Yamakawa Hotaka Exclusive confession: “Awakening in the Japan Series began by copying Hanshin’s Teruaki Sato”.

The “thing” he was looking for was right under his feet.

Of course, I was happy to receive the MVP award, but the most important thing is that we became the number one team in Japan. I have won four championships in my career, but when I was a member of the Seibu team, we were eliminated in the CS. The year before last, we lost in the Japan Series. I finally got my wish. It was a really tough season, so I think the baseball gods gave me a reward at the end.”

In the Japan Series in 1925, when SoftBank’s Hotaka Yamakawa (34) clashed with the Central League champion Hanshin, he exploded with three home runs, seven runs batted in, and a .385 batting average, his third straight game with the bat. He won the MVP award for the series, but he struggled the rest of the season with a .226 batting average, 23 runs scored, and 62 runs batted in, finishing the season without a crown.

He had pain in some part of his body throughout the season, and he had to change his form each time. When my side injury healed, my Achilles tendon would hurt again. The best thing is to be in perfect condition to play in the games, but it is the duty of regular players to heal while playing in the games even if they have injuries. It was a year in which that did not go well. I had to reduce the amount of practice due to the pain, and I couldn’t find my “ideal form”–that’s all there is to it.

The ideal form changes every year. I look for it every year, and sometimes I find it as early as two or three days after the start of the season. There have been three seasons in which I have hit more than 40 home runs, and in each case, I found my ideal form early on.

In 2012, when I won the double crown, it was in August. I thought, “I can do this! Here it comes! Once you find the form that says, “I can do this,” there comes a period of time when you can mass-produce home runs for a while. Even if my hitting is a little off, I can correct it because I have a base, but last year, I couldn’t build a base until the very end.

What happens when you don’t have a base? I have to bat with a different form every time. I go to bat with uncertainty. It’s a problem before fighting the pitcher. You’re fighting yourself, or …… it was really painful.”

Based on his many years of experience, Yamakawa analyzes, “When things go well, I have an ideal form and base that I know I can use, and the results often come with it. It was in an unexpected place that he found what he had been looking for, something he had been unable to find until the end of the season.

In the first game of the Japan Series, which we lost to the Hanshin Tigers, I was on the bench because I was not a starter. I was watching Teruaki Sato (26) of the Tigers from there. I wasn’t watching him bat, I was watching him swing. Then I noticed the way he used his feet. Somehow, it looked like his center of gravity was on his heels. At that moment, it hit me. I had a flash of inspiration. Let’s give it a try.

So in hitting practice before the second game, I raised my right toe and put my center of gravity extremely low on my heel. It was the first time in my baseball career that I tried that. It was completely an idea. Then, I said to myself, “Isn’t this the best practice I’ve done since I came to the Hawks? The pitches flew so fast that I said, “This is the best since I came to the Hawks. The distance was so great that it flew in all directions: right, center, and left.

I tried it out, and I got a hit in the first at-bat.

The first time I tried it, I hit a huge two-base hit to right-center field, and I was convinced that it was a sure thing. I was convinced. And the second one was a home run. I was excited to have found my ideal form, and I was relieved that I could …… ‘get it into shape.’ The MVP hitting technique was actually an imitation of Sato’s.”

The happiest at bat last year

I found, or rather reconfirmed, one more thing during the Japan Series. I realized how important it is to have a stable mind. I get signs for end-runs and base-running, but I am basically allowed to hit freely at bat. So in the Japan Series, I tried not to be “jittery.

As I mentioned earlier, I was anxious about batting throughout the season, so I made it a point to “play with dignity and composure in the Series. I would stretch and get up very carefully. I even drank my coffee slowly. In the process, I made a discovery.

In Game 5 of the Japan Series, the Hawks were behind by two runs when they tied the game with a single shot. On the mound was Masataka Oikawa, 24, a relief pitcher for the Tigers. There was a runner on, so Oikawa gave a check to the pitcher once. Then, I was at bat, and I heard a tremendous outcry. The stage was completely away from home, in Koshien, so they were not cheering, but shouting, “Hold him down! Yamakawa, please don’t bat again! Everyone didn’t like me.

I was so concentrated at bat that I could only hear the shouts, but the air, smells, and sounds were something only I could experience. I remembered at bat that this was the real thrill of being No. 4. It was a feeling I never had during the season, a feeling I could never experience if I was so nervous at bat. As a result, I was able to hold him to a good hit, a center liner, but that at-bat was the happiest and most enjoyable of the last year.”

We are in a fairy tale.

Last season, Yamakawa said, “I tried 1,000 times to learn a new form. He started training one day after the Japan Series ended in order to put the ideal form he had finally found into his body. He turned down a trip to Hawaii to win the championship, and instead rented out a ballpark in Fukuoka Prefecture until mid-February, where he has been working hard on his own training. He has been a “practice bug” since his days at Seibu, arriving at the ballpark earlier than anyone else.

He has learned how to hit with the center of gravity on his heels. This is a good time of year to solidify one thing. I also want to train my body one more time. I am also working on weight restriction. This is to build a body that will not get injured.

But if you ask me if I can hit this year with this, I would say no. I would just say, ‘It’s better than nothing. It is better than nothing. There have been many times when I decided to go with this form and made a huge mistake. It is entirely possible that I will be using a completely different form when the season starts. It’s a tough world, isn’t it?

There are players who inspire themselves to go to bat, but it didn’t suit me. When I was a pro, I thought, “In a game, skill wins. The better player wins. It is practice that makes you better. Sometimes technique can be honed in a match, but basically I believe that the accumulation of practice will move me in a match.

But, you know, I don’t feel like I’m making an effort at all. I only do it as a part of play. It is work, but it is play. I’ve hit a lot of walls because I’ve practiced a lot, but it’s fun and interesting to be able to get good at it.

I get paid, but I don’t do it for the money. I can’t forget that moment when I hit a home run. I want to be praised and pleased by everyone. The joy of hitting it is too much stronger than the fact that I didn’t hit it, so all I can think about is, ‘How will I hit it next time?

Looking back on the days gone by, there were many difficult and painful times. There were times when I thought about quitting baseball. But as a result, I only think, ‘That was fun. I am sure that what will happen in the future will be the same. Last season was painful, but it was just as much fun. It was like being in a high school club, like coming of age.

When I won the home run king, I thought, “Who else but me could win that? But the next year, I suddenly can’t hit any more. I guess I don’t get tired of it because there is no easy answer. I am sure that the answer will not be given until the very end. That’s why it’s interesting. I kind of feel like I’m in a dream, in a fairy tale.”

From the January 23, 2026 issue of FRIDAY