnant, he would say, “If you’re going to take me down, the sooner the better, right?” The aftermath of the scandal has yet to be resolved.
“Sakamoto continued to appear in games even after the scandal broke. However, when Sakamoto took the mound against Hanshin on September 17, the audience booed. At this point, the Giants have not announced any punishment for Sakamoto, but on September 19, there were reports that he may be traded despite being in the middle of a five-year contract,” said a sports journalist.
This is not the first time Sakamoto has been accused by a woman with whom he had a physical relationship or someone related to her. “FRIDAY” has reported Sakamoto’s problems with women many times.
Sakamoto has been reported by “FRIDAY” on a number of occasions to have had problems with women. He has a sweet mask, but he’s an orahora type. I asked her to use contraception, but she kept inserting herself into me, and when I asked her to please let me out, she replied in an irritated voice, ‘Of course I have to! He replied in an irritated voice, “Of course!
In February 2003, Yumi (a pseudonym), a cabaret club girl in Miyazaki City, where the Giants’ training camp is located, confessed to “FRIDAY. She was summoned to the hotel where she was staying by Sakamoto, who had come to the bar to drink, and confessed that she was forced to engage in sexual intercourse without contraceptives, as described above.
In fact, the period when Sakamoto was having relations with Yumi coincided with the period when she was dating Tanaka.
Sakamoto and Tanaka, both from the Kansai region, hit it off and reportedly began dating around the end of 2001. At one point, it was said that their marriage was a “second-guessing” affair, but the relationship soon broke up. The reason for the breakup is not clear, but Sakamoto’s problems with women, which had been reported many times, were not unrelated to the breakup. I thought that Sakamoto might have changed his mind a little after the breakup with Tanaka, but the latest scandal has shown that his “views on women” have not changed at all.
Sakamoto has long been the face of the Giants, leading the team to 2000 hits at the young age of 31. However, he has been out of the lineup several times this season due to repeated breakdowns, and he is definitely approaching a turning point as a player. Will Sakamoto ever be able to put the scandal behind him and reflect on himself?
Photographed by: Shu Nishihara, Takahiro Kagawa