Meaningful baseball already started with Tokyo Dome hosting a two-game series involving the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners. The first event in Japan excluding University and other leagues is Spring Koshien, where 32 schools are invited to play.
Spring Koshien is where Shohei Ohtani's career in high school was short lived as he lost to a loaded Osaka Toin team in the first round. There is also the twist of 21st Century schools given an opportunity to play as three of them are part of the field.
Here are the schools with a Lions connection on the current roster:
Toin Gakuen (Kanagawa): Hiromasa Saito and Kakeru Yamanobe
Saito was taken by the Lions out of college in the first round of 2017. In high school, he opposed Yuki Matsui of the Rakuten Eagles in the prefecture tournaments. Last season, he got a glimpsed of ichi-gun baseball in the second half as a reliever while making one spot start. He is expected to big a key contributor for the future, whether it's starting or pitching out of the bullpen.
Yamanobe was the Lions third round draft pick in 2018 and was a shakaijin. He also attended Oberlin University, where Chiba Lotte Marines pitcher Chihaya Sasaki was his teammate. Both Saito and Yamanobe were teammates in high school too, though they took different paths after University.
For 2019, Yamanobe is expected to help the Lions infield at second base and hopes to earn regular starting time.
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This is a year where Osaka Toin was not invited, but other legendary high schools like Yokohama HS and Riseisha are part of the field. The first games will begin on 3/23, or the evening of 3/22 in stateside time. Enjoy!
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