Hoshino, the pitcher

Nobuyuki Hoshino is my favourite of all Tigers. Like you say, the guy had an excellent curveball, which was so slow you could go buy a Koshien Curry and still be back before the ball reached the plate. Well, almost... It was so slow and loopy it made his fastball seem like it was zipping along at a million miles an hour.

Alas, Hoshino retired at the end of last season. He still had this year to run on his contract, and with his relatively good form last season Hoshino-kantoku was keen to include him in this year's line up. But Hoshino the pitcher apparently had heart problems ("tachycardia" or something) and decided to call it a day.

I went and saw his last game. He had long since announced his retirement and hadn't been included in the line-up for a month or so, but they let him come out and retire the first batter. Emotional scenes ensued. That, BTW, was also the game where Shinji Toyama, who also retired at the end of last season, bawled his eyes out on the way back to the dugout after closing the last inning.

Following Hoshino's retirement, Sun TV's Tigers programme did a retrospective of his career. They asked him "Just how do you throw that indecipherable curve ball?" He said it was down to his flexible wrist - he demonstrated by bending his hand flat up against his arm! He went on to say that he discovered that he could pitch like that when he was at Asahikawa High School in Hokkaido, and it was only because of that curve ball that he got picked for an NPB team.

He went on to win 10 or more games many, many seasons in a row, and was the starting pitcher on opening day just as often... unfortunately with disastrous results in 2001, but that's another story.

Anyway, you can now catch Hoshino as a comments man on Kansai TV, as well as Toyama, Atsunori Ito, and Toshiro Yufune in similar roles for on both radio and TV for MBS.