I Can Still Play Baseball Because I Have No Real Skills or Achievements

“I started playing baseball at a level that was just an extension of playing.”

“I’m not that skilled of a player, you know.”

This is something the man who has appeared in 388 major league games often said. He doesn’t seem to be being modest; he genuinely believes it.

Junichi Tazawa, 38, was a draft candidate who joined the Boston Red Sox in 2008 without going through Japanese professional baseball. He mainly excelled as a reliever and contributed to the team’s World Series victory in 2013. This summer, he returned to the mound for the first time in 16 years at the urban intercity baseball tournament with his former team, ENEOS. However, his career is, as he puts it, far from elite.

Tazawa, who hails from Yokohama City, started playing baseball in the third grade of elementary school. He played as a pitcher in his middle school team at a level he described as “just an extension of play.” After a standout game that caught a coach’s attention, he was invited to Yokohama Shoka Daiko High School. It was there that he first experienced adversity (the following statements are from Tazawa).

“It was incredibly tough. If you made a mistake, the coach would yell, and sometimes he would even hit us. The practice hours were extremely long. Instead of thinking about how to improve, I was focused every day on how to avoid getting yelled at.”

In the summer of his second year, he participated in the Koshien tournament, but Tazawa was a backup pitcher and did not get to pitch. In the summer of his third year, as the ace, he faced Yokohama High School, which had Hidetoshi Wakui (now with the Chunichi Dragons), in the semifinals of the Kanagawa Prefectural Tournament and suffered a significant defeat, losing 3-16.

“After the summer tournament ended, the coach would ask if I wanted to submit a declaration of professional intention. When I asked, ‘If I submit it, will I get picked?’ he shot back, ‘There’s no way that’s going to happen!'”

He considered becoming a salaryman if he didn’t receive any offers from professional teams. The only team that expressed interest in him was the new Nippon Oil ENEOS (now ENEOS).

“For the first part of my second year, I was an unnoticed pitcher. My fastball was decent, but I couldn’t throw strikes with my breaking balls.”