Nippon-Ham of Hiromi Ito pitcher greeted the players before they joined Samurai Japan on March 12.

Before practice began, he stood in front of the nine players in a huddle with Kitayama. "First, we want to become world champions, and then we want to win the league and become number one in Japan, so we talked about that," he said.

Afterwards, Narama said, "Oumi-san will be nervous from tomorrow, so let's have fun today!" This was meant to tease Ito, who is not good at communicating in new environments, but Ito smiled and said, "I think he (Narama) is probably that type of person too, so I think he understood how I felt."

I think we must not forget that we will represent the The Fighters in the battle at Samurai Japan, and as in the last time, I think the baseball world will be more exciting after the WBC, or rather, it will attract a lot of attention, so I hope we can make it a season where The Fighters can jack the fans of the Japanese baseball world this year." I was enthusiastic.