Kuwata and Kiyohara’s Legacy Ignites Revival: PL Gakuen High School Baseball Returns
The new member is currently a first-year student and was a member of the basketball team in junior high school. Although they have no experience in baseball, they are practicing on the field with dreams of the hardball team playing as they did in the past.
Yuichi Kawakami, vice principal of PL Gakuen, who served as director of the baseball team from 2016 until the team’s suspension, said, “The current club members are all first-year students. He expressed his wish to join the hardball team, and the school decided to support him by allowing him to join the team after confirming his wish with the faculty. I knock on the baseball team’s field for the students, and we practice together with the softball team.”
Joint practice with the softball team
The school’s softball team is also strong, having represented Osaka in the national tournament in 2017. Although the number of members has been reduced to less than nine, the team can practice jointly with the hardball team, only using a different ball. The fact that the PL Baseball Club has accepted the members of the hardball team is a revival of the PL Baseball Club.
“The PL Baseball Club has been officially reinstated as a school club, but with only one member. However, since there is only one member, the club has not yet been registered with the Osaka Prefecture High School Baseball Federation. If more people want to join the baseball club and we are able to play games in the future, we will re-register with the Federation so that we will be able to play in official games. There are other clubs besides the baseball club that have been suspended, but our policy is the same: if there are students who want to play in the club, we will respect their wishes and reinstate the club.”
For high school baseball fans of yesteryear, the revival of the prestigious PL is good news. However, some believe that the future is not so bright.
PL Gakuen is an integrated junior high and high school, and students must be members of the church. The current number of students in the high school is about 50 to 60, and unless the population increases, the number of applicants for the baseball team will not increase. In addition, good baseball players will be invited by strong schools to go there, so how many members will be attracted to the club? The barriers to PL Gakuen winning the fierce competition in Osaka and making another appearance in the Koshien Tournament will be quite high.
The school’s baseball team was once known as the PL of Reversal for its many miracles. We hope that the PL baseball team will overcome adversity and achieve glory at the Koshien again.
