New Piccari Pitching Method Explodes! The “Dream” and “Struggle Against Infection” Behind the Birth of “Southpaw Jiki Sano
I thought it was a gimpy back ……
‘I need to calm down a bit. Just a cup of tea, please.”
Jiki Sano, 56, who had just returned to the dugout of Jingu Stadium after his “first pitch,” first said these words in front of the press. After receiving a drink from a staff member and taking a breather, he joked, “I knew my hat was itchy.
In fact, on the same day, Mr. Sano showed off his “piccari pitching technique,” in which he flips off his hat to reveal his bald head, for the first time in a long time. And he did it with his left arm, which is not his dominant arm.
The story of how he came to pitch with his left arm and how he came to pitch with his left arm was reported in the Friday Digital article, “Former Kintetsu player Jiki Sano, whose right arm was amputated, says: ‘I’ll take the mound in December and throw strikes with my left arm! The article is as reported in the following article.
At the time of the interview, however, he was relaxed, saying, “I might throw a slider,” but instead of the strike he had predicted, the ball bounced one bounce and landed in the catcher’s mitt.

That’s why Sano reflected on his pitching , saying, “I gave myself a minus 10.
I had been training hard, and I was able to take a lot of steps, and I could reach it from the mound,” he said. But my goal was to throw strikes, and when I thought about that, I realized I hadn’t done that at all. ……
In fact, on November 14, he uploaded a video on SNS showing him throwing a speedball with his left. When interviewed by Friday Digital shortly afterward, Sano was in a great mood.
The salesman was gutted once he found out the Kintetsu Nine had boarded the green car because they were so excited about drinking all the alcohol on the bullet train during the Shin-Osaka-Tokyo leg of the trip.
The team had their hotel buy up the beer, whiskey, and other alcohol that arrived at the campsite.
However, less than two weeks later, Mr. Sano found himself in a major crisis.
When he sneezed, he suffered severe pain in his lower back and became bedridden. I couldn’t even go to the hospital for dialysis, so I had to call an ambulance. He thought it was a back injury, but two bacterial infections were found in his lower back. The pain did not go away, and in December, he decided to have surgery,” said an acquaintance of Sano’s.
Instead of being able to pitch, he was bedridden.