If you haven’t yet read the article, I advise you to do so immediately. Tom Verducci, long considered (at least by me) as the best baseball writer out there, does it again profiling our Japanese superstar. I’ll leave most of the reading to be done on their site, but here are a few highlights that will make you think even more highly of Daisuke, if that’s at all possible.

• The Japanese word is doryoku - meaning unflagging effort. This philosophy gets Daisuke throwing more than any normal pitcher would ever dream. Note the high school baseball tournament that made him famous: He threw nine innings, then nine innings, then 17 innings, then came in and closed a game (one inning), took a day off, and then throw a no-hitter in the 17-inning championship game. Not bad, eh ?
• He is strong, even though he looks fat. His MRI showed no minor damage in his arm, even after throwing that much. Instead of bench pressing as much as possible, he’s fine tuning his delivery and working the small muscles - those that help you perform on the field rather than make you look good doing it.
• The only negative revelation is that he has to pitch more often here. He pitched once every 7 days in Japan - he will have to pitch once every 5 days here. But I’m pretty sure he has proven it will work out.

Check out the article on the Sports Illustrated Web Site, its worth the read. You will be amazed, I promise you.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 11:01 am and is filed under General Postings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.