Yang Dai-kang, who played center field for the Nippon Ham Fighters and Yomiuri Giants, is back in Japan with one of the two non-NPB franchises who have been sanctioned this season to compete in NPB’s Western and Eastern leagues, Oisix Niigata Albirex Baseball Club.
The 37-year-old Yang, known as “Yoh” in Japan because that was the Japanese reading of the Chinese character used for his family’s name that he went by when he attended high school in Fukuoka.
Since parting company with Yomiuri at the conclusion of the 2021 season, when he played in just seven Central League games, Yang has since played in the U.S. independent minors and the Australian league.
Oisix and Hayate, based in Shizuoka, are two teams that could have been part of a really good idea to expand baseball, but instead are a patch meant to cover up a problem and protect a system from the changes that really need to be made.
