Naoto Watanabe of the professional baseball Rakuten "Matsuzaka Generation" to retire only this season 16:31 on September 12
Professional baseball / Rakuten has announced that in the so-called "Matsuzaka Generation", only one active fielder, Naoto Watanabe, and a batting coach of the 1st Army will retire from active duty for this season only.
Watanabe is 39 years old from Ibaraki prefecture.
After working in baseball, he joined Rakuten in 2007, and has been active mainly in short games since the first year with his reluctant batting and solid defense.
In the fourth season off, immediately after renewing the contract the following year, it became a trade with DeNA's predecessor, Yokohama, and then played at Seibu.
Then, he returned to Rakuten, and although he had few chances to participate, he was a spiritual pillar of the team, always inspiring players on the bench.
This season, his 14th year as a professional player, he started as the team's first player-coach batting coach in the 1st army, but he was canceled on June 25th without a chance to participate.
Watanabe was the only active professional baseball fielder of the so-called "Matsuzaka Generation" in the same grade as Seibu's pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka this season.
In total, he has played 853 hits, 7 home runs and 115 stolen bases in 1134 games.
Watanabe will hold a press conference on the morning of the 13th to talk about why he decided to retire for this season only.
Five active members of the "Matsuzaka Generation"
Players of the same grade as Seibu's pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, including Naoto Watanabe of Rakuten, have been called the "Matsuzaka Generation."
However, many players have retired, including Shuichi Murata, who marked a total of 360 home runs in Yokohama and the Giants, and Toshiya Sugiuchi, who has won a total of 142 wins in the Giants and Softbank.
In addition to Matsuzaka and Watanabe, Watanabe's teammate, Yuya Kubo of Rakuten, and Kyuji Fujikawa of Hanshin, who announced his retirement last month, are still active in professional baseball this season. There are a total of five pitchers, Tsuyoshi Wada of Softbank.