"That's it for today!" A familiar voice rang out from the field!
"Good work!"
"It's over!"
After the young players left, either with their parents or on their own, Sendou's figure became conspicuous.
"Do you need something? If not, I'm meeting someone later. If you're here to look around, could you come back another day?" Coach Nakanishi said.
"O-san, have I changed that much?"
"Akila? You're Sendou Akira?"
"What's with that expression, O-san?"
"What change? You're practically a different person! If I hadn't recognized your voice, I wouldn't have known it was you! How tall are you? 175? No, even taller than that, right? It's unbelievable that you're only twelve. And that hairstyle—haha, you're exactly like Sendou from a manga!?"
"Sorry. Even though we kept in touch often, I didn't expect it would be three years before we met again."
"Don't apologize, Akila! You haven't done anything that needs apologizing for. You still haven't answered me—how tall are you?"
"178 centimeters. I've grown a lot over the past few years."
"Have you been following those training menus?"
"I have! Every day! My body is still as flexible as a child's, all thanks to those menus."
"That's good. Those menus will keep your body from becoming fixed as you grow older. Whatever sport you want to pursue, your future won't be ruined because someone tells you your body has already set."
"I know, O-san!"
"Have you been eating regularly?"
"Two meals!"
"I knew it. You wouldn't eat properly during school breaks!"
"Yeah!"
The conversation was simple, ordinary, and warm, yet it revealed Coach Nakanishi's heartfelt joy. To Coach Nakanishi, who had only one daughter, Sendou was both a disciple and something like a son.
"All right, come in! There's no one inside now!"
"Yeah!"
"How's your team doing so far?"
"It's fun! And they're terrible!" Sendou smiled faintly.
"I see. That's really great!"
"Probably! Hey!" Sendou understood what Coach Nakanishi meant and answered.
"What do you think a student baseball team needs? What do you think a coach can bring them?"
"Professional training? Or winning games?" Sendou answered tentatively, but Coach Nakanishi only shook his head.
"Akila, the most important thing in student baseball is letting the players fully enjoy the game—enjoying tactics, baserunning, batting, defense, and the joy brought by the entire process of playing. Winning or losing—that's baseball!"
"The Wildcats too?"
"The Wildcats too! I know what you want to say. How can they enjoy it with so many complicated tactics, right?" Coach Nakanishi smiled slightly and explained patiently.
"How do you know the players aren't enjoying the game? You should know that most of the time, I let the players think for themselves.
They think for themselves about how to respond. The players trust one another and work together—every at-bat, every defensive play, every run, every bit of coordination.
Every success, every time their judgment based on the situation pays off, brings the players joy. That makes them enjoy thinking even more and enjoy the game itself. Against opponents stronger than themselves, in a crisis, or against enemies they cannot defeat head-on, they enjoy using their minds, working as a team, and the joy of victory. That's what the Wildcats are!
A coach's role is to develop the players, guide them onto paths that suit them, and help them in times of crisis."
"I'm not asking you to understand. You're special! You can only find your own path yourself."
"Thank you, O-san!"
"All right, if there's anything you want to ask, hurry up and ask! First, tell me the details of your team!"
"I see. This team really is a lot of fun! And your idea isn't bad either. Small-ball tactics focused on coordination with runners on base? It really suits a team like yours. So what kind of training have you arranged for them?"
"Their fundamentals are poor, so I've been putting them through intensive training..." Sendou then told Coach Nakanishi about the training from the past few months.
"Your thinking is right, but you're pursuing perfection too much. It's good that the players like practicing, but boring, repetitive drills make it hard to stay motivated.
"You should start having them practice together as soon as possible. You can try playing some Practice Matches. Winning and losing don't matter. Baseball is only fun when you're playing games.
"And the part you mentioned about teaching every player to judge balls and strikes, never swinging at bad pitches—that needs to start early too. I can help with that.
"Just in time, the sixth-graders have retired, and I'm about to start a new team here. During Pitching Practice, having someone in the Batter's Box—even practicing in a real-game environment—will make the training more effective. In a couple of days, you can bring them here to serve as temporary batters and runners. They can judge balls and strikes by seeing actual pitches thrown by real people, and the training effect will be excellent.
"We can also arrange for our pitchers to face them in proper matchups. What do you think?"
"Wouldn't that interfere with your training?"
"I told you already, our new team is made up of fourth- and fifth-graders, and we don't have many substitutes either. Having your team here will improve their training too!"
"Yeah!"
"Also, you can have them use the training menus I gave you back then. Baserunning needs explosive power too. Since you're going to use this kind of tactic, explosive-power training is indispensable."
"I completely forgot about that!"
"Those are all the suggestions I can think of for now. Don't rush. There's still plenty of time!"
"I understand!"
"O-san!"
"Yeah?"
"I heard that during the years when the people who were on the same team as me were there, things were pretty tough."
"Who told you that? Sasaki, that guy!"
"You're still in touch with him?"
"Occasionally! We haven't contacted each other much these past few years. There have been a lot of things going on, and he's been training hard too, that guy!"
"I see! That's right, there were quite a few exceptionally talented kids in the Kanto region during those years. They couldn't compare to you, but they were still incredible players. Our team's lineup was only so-so. Besides Sasaki-kun, Ichiro had a lot of talent and potential, but I couldn't say the others were especially gifted. Winning was difficult! We nearly got taken out several times."
"I see. But you still won in the end. That's really amazing, O-san!"
"My luck really is terrible. I'm such a great coach, yet no geniuses ever come to me."
"No, quite the opposite. I think my luck during those years was truly excellent."
"Didn't you say there weren't any particularly talented kids?"
"So don't say later that Sendou never ran into anyone from a West Tokyo powerhouse who came from the Wildcats and had once been his teammate, or ask why no one recognized Sendou. Even though they were the Kanto Champions in youth baseball, none of Sendou's teammates entered a West Tokyo powerhouse. That kind of talk gets poisonous, okay."
"Because you suddenly emerged in the Wildcats, and I discovered you! Although geniuses appeared one after another during those years, you weren't even in the same dimension as them."
"But I was only with the Wildcats for one month!"
"That was enough!"
"Whatever you say. I'm heading back!"
"When you think their training is coming along, contact me and bring them over!"
"Yeah!" Sendou turned and prepared to leave, answering without looking back.
"Also, I can introduce you to opponents for Practice Matches! I may only be a youth baseball coach, but I have plenty of connections at middle school level too!"
"You're so noisy!"
"Hahaha!"
Speaking of yesterday's state, sigh... There was something I especially couldn't accept back then. Every time I thought of it, it hurt to the core. I couldn't say whether I was angry at my past self or simply unwilling to accept it. In any case, the blow to my once-confident self was huge. So, I'm sorry. Finally, the usual request for bookmarks and recommendation votes.
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