Since he first became a celebrity ballplayer with the Hanshin Tigers, Tsuyoshi Shinjo has cultivated a persona as a baseball free spirit, unbridled by convention or common sense. You can’t make up a scene like the weird introductory press conference the Fighters had for him a year ago.

But on Monday, he decided to turn a page, and become more orthodox.

Shinjo’s plan last season, as far as I can reckon, was to be more entertaining than the typical Japanese manager, while poking fun at the obligatory lip-service phrases managers are expected to utter, and giving as many of the organization’s players as he could a chance to impress him in the majors without regard to overall wins and losses.

The skipper, who was signed after he impressed the team with his fire by attending NPB’s tryout in an effort to revive his playing career, turned their season into a 143-game tryout camp in which Nippon Ham had an NPB-high 18 players with 100 plate appearances.