April 4 at 27:18
When I was a child, my dream was not to be a professional baseball player, but to be a "Carp player."
Having fulfilled his dream, the man is back again as a commander.
"Be a strong, straight-growing wheat, whether it is touched or not."
These are the words that the man has engraved in his heart and used as support.
Then, before the opening match, I told the players and sent them off to the field.
"I think there are good times and bad times, and in difficult times, let's join hands, work together, and work together to move forward,"
said Takahiro Arai, manager of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, a professional baseball team that has always looked forward and overcame many obstacles.
(Hiroshima Broadcasting Station Reporter Yu Yokoyama)
A light that shines on your team
March 2023, 3 in the afternoon.
Two days before the start of the Central League. I was waiting for coach ARAI Takahiro in the stands at Mazda Stadium.
From the pleasant deep blue sky, the gentle spring sun was pouring down. After the practice, the big coach Arai came.
"Nice to meet you,"
the smile on her face on this day is the same as usual.
We have been working closely with Arai through four independent interviews for about six months since October 29, 2, when Director Arai took office.
There are things that you can notice immediately when you stare at Director Arai. Director Arai is always close to people. And people gather around.
Their cheerful expressions always relieve tension around them.
We, the reporters, have always been helped.
With the season just before the start of the season, we asked him about his enthusiasm for his first season as a coach.
The meek expression tightened.
Coach
ARAI Takahiro: "In times of adversity, I always have to be a light that shines on everyone. I am 100% confident that I can do my best with everyone. I feel like I can do anything for the Carp and I can put up with it."
It was the determination that Coach Arai showed as a leader.
The origin is "like wheat"
Born in Hiroshima in 1977 and raised in Hiroshima, Arai was a Carp fan at heart.
The former Hiroshima Municipal Stadium was within a short distance of my home.
Koji Yamamoto, Yoshio Kinugasa, Manabu Kitabeppu who play there...
My dream at this time was...
It was to be a Carp player, not a professional baseball player.
For the Arai boy, who loves baseball and has a hero around him, this thought was inevitable.
My homeroom teacher at elementary school, Mr. Fo Enkoshu, remembers those days well.
"He was a boy who loved Carp, he had a big body, and his very existence illuminated people brightly, and he was like the sun in class."
Around that time, Arai came across works that would affect his later life.
Cartoon. "Hadashi no Gen".
It tells the story of Gen, an elementary school student who lost his family due to a single atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima City, and survives the chaotic postwar period strongly.
One of these passages impressed the Arai boy.
These are words that Gen was told by his father before he died in the atomic bombing.
"Be a strong, straight-growing wheat," Gen remembered these words every time he was about to be discouraged,
and kept looking forward.
Director Arai re-read the film over and over again.
Director
Takahiro Arai: "I was scared when I first read it, but I felt that I should not look away. That feeling has been ingrained in me since I was a child."
Don't lose even if you hit a wall
Looking back, Coach Arai's baseball career was full of hardships.
In 1999, he joined the team from Komazawa University as the sixth overall draft pick.
The ranking at the time of joining the club is not a fortunate one.
It wasn't that the expectations of those around me were high.
From early morning until late at night, my uniform was covered in mud and I was eaten into the professional world. We made a lot of errors in the match. Strikeouts too... We also received many harsh comments from the leaders.
Still, in his fifth year as a professional, he was selected as No. 5. After that, he was crowned the home run king.
In 2008, at the height of his career, he moved to Hanshin. At the match in Hiroshima, I was also heavily booed.
He became the RBI leader at Hanshin, but in his late 30s, his opportunities to play decreased and he became a free agent.
When I came back to the Carp, I worked with the younger players to become a regular player again. As the core of the team, he contributed to three consecutive victories.
Coach
ARAI Takahiro: "There was always a wall in front of me that was bigger than what I had. Each time, I was inspired to say, "I'll never lose," or "It's not good anymore, it's not good yet." I've overcome it many times. I've never enjoyed baseball, and it's always been a struggle."
"Be strong and straight
," I thought back to the words that were engraved in my heart every time I hit
the wall.
Team is "family"
"Family"
results in all professional baseball worlds. As fierce competition is required even within the team, this is the keyword that coach Arai uses when expressing himself when leading the team.
Last November. Autumn camp held in Nichinan City, Miyazaki Prefecture.
Coach Arai, who came to the training session for the first time as a coach, spoke to the players.
Director Takahiro Arai
: "I think of you as a 'family' in a big house called Carp, because everyone likes it. They don't use or interact with each other based on their likes or dislikes. Let's do our best in friendly competition in the house called Carp."
The idea of "family" was evident in the way he interacted with the players.
It was spring camp.
In his sixth year, he surpassed 6-year-old pitcher Rei Fujii to the first team.
However, I couldn't pitch as much as I wanted in the practice against batters, so I had to go to the second team in the middle of the third round.
On that day, Coach Arai went to the training ground of the two teams.
I watched Fujii's throwing practice closely, putting my hands on his back as he spoke.
"We have to get stronger and bigger from now on, let's train one more time with two teams"
It was the end of the camp. There was a player who spent the longest time during free batting, enthusiastically tutoring with body and hand gestures.
In his fourth year, 23-year-old Koki Ukusa is a player.
His batting was conspicuous because he was looking for results, and he was not able to show his punching ability. The advice lasted for nearly 1 minutes.
Ugusa, who almost completed the camp with the first team, was selected to make adjustments with the second team on the last day of the camp.
"I've been watching you, and I won't abandon you."
No one is missing as a "family."
It was Coach Arai's "affinity" for facing the players and caring for them.
Focus on the strengths
I can see that compassion in the coaching of the players.
In his sixth year, 6-year-old pitcher Atsushi Endo was practicing pitching in the bullpen. Endo is a talented pitcher who won four games last year. It was sluggish.
On this day, I practiced throwing low, which is considered an iron rule in baseball, but I couldn't control it. I was about to finish practice with a hazy look on my face.
Coach Arai, who had been watching the practice closely, finally spoke to me.
"Endo, can you throw three more straight pitches?
High balls are generally avoided by pitchers because they tend to lead to long hits. It was an unexpected request, but Endo threw three powerful straight pitches.
Coach Arai, who watched the pitch, nodded repeatedly. And I approached Endo pitcher.
Coach
ARAI Takahiro: "Your good ball is a straight ball that is sharper than its speed, and batters really hate it when they throw a good straight high. I think it's okay to pursue the ideal of throwing low, but I think there is a gap between your ideal and what batters don't like. Wouldn't it be easier if you thought about it that way?"
Coach Arai also paid attention to the veteran players.
10th-year infielder Kosuke Tanaka (33). In the past, as a steadfast short, he was the driving force behind the league's third consecutive league title from 2016.
However, he underwent surgery on his right knee in 3. I fell into a serious batting slump.
Last season, he only started eight games and was on the verge of losing confidence at the end of the season when he was not called up to the first team.
"I want to play baseball as a first-team player again,"
coach Arai told Tanaka, who was trying to make a comeback.
"We see it as a force, let's do our best together."
TANAKA Kosuke
: "In the past few years, he has expressed his expectations for me, who has not achieved results, and those words saved me, and I felt that I wanted to raise the profile of Coach Arai somehow."
I also told Tanaka, "Kosuke's strength is pulling."
Tanaka, a left-handed batter, had all seven hits in the opening game.
On April 7 against the Giants, he hit his first home run in two years into the light stands, and a week later, he hit the tying bases-loaded home run into the right stands.
There was no hesitation in Tanaka posing while running to first base.
Rather than pointing out the weaknesses of the players, we will focus on their strengths and develop them.
The seeds that Coach Arai sowed are sprouting in the seeds of confidence for the players.
Coach
ARAI Takahiro: "I think the important thing is to make the players aware of this, and I think the most important thing is to provide the players with this kind of perspective and way of thinking, and then how the players themselves feel and grasp it within themselves."
Never look backwards
Having been interviewing him, I asked Director Arai, who always behaves positively.
"Don't you ever want to run away when you're in trouble
?"
replied Arai after a pause.
Coach
Takahiro Arai: "I never want to run away. Of course, I'm a human being, so I can be vulnerable, but when I'm depressed, there's another self who inspires me to move forward. In any adversity, we will never look back."
With the start of the season, the Carp led by Arai has just set sail. I envision a team that will always look forward under this coach. Even if the pain continues.
"Be a strong, straight wheat that grows strongly
," Coach Arai said, and I can't help but believe that these words will make the team stronger.
Hiroshima Broadcasting Station reporter
Yu YokoyamaAfter
joining the Maebashi and Nagano stations, the
Hiroshima station Since August last year, he has been in charge of professional baseball and Hiroshima as a left-handed left-handed hitter in charge
of Hiroshima
and continues
to play baseball until university.