The Atlanta Braves signed high schooler Sekiguchi Shohei this week. Despite his never having pitched on the national stage (the championship tournaments that are almost as popular here as NCAA basketball March Madness is in the U.S.), and not having been signed professionally here in Japan he's probably worth taking a shot on...
Because he's 6'6"!
A student told me this yesterday, and mentioned the kid is 200 cm. tall. Being an American, centimeters and meters and kilograms and all that are just meaningless numbers to me. Sure, we briefly learned the metric system in elementary school but tradition won out. Consequently, I don't know how much I weigh or how tall I am or how to dress before I leave my apartment in the mornings.
So, ignorant and shortchanged as I am compared to the rest of the world (which uses this much more practical measurement system than we do in the U.S.), I had to do an online unit conversion to find out just how big this guy is. And I'm still astounded.
Anyway, I'm glad the Braves are adding to the flood of Japanese players into American baseball. Getting the most talented players from all over the world can only serve to improve the game overall. I just hope he can throw 157kph with some movement on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment