FULLERTON, California—Stanford University first baseman Rintaro Sasaki took questions from U.S. reporters without an interpreter after his team won its season opener here in mid-February.

“Yeah, I just did my job,” the Japanese slugger said easily.

After crossing the Pacific to play at Stanford about a year ago, Sasaki could barely handle everyday conversations in English.

In front of the microphones, the 19-year-old has shown he is blending in with his new surroundings.

David Esquer, Stanford’s director of baseball, also praised Sasaki for his outstanding communication skills on the field.

During the game under California’s scorching sun, Sasaki frequently checked with the pitcher on how they would cover first base.

As for his other baseball skills, Sasaki developed those in northeastern Japan.

The left-handed hitter clubbed a Japanese high school record 140 career home runs at Hanamaki Higashi High School in Iwate Prefecture.

At Stanford, the first-year first baseman bats third in the lineup.

As of March 3, Sasaki had played in 12 games, gaining a batting average of .360 with 14 RBIs.

He led the Top 25 Freshmen list of Baseball America, a U.S. media outlet, for 2025.

But his life plans go beyond baseball.

“I wish to expand my life’s potential by going full-throttle both at my studies and at baseball,” he said.

When he decided to attend Stanford, he took into account his chances of joining a major league team and his career options following his eventual retirement from the sport.

Stanford always strives to be considered a top university both academically and in sports. And only scouted players can join Stanford’s baseball team.

Sasaki’s track record in Japan allowed him to join the team on a full scholarship, which exempts him from paying tuition and dormitory fees.

“Acquiring language skills is my topmost priority,” he said.

He started learning the language by reading sports news in English.

Another thing he quickly learned was the flabbergasting size of Stanford University.

The area of the campus is equivalent to about 700 Tokyo Domes, and people use bicycles and motor scooters to get around.

At a dining hall reserved for athletes, meals are offered in buffet style.

Stanford’s baseball equipment is reputedly more advanced than those used in Triple-A, the highest level in Minor League Baseball.

Permanent cameras installed at Stanford’s ballpark are used to help analyze batting forms in practice.

Sasaki said he initially felt embarrassed by this privileged sporting environment, which evoked the atmosphere of a Major League Baseball team.

He said he realized that, apart from learning English, he needed to change his mindset.

“Nobody coaches or advises you, and nobody helps you here, unless you come forward and call for help,” Sasaki said. “But I got all my batting data when I asked (staff workers) for it. I realized I had to work up everything here on my own.”

Sasaki faces high hurdles on the academic front as well.

National Collegiate Athletic Association provisions state that student athletes must maintain certain standards academically to continue in their sports.

Most of Sasaki’s classes are in liberal arts and communications.

“I am just going at them recklessly,” he said.

Students at Stanford generally declare their majors starting in their junior years.

Sasaki said he is interested in business and management, and he respects Masayoshi Son, SoftBank Group Corp.’s chairman and CEO.

As a foreign national in the United States, Sasaki can feel a certain amount of stress while trying to adapt to the culture, including the different cuisine.

When he ordered “miso ramen” at a restaurant one day, he was served a miso soup containing tofu and noodles. It didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to the miso-flavored ramen dish known by that name in Japan.

“Oh, how disheartened I was at the time,” he said.

But such inconveniences are precisely what Sasaki has been looking for.

“It’s so much fun to pursue things that don’t work out as I wish: language, my studies and baseball,” he said. “Only when I have overcome the stress can I perhaps realize that I have developed and matured as a person.”

JAPAN VS. U.S. SYSTEMS

Stanford University played California State University, Fullerton, in the season opener. Both teams are powerhouses in NCAA Division I and have produced many major leaguers.

But the game was filled with poor batting and fielding errors. And it didn’t have the intensity or precision of typical Japanese college baseball games in the Tokyo Big 6 and the Premium Universities 22 leagues.

Japan, in fact, has won six of the last 10 sessions of the Japan-U.S. Collegiate Baseball Championship all-star series.

One difference between the college baseball cultures of both countries lies in whether a high degree of perfection is needed at this level, according to Junpei Tomonaga, an alumnus of the Waseda University baseball club.

Tomonaga is familiar with both systems, having served as an interpreter and intermediary between university officials of Japan and the United States.

Nippon Professional Baseball teams want university graduate rookies to have an immediate impact, Tomonaga said. Major League Baseball teams, by contrast, generally develop rookies over a long term in the minor leagues.

Even superstar Aaron Judge debuted in the major leagues three years after being selected by the New York Yankees in the first round of the MLB draft as the 32nd overall pick.

It is quite rare for somebody as young and skilled as Sasaki to play in U.S. college baseball after finishing high school in Japan.

He does have extraordinary power but has yet to perfect his skills in fielding and base running.

When Sasaki was deciding what to do after leaving high school, he received some advice from Yusei Kikuchi, a pitcher now with the Los Angeles Angels, who had attended the same high school.

“I was told (by Kikuchi) that players tend to be evaluated on a ‘point-addition system’ in the United States, as opposed to a ‘point-deduction system’ of Japan,” he said. “I thought (the U.S. system) would suit me better.”