sAoki Sasaki was only nine years old when a devastating earthquake and tsunami struck the eastern coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, severely damaging the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, and destroying his home in Rikuzentakata.
His father and grandparents were killed by the tsunami and he had to live for some time with his mother and two brothers in a nursing home before moving to nearby Ofunato, where he played baseball.
The rest of his story is more like a Hollywood movie. His quality was such that he even broke the Japanese high school fastball record set by a major league player Shuhei Ohtani At a speed of 163 kilometers per hour.
This achievement earned him the nickname “The Reiwa Monster” and attracted the attention of professional teams, both Japanese and American. So much so that, at just 19 years old, on May 16, 2021, he made his debut in Japan Professional Baseball League (NPB)The second largest company in the world after Major League Baseball (MLB).
Less than a year later, he became a Japanese baseball legend after posting a perfect game, his first in 28 years. For ordinary baseball folk, the ideal game is one in which the bowler achieves victory by throwing nine or more runs without letting the hitter hit, i.e. no hitting, no walking, no hitting the base, and no hitting the hitter.
