Nippon-Ham infielder Akihiro Wakabayashi, who will retire at the end of this season, played in his "retirement game" against the Eastern League Yakult Swallows (Kamagaya) on the 28th.
starting line-up started as the third batter and third baseman. catch a foul fly ball in the first defense, and then, with two outs, he hit a fastball from Numata and hit triple that hit the right-center wall fence. He was replaced by a pinch runner and returned to the bench to loud applause.
Many people came to watch the game, including his parents, his senior at Toin Gakuen, Yoshinobu Takahashi, who played for The Giants as both a manager and player, and former The Giants player Takayuki Kajitani.
Keizaburo Tsuchiya, the current head coach of Seisa Shonan High School and former head coach of Toin Gakuen High School, was also in attendance. Wakabayashi's father, Kenichi, a former professional baseball player for Taiyo, and head coach Tsuchiya were born in 1953, the same year, and witnessed his final hit.
Coach Tsuchiya met with Wakabayashi before the game and offered words of encouragement, saying, "I think you've done a great job following in the footsteps of your father, who was a professional baseball player."
Wakabayashi is from Nakano Ward, Tokyo. After attending Toin Gakuen, Hosei University, and JX-ENEOS, he joined The Giants as the sixth pick in the 2017 draft. He contributed to the team's consecutive league championships in 2019 and 2020, and was traded to Nippon-Ham last year. His professional stats in the first team were 163 hit, a batting average of .228, 12 Home Run, and 59 RBI in 335 games. He was a valuable player who could play both infield and outfield.
Related News
・ [Nippon-Ham] Akihiro Wakabayashi hit triple that hit wall in right-center field in his retirement game. Fans also held up towels from his time with The Giants
・ [Nippon-Ham] Akihiro Wakabayashi received a bouquet of flowers of gratitude from The Giants players Sakamoto, Nagano, Kobayashi, Maru and others at his retirement press conference
・ [Nippon-Ham] Akihiro Wakabayashi, in tears at retirement press conference, said, "Manager Hara's way of using me made the most of me" - contributing to The Giants' victory in the 2019 and 2020 leagues
・ [Nippon-Ham] Reyes out of starting line-up due to heel pain... Manager Shinjo: "It was just one leg (until now), but now it's both legs."
・ [Nippon-Ham] Chusei Mannami removed from the roster due to back pain, manager Shinjo explained, "It's been painful even to move my back since about three days ago..."
