As Yu Darvish threw pitches and toyed with his grips in the bullpen at Sapporo Dome on one summer day in 2005, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters pitching coach Mike Brown came to a startling realization.
He¡¯d never seen anything like this before.
Brown was a baseball man who had been around. He¡¯d pitched in the majors for the Red Sox and Mariners, had been a bullpen coach for the Yankees and was on the Indians¡¯ coaching staff in 2002. He then came to Japan and was Trey Hillman¡¯s pitching coach with the Fighters. Now he was watching the team¡¯s first pick from the 2004 draft go to work in his first session in Sapporo since being called up. Brown had seen a lot of pitchers, but Darvish was different, which is what he¡¯d later tell Hillman.
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