Striking out at a critical moment in a baseball game is something a star player would usually want to forget, especially if the batter’s team ends up with a humiliating loss.

But that helplessness at the plate in summer 2012 is one of Masaya Suzuki’s precious memories.

The called third strike was thrown by future superstar Shohei Ohtani, and it was clocked at 160 kph, shattering the speed record for high school pitchers.

“The fastball seemed to be growling, conveying his emotion to me,” Suzuki recalled of Ohtani’s heater. “It was an invaluable experience for me to watch Ohtani’s 160-kph pitch as he shifted into higher gear.”

The two players continued playing baseball after high school, but they took quite different paths.

FROM MOUND TO PLATFORM

In early September this year, Suzuki, 28, was working on a platform at JR Kashii Station in the northeastern part of Fukuoka on the southern main island of Kyushu.

Nine months had passed since he was deployed there, and he felt that he fit better in his light blue uniform.

One of his tasks was to ensure the safety of passengers by pointing at important indicators while seeing off the trains.

Around that time, Ohtani was on his way to becoming the American League home run king in the major leagues.

Suzuki reminisced about the pitching arm of the two-way star for the Los Angeles Angels.

Suzuki was the ace pitcher of Ichinoseki Gakuin High School, which played Ohtani’s Hanamaki Higashi High School in a semifinal of the qualifying round in Iwate Prefecture for the National High School Baseball Championship.

Ohtani was already drawing considerable attention from scouts both in Japan and the United States, and his team was up by seven runs in the top of the sixth inning.

Desperate for a rally, Ichinoseki Gakuin managed to get runners on first and third base with two outs.

Suzuki entered the batter’s box, spun his bat, exhaled and assumed his batting stance. He was determined to “get a hit at any cost.”

Ohtani threw nothing but fastballs, clocking 157 kph on the first pitch and 159 kph on the fourth.

Suzuki was patient and worked the count full.

“I was excited,” Suzuki recalled. “I thought the next pitch must be a fastball, too.”

Indeed, it was.

It zipped by Suzuki’s knees on the inside corner of the plate. The ball smashed into the catcher’s mitt so fast that Suzuki had no time to react, and he called out on strikes.

An electronic scoreboard flashed “160 kph.”

Suzuki went hitless in three at-bats in the game. His team lost 1-9 in the seventh inning by the mercy rule.

WISE WORDS FROM MANAGER

After graduating from high school, Suzuki joined the baseball team of Kyushu Railway Co. (JR Kyushu) in a corporate league. He saw this as a step toward playing in Nippon Professional Baseball.

“I wanted to play on the same stage as Ohtani in the future,” Suzuki said.

In autumn of his third year at JR Kyushu, Suzuki’s fastball hit 144 kph, up 7 kph from his maximum velocity in high school, and he earned a spot on the team’s starting rotation.

Just when he saw a clear path to NPB in 2016, Suzuki felt pain in his throwing arm. He was diagnosed with a medial collateral ligament injury on his left elbow.

Suzuki spent an entire year in rehabilitation. But he was unable to attain a complete recovery and could not pitch at full tilt.

Autumn 2019 marked a turning point in his life.

Suzuki took the mound in the sixth inning in the second round of the all-Japan championship for corporate teams. The score was 0-0.

The first batter slugged a home run, and Suzuki was pulled after only three pitches. JR Kyushu failed to crack the top eight in the competition.

Following the game, Suzuki told the manager, Kenji Nonaka, that he intended to leave the team.

“Continuing to play baseball seems meaningless now that I am no longer good enough to turn pro,” Suzuki said. “I will be quitting.”

Suzuki said he will never forget Nonaka’s comment made after a moment of silence.

“Becoming a professional player cannot represent all the meaning of baseball,” Suzuki quoted Nonaka as saying. “Let us play together one more time.”

Inspired by the coach’s words, Suzuki devoted himself to doing whatever he could for his team success. This approach helped him to feel at ease.

He also started throwing sidearm, with hopes of serving as a middle reliever instead of pitching an entire game as a starter.

He relied more on breaking balls than fastballs, and Nonaka brought him in for vital moments when the team needed to shut down the other team’s bats.

“He had a strong sense of responsibility as a pitcher, and I always expected something good from him,” said Nonaka, 53, looking back.

During his 10th year on the team, Suzuki thought seriously about starting a second career. He hung up his cleats last fall, and he has no regrets.

“I’m sure I will hit a brick wall in my work and life at some point,” Suzuki explained. “The experience of playing against Ohtani, as well as the connections built through baseball, will help me when that happens.”

Suzuki thought kindly of Ohtani, who underwent season-ending elbow surgery.

“He must be struggling even though he does not show it,” Suzuki said. “All I can do is just root for him as much as possible as one of his fans.”

On that September day, Suzuki checked MLB news as usual during his lunch break. He then left the station staff room with a uniform cap in his hands.

He was later seen speaking to passengers at the ticket gate.

CONFIDENCE FOR UMPIRE, TOO

Ohtani’s 160-kph pitch 11 years ago also had an impact on home plate umpire Masaaki Chida.

Chida instinctively felt the pitch would be too low after it left from Ohtani’s fingertips.

But when he checked the position of the mitt of catcher Ryuki Sasaki when the ball was caught, Chida raised his right arm and called “strike.”

At a postgame meeting of umpires to reflect on their judgments, Chida said the record-breaking pitch may have been low.

Although Chida was in his 14th year as an umpire, it was his first time behind the plate in a semifinal of a qualifying round for the national summer tournament.

Only after he returned home and watched replays on TV did Chida become certain that he made the right call.

Chida, 53, still works as an umpire and is now training juniors.

Chida clearly remembers the trajectory of Ohtani’s 160-kph fastball.

“The experience constitutes the happiest moment in my umpire life,” he said. “Judging Ohtani’s fastballs on so many occasions gave me confidence in some respect.”

(This article was written by Yuki Shibata and Kazuhiro Nagashima.)