Photo/Illutration Noritsugu Komaki, manager of Kyoto International Senior High School’s baseball team, claps during the closing ceremony of the summer national tournament at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture on Aug. 23. (Takeshi Komiya)

Baseball manager Noritsugu Komaki cannot clearly recall the moment his team won the summer National High School Baseball Championship for the first time.

“It was as if time had stopped,” said Komaki, 41, after Kyoto International Senior High School clinched the title. “I was simply impressed that we accomplished such a splendid feat.”

When the final batter of Kanto Daiichi High School from Tokyo struck out swinging in the bottom of the 10th inning on Aug. 23, Kyoto International had completed a remarkable journey of overcoming humiliation, incompetence and even a language barrier.

Born in Kyoto, Komaki played second base for Kyoto Seisho High School in his first year. The team played the predecessor of Kyoto International in the first round of the Kyoto prefectural qualifier for the 81st National High School Baseball Championship.

Kyoto Seisho won 34-0.

Komaki went on to play infield at Kansai University.

After his graduation, an acquaintance asked him to give instructions to the Kyoto International team on weekends.

Many children of ethic Korean residents in Japan were enrolled in Kyoto International, and its baseball team featured several international students. At times, Komaki had to use gestures to teach the students how to play the game.

“More than half of our teammates knew almost nothing about the sport, and those players inevitably made errors when the ball was hit to them,” Komaki said. “They similarly struggled to make contact at the plate.”

But Komaki was moved by the students’ efforts to learn on the school’s cramped baseball field that measured less than 70 meters on each side.

“The students loved baseball and did their best to improve,” he said.

In 2008, when he was 24 years old, Komaki quit his job at a bank to devote himself to coaching Kyoto International.

In 2021, Kyoto International competed in the spring national championship for the first time at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture.

In the summer tournament that year, Kyoto International advanced to the final four, thanks in part to Ryudai Morishita, now a pitcher with the professional team Yokohama DeNA BayStars.

“These opportunities on the stage of Koshien helped to nurture our players,” Komaki said.

Three years later, Kyoto International became the national champion.

“What our team is today could only be realized because many students worked so hard while gritting their teeth,” he said. “I just want to say thank you so much for presenting such a wonderful summer vacation to this middle-aged man.”

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