OK. It’s not ALL NPB news today.

All 12 teams were in action for the first time Saturday afternoon, and after two games, four teams are unbeaten, two teams have yet to score while three players have homered in both of their teams’ games, and one player has driven in all of his team’s runs so far. Also a returning free agent did not get such a warm welcome back.

Away from pro baseball, Yamanashi Gakuin won the 95^th high school invitational tournament at Koshien Stadium behind its fourth complete game victory from ace Kengo Hayashi, who started all six of the school’s games. Over 15 days, Hayashi threw 696 pitches – and that’s with the national federation’s pitch limits in place. It was the first time a school from Yamanashi Prefecture had reached a Koshien final.

The school played the tournament’s first game, notable by a player from Sendai’s Tohoku High School being warned by an umpire for doing Lars Nootbaar’s “pepper grinder” salute after reaching on an error.

In other high school news, Rintaro Suzuki, whose father manages Hanamaki Higashi High School and oversaw the development of both Yusei Kikuchi and Shohei Ohtani, was celebrated in Japan’s media for breaking the unofficial high school home record with his 117^th. It’s a dumb record that includes practice games and only exists to hype headlines. The other news is that Suzuki was left off the national under-18 team.

Highlights

Hawks 7, Marines 0: At Fukuoka Dome, Marines starter Atsuki Taneuchi struck out the first five batters he faced and struck out 10 over four innings as he pitched out of a pair of bases-loaded jams, and got stuck with the loss. He allowed one run, on Ryoya Kurihara’s second homer, and SoftBank left an impression on Lotte’s bullpen.