Softbank Hawks On April 19, Yuki Yanagita outfielder opened his training session in Saiki City, Oita, Japan. He talked about his enthusiasm for his 16th year as a professional baseball player, in which 26 will be the final year of his seven-year contract. I have a sense of crisis. （If I can't make it for three years, it will be the end," the 37-year-old said with grim determination.

However, he is a veteran who boasts the highest career batting average (over 4,000 At Bat) among active players and the seventh-best in history at .312. "I'm confident I can hit if I play in a game, so I'll just try not to get injured," he said, confident that as long as he stays injury-free, he can compete with younger players. During his voluntary training, he showed lively movements, leading his juniors at Softbank Hawks, Yoshiyasu Sasakawa, Nippon-Ham-Ham Fighters' Kotaro Kiyomiya, Lotte Marines' Naonori Yasuda, DeNA's Takaki Kajiwara, and female professional golfers Hana Wakimoto and Shin Nakamura.

In the 2013 Japan Series, he batted leadoff in all five games, batting .455. In Game 5, he hit a game-tying two-run homer off Daichi Ishii, playing a key role in the team's first championship in five years. "Towards the end of the season, I batted leadoff and it felt really easy, or rather, I thought it was great. There are a lot of players like Shuto, but I want to make an impression so that we can win," he said, showing his commitment to batting leadoff. If he bats leadoff in the opening game, it will be the first time in his 16-year professional career. It's a batting batting order that also requires speed, but the slugger with 268 career home run runs said, "I don't need to run. I just need to hit home runs." "I saw an article that Kiyomiya will be batting leadoff, so I want to make an impression so that I can bat leadoff too," he said, showing his competitive spirit against his disciple from the Yanagida Academy.

He is in the S group and has been entrusted with the task of adjusting during the camp, but he has no intention of taking it easy. "If I don't hit, I won't be able to play in the game. I feel a sense of urgency that I have to hit from the very beginning," he said, looking ahead to the opening game on March 27th, intending to get off to a flying start.