From favorite celebrities to legends…When he was a “Super Junior High School Student in Nerima,” Nakamasa Mannami, a key player in NIHAM’s great leap forward | FRIDAY DIGITAL

From favorite celebrities to legends…When he was a “Super Junior High School Student in Nerima,” Nakamasa Mannami, a key player in NIHAM’s great leap forward

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His batting and shoulder strength were already amazing in junior high school, and his physical ability had been outstanding since elementary school.

His swing was so great that he was destroying bats.

He said, “Even back then, as a junior high school student, the distance I hit was off the charts. He hit a number of splash hits that easily went over the 108-meter center outfield net and into the Arakawa River that runs beside the ground,” said a junior high school baseball official.

Nakamasa Mannami, 24, the young mainstay of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, lived up to the expectations of fans by hitting a dramatic tie-breaking homer in the second game of the first stage of the Climax Series (CS) against Lotte. Last season, he finally got his breakthrough, hitting 25 home runs and winning the Golden Glove Award and Best Nine awards. This season, Mannami was fixed as the No. 1 hitter from the middle of the season, and with 18 home runs and 60 runs batted in, he was the driving force behind the team’s breakthrough in the final year of his contract with manager Tsuyoshi Shinjo (52).

According to people who knew Mannami from his days with the junior high school hardball team Higashi Nerima Little Senior, his batting and strong shoulders were outstanding at the time.

His swing speed was 155 km/h, which was outstanding for a junior high school player, and the same as Sho Nakata (now of the Chunichi Dragons), who was already the mainstay of the Nichi-Ham team at the time.

One time, he borrowed a teammate’s brand-new bat and tried it out, but his swing was so strong that it dented the core of the bat. He later bought a new one and returned it to his teammate.

Mannami’s explosive shoulders and laser beam, which have now become synonymous with him, also attracted attention at the time.

He was as serious and dedicated to practice as he had been since he was a Little Senior.

Even when I let him play other sports, he was always ready to compete.

Another coach revealed the following.

In the long throw, the average distance for junior high school students is about 70 meters, but Mannami could easily throw over 100 meters. As a pitcher, he also threw a powerful fastball with a maximum speed of 138 km/h. He also did track and field in junior high school. In junior high school, Mannami also ran track and field, coming in second in the 100m steeplechase and winning the championship in the shot put at the Tokyo Metropolitan Championships. By the time I was in the third year of junior high school, I was already nearly 190 cm tall, and my physical abilities were just amazing.

Mannami was known as a “super junior high school student” among baseball people in the Kanto area because of his dynamic batting and exceptional baseball sense, but his true face was that of an ordinary boy.

He was interviewed for television on two occasions, and when he first met the celebrity Ruriko Kojima for a TV interview, he looked very happy. I usually rode a bicycle from my house in Nerima Ward to the ground on the banks of the Arakawa River, which took about 30 minutes. Sometimes his mother would drop him off and ride with him in the car. She was very family oriented, and even today I openly say that my mother is the person I look up to. I was very close with my sister, who was two years older than me, and was very happy that she came to support us when there was a big tournament. I remember that we were a very close family.

When he went on to high school, he had offers from many strong baseball schools in the Kanto area, but in the end he decided to go to Yokohama High School because of the team atmosphere and the practice environment.

Shinjo Nichi-Ham had been in last place for two consecutive years since Mannami took over, but the team has been on a roll with Mannami’s development, and in its third year, it has managed to advance to the CS in second place. Depending on Mannami’s form, it would not be a pipe dream for the team to break through to the CS and qualify for the Japan Series at the bottom of the standings.

The former members of his former baseball team are also looking forward to seeing Mannami in action.

Kenshi Sugitani, 33, a senior member of Nichi-Ham, also came from Higashi Nerima Little Senior, and we were looking forward to his success, but now that Sugitani has retired, we are all rooting for Mannami,” said a team member.

We are looking forward to seeing his performance in the post-season.

Mannami is usually friendly and cheerful, and is well-liked by his seniors.
  • Interview and text Hiroshi Tanikawa PHOTO Hiroyuki Komatsu

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