Sho Nakata talks about his current situation at age 35 “Being rebellious at this age is stupid” – for the first time he reveals his regrets over the air gun shooting incident and his second life．
“I was really rebellious when I was young (lol).” Nakata once appeared on his YouTube channel with his head shaved. He said at the time that it was to get him motivated, but of course, when he was a high school baseball player, it was common for him to have a shaved head. Most of the club activities at sports schools used to require shaved heads, but now we live in the Reiwa era. These days, there is quite a trend to move away from having a shaved head. What do you think about this type of sports culture? “I think the way things are now is fine, but in my own personal opinion, things like customs in the world of sports that need to be preserved should be preserved, and I think it would be best for the baseball world to be strict when it comes to things like that. We are the generation that was pushed to the limits by our seniors, so I wouldn’t say that it’s necessarily important, but there are times when the things that our seniors have told us are still useful to me now. This may seem like a matter of guts, and the younger generation today might think, “There’s no need for that,” but I think players of our generation are different in the way their expressions change and how they put themselves into it in important situations. Results are important, of course, but seeing their expressions and behavior at the last moment gives you hope, in a good way, that “this guy is going to do something crazy.” That may be something that only people like us, who have been called the “Yutori Generation” in the middle, can understand.” At 35 years old, Nakata is moving forward, making use of his past experiences and knowledge. Now that he’s grown up a lot since he was that wild boss back then, we asked him about one of his wild episodes from the past, the “airgun shooting incident” that he told reporters. “Well, I was really rebellious when I was younger (laugh). Looking back now, I feel really sorry. I think having a child has made me more mellow. Of course, age is a factor, but if I’m still acting like a troublemaker at 35, I think I’m just an idiot.” His smile as he talks about the foolishness of his youthful years exudes the freshness of a young baseball player. “Maybe people have an image of me as a troublemaker (laughs). That’s because that image has already been created. But I don’t want to change that image. If that’s what people think, then that’s fine. I guess it’s fine if people think I’m naughty or carefree. My life shouldn’t be determined by other people’s opinions or images, and I want to live it the way I want. So now I just do my best to play baseball.”
>>2 When you turn 35, your body changes. You have to adjust your form to match your changed body, but that didn’t work out. It’s like the 18-year-old wall in women’s figure skating.
>>8 That’s about right. Even when he was with the Nippon Ham Fighters, his batting average only exceeded 30% once, and was in the 20% 60 range. He hit over 30 home runs in his prime, but now, as he ages, he only hits around 10-15 home runs even if he plays 120 games a year.
You’re saying something contradictory. I think that being trained and bound by the spirit of the sports club will make many people go beyond being a troublemaker like me and turn them into thugs or delinquents.
>>30 It is said that Kiyohara became a problem child because he was demoted to the second team as a rookie and was not trained. Nippon-Ham gave strict training to bad-behaved Darvish and Nakata in the second team.
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