Ohtani’s mentor is perhaps the most interesting manager in the world

MIAMI — There aren’t many managers like Hideki Kuriyama. He performed professionally within the NPB, however to listen to him inform it, he barely escaped highschool ball.

“I wasn’t good at baseball,” Kuriyama advised MLB.com via interpreter Luke Shinoda. “So, I continued playing baseball in college and then I didn’t get drafted, obviously.”

Kuriyama really thought he was going to be a instructor and had handed his assessments at Tokyo Gakugei University to get his educating diploma, however he hadn’t given up on baseball. In love with the game and prepared to do no matter it took, he was lastly in a position to persuade the Yakult Swallows to signal him. He would play there for seven years and even win a Gold Glove.

Given that background, it is in all probability not shocking that Kuriyama’s news conferences typically really feel extra like intimate classroom settings. He is considerate, type and when the temper strikes he is fast to let a large, joyful smile overtake his options. He appears to grasp the significance of his position because the chief of the nation’s most vital ballclub, whereas nonetheless relishing in the truth that that is baseball.

When his profession ended with an damage, Kuriyama had just one path earlier than him: Wanting to remain related to the sport he cherished, he did what many ex-players do and bought concerned with sports activities media. It was whereas working in media that he first met Shohei Ohtani, the participant he would find yourself mentoring. He later managed Ohtani with the Nippon-Ham Fighters and now’s working with him once more with Team Japan. If there’s anybody who has seen Ohtani develop from precocious youth to uber-prospect to an MLB MVP, it is Ohtani’s dad and mom first and Kuriyama second.

“This is such a special moment for me, even to me, representing Team Japan — with Kuriyama coaching me as the national team manager,” Ohtani mentioned not too long ago. “My first impression with Kuriyama-san was from high school. He was a reporter and I had an interview with him and we’ve had a relationship since.”

Kuriyama is named somebody who does not comply with the sporting orthodoxy. He has embraced defensive shifts and superior analytics with the nationwide group, and he was instrumental in accepting Lars Nootbaar as the primary non-Japanese-born participant to play for Samurai Japan.

“Even those nurtured in different countries’ baseball can connect on a person-to-person level,” Kuriyama mentioned when Nootbaar was introduced on the roster in January. “They can be companions.”

It was largely because of the skipper’s affect that Ohtani turned the two-way famous person that he’s immediately. A special supervisor could not have given Ohtani the chance.

“I learned a lot through Kuriyama-san when I played for him on the Fighters,” Ohtani mentioned. “He is someone who taught me how to play well.”

That affection is returned by the skipper.

“Every time he comes back to Japan, we always talk for a long time at least once,” Kuriyama mentioned. “And then you know he has [become a star] in the game and he’s growing as a human as well. I just have the utmost respect for him as a player and as a human being.”

While Kuriyama could have began out as a sports activities reporter, the 61-year-old skipper additionally lined severe news, together with among the most impactful occasions within the nation. That contains the three/11/11 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that affected folks excess of any baseball recreation.

“Back in 2011, I was a reporter, so after the disaster, I traveled all over Japan. I saw a lot of the devastation and I felt there was nothing I could do,” Kuriyama mentioned earlier than going through the Czech Republic on the twelfth anniversary of the catastrophe final week. “Talking about baseball, if there was something to get rid of the sadness — it’s always difficult to get rid of that sadness — but if we could make it better through our baseball, that’s something I’d wish to do.”

It’s a perspective that comes with expertise.

“The most important part of having a larger perspective is trying to be a better human,” Kuriyama mentioned of his work outdoors of baseball. “It teaches you to become a better player overall, too.”

While Kuriyama’s focus is on profitable the nation’s third World Baseball Classic title — which might be two greater than some other nation — he has two different objectives for the nation in thoughts. Simply lifting a trophy is not sufficient.

“The popularity of the sport of baseball itself is declining in Japan,” Kuriyama mentioned. “So No. 1, I want that popularity to rise again. And then the second one is there are a bunch of young players that definitely could compete on the international level. I definitely want them to excel in this tournament and become the world-class stars that I believe that they should be.”