Sho Nakata of the Chunichi Dragons: “I want to end up liking baseball” – Words of a man who captivated in and out of the ballpark

I wanted to hit more and more home runs.

On August 15, sports newspapers all reported that Sho Nakata (36) of the Chunichi Dragons had decided to retire.

According to the reports, Nakata has been suffering from back pain since around ’21, and it did not fully heal this season. Therefore, he has decided to retire from active duty by August 14 and informed the baseball team. Nakata held a press conference at 1:00 p.m. and appeared in a suit. On the reason for his retirement,

About two months ago. I’ve been working day by day to survive on this first-round stage, but I can’t take a swing that I’m satisfied with. I felt that my body was not working the way I wanted it to, and I decided that I could not put the team through any more trouble,” he said.

During his 18 years of active baseball career, he won the batting title three times in ’14, ’16, and ’20, and was a five-time Best Nine Award winner (outfielder in ’13 and ’14, outfielder in ’15, ’16, ’16, and ’20, and outfielder in ’17, ’18, and ’19). He won the Best Nine awards five times (in the outfielders’ category in ’13 and ’14, and in the first baseman’s category in ’15, ’16, and ’20). He also won the Golden Glove Award five times. Still,

In the 18 years I’ve been here, I’ve probably had more things go wrong than I’d like to admit,” he said. If I had to pick one regret, it would be that I could not contribute at all to the Chunichi Dragons, the team that picked me up.

He bit his lip. Then he added, “I really wanted to hit more and more home runs,

I really wanted to hit more home runs. For me, a home run is something special. To be honest, I wanted to go around the field a lot more.

He expressed his frustration.

To be sure, his 18-year professional career may not have been smooth sailing. Still, Nakata has left baseball fans with many great scenes from his days at Osaka Toin High School.

He was a regular at Osaka Toin High School from his freshman year and helped the team advance to the top four in the summer Koshien Tournament. He hit 87 home runs in high school, the most among high school students at the time. He also hit a total of four home runs in Koshien, and was called the “Monster of the Heisei Era.

In the 2007 draft, he was selected first by four teams and joined Nippon Ham, winning the batting title for the first time in his seventh year in 2002. Since then, he has scored 100 runs or more five times, tied for the most among active players, and has supported the professional baseball world as a slugger with a strong competitive edge,” said a sports journalist.

(Sports newspaper reporter) Even outside the ballpark, he was a player who was never short of topics of conversation. His big body, blond hair, and gold necklace made him unapproachable and charming when he went out on the town at night. FRIDAY has been paying attention to Nakata since 2008, when he joined Nichi-Ham. Even on game days, he would go home in the morning after drinking deeply, play on a cruiser with 21 beautiful women, and choose perfumes for women at Naha Airport when he was a rookie. …… The most impressive of these was the sight of him enjoying a night out in Roppongi with blond hair and camouflage-patterned T-shirts.

A night in Roppongi and a blonde, strutting around in a camouflage T-shirt

A little past 11 p.m. in June ’14, several men came out of a cabaret club in Roppongi. The largest of the men was Sho Nakata. He was wearing a camouflage-patterned T-shirt and white half pants, and his blond hair dazzled in the neon lights of Roppongi.

Nakata had a VIP room reserved for about eight people and was apparently drinking tequila. I heard he was singing a love song by Shota Shimizu in a sweet voice.

The next day, he was preparing for the Yakult game, but entered a karaoke bar. He was accompanied by Kiyoshi Hashimoto, a Giants alumnus, and Haruki Nishikawa, then a Nichi-Ham player, and a hostess who seemed to be his after party also arrived on the scene. He came out at 4 am. In the end, Nakata did not have a good outing against Yakult that day, getting only one hit in six at-bats, but he did score 100 runs for the first time that year and won the batting title.

Last January, Nakata was assigned to the Chunichi Dragons, and he wrote to “FRIDAY” (February 16, 2012 issue) at a field in Oita Prefecture, where he had been training voluntarily,

I want to win with Chunichi. I want to win the championship and become the No. 1 team in Japan.

Will he be able to fulfill his wish during the remainder of the season? At the press conference, he said, “There are only a few days left in the season,

I want to win the championship and become the No. 1 player in Japan,” he said at the press conference. The team is working hard to get into the A-Class. As long as I am wearing the uniform, I want to work hard as hard as I can. I want to end the season with a love of baseball. I hope I can finish with a refreshed feeling.

Nakata’s season, which has been the center of attention both inside and outside the stadium, has only a few days left. I hope that he will end his career on a high note.