CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Rintaro Sasaki didn’t so much choose baseball as it chose him: Born to a legendary high school coach in Japan, gifted with a massive frame that generates prodigious power, and eventually addicted to the game like he was just another diamond junkie from Florida or Texas or California.
Yet as Sasaki passes the one-year anniversary of his arrival in the USA, perhaps his greatest trait is emerging in a game that demands, above all, a resolute response to challenges.
As Sasaki navigates his freshman season at Stanford, a pattern is emerging about a young man who seems determined to leave his comfort zone, to embrace the difficult and solve for the best way around an obstacle, with the confidence to know he’ll eventually arrive at his destination.
The most celebrated player on the traditionally powerful Cardinal is determined to fit in. He has no interpreter by his side, instead chipping away day by day, month by month at a language barrier that grows smaller with time. That growth can be felt with every sentence he speaks, his youthful exuberance wanting to the pour the words out even as his mind races to find the right ones.
It is no different in his vocation as a ballplayer, where the left-handed slugger unflinchingly embraces the role of a young star with the potential to disrupt baseball’s global ecosystem.
Sasaki, 19, is aiming to become the first player in Japan to forego the pro draft, play collegiately in the U.S. and then launch a professional career through Major League Baseball’s draft – for which he’ll be eligible in 2026.
It is a move that toes the line between wise and audacious, given that, in a best-case scenario, he’d be a first-round pick and recipient of a seven-figure bonus shortly after his 21st birthday.
It’s also a mild subversion of agreements both official and gentlemanly between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball, which are designed to prevent an utter harvesting of Asian talent and keep players with their NPB clubs at least a few seasons before testing their talent against the very best on the globe.
Yet as Sasaki put the finishing touches on a prep career that saw him hit a national record 140 home runs, his father Hiroshi, the legendary coach at Hanamaki Higashi High School, sat down to plot the best path forward.
Hiroshi Sasaki was the high school coach for both the great Shohei Ohtani as well as Los Angeles Angels left-hander Yusei Kikuchi. Both were posted by their NPB clubs and took the two traditional routes to MLB – Ohtani as an international free agent younger than 25 who was subject to a capped signing bonus, and Kikuchi as a veteran free to sign with the highest bidder.
As Hiroshi sat his son down on the precipice of adulthood, another path emerged: Go to the USA. Play for a baseball power and get an exceptional education, perhaps at Vanderbilt or UCLA. Leverage the power in his 6-feet, 270-pound frame and pierce the scouts’ ears with loud noises off his aluminum bat.
Sasaki listened and eventually settled on Stanford. The move meant leaving family behind and depriving his countrymen an up-close ...
