Son of Former Lotte Pitcher Watanabe Talks Physics and Pitching After Tokyo University Admission
Mukiteru Watanabe, third-year student at the Faculty of Agriculture, is struggling in the Tokyo Six University Baseball League this fall.
The Submarine Ace of the University of Tokyo
It was a crushing blow.
On October 26, in a Tokyo Big Six University League game between Rikkyo University and the University of Tokyo, Koji Watanabe (a third-year student in the Faculty of Agriculture) was pitching with a 2-1 lead and two outs in the 9th inning. But, with one runner on base, he allowed a walk-off home run. Watanabe used this failure as motivation, writing down his reflections on his smartphone after the game.
“In other words, the fastball and slider were eliminated as options for the pitch to get the batter out.” (original text).
Watanabe has this habit of reflecting on his performances.
“I make it a habit to write long memos on my smartphone about what I noticed or what I need to improve on. Since I’m small (167 cm, 61 kg), I have to think about every play to keep up with strong hitters from other universities, many of whom have experience at Koshien.”
This fall, Watanabe has been performing well in the league, including a complete-game victory against Hosei University, where he allowed only two runs on 151 pitches. Watanabe is the son of former Chiba Lotte Marines pitcher Shunsuke Watanabe, who was known as “Mr. Submarine.” Just like his father, Watanabe pitches sidearm and is expected to be the next ace for the University of Tokyo. Let’s take a look at his intellectual approach to pitching in his own words.
Watanabe’s alma mater is Kaijo High School, a prestigious school in Shinjuku, Tokyo, that produces about 50 University of Tokyo graduates annually. However, Watanabe initially wasn’t at the level needed to pass the entrance exam.
“I was also part of the baseball team at Kaijo, but after our summer tournament in my third year, I took a mock exam for the University of Tokyo and got an E score. That was a wake-up call, so I put my smartphone away, stopped watching TV, and switched to study mode. I went back to basics, reviewing everything from the first year of high school, and by October, three months later, I had improved to a B score.”
