Dai League Ball

The **Dai League Ball** (大リーグボール, Major League Ball) is a series of fictional curve balls developed by the main character, Hyūma Hoshi from the Kyojin no Hoshi series.

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## Variants

### Dai League Ball No.1 (大リーグボール1号)

A magic ball that aims directly at the batter's bat and successfully hits it. It was created to compensate for Hyūma's light pitches.

During the 1968 Japan Series, it was decided that the basic form of the ball was to strike the thick end of the baseball bat, and that hitting the thinner end would result in a foul. However, looking at the scenes before and after, it was quite easy to hit even the thinnest part of the bat and get an ordinary hit. With the new insight Hyūma Hoshi had honed through his experiences in boxing, kendo, and by observing police shooting, he was then able to predict the batter's movements. Hyūma hits the ball to the bat and strikes out an ordinary batter, and if there is a runner on, he tries to get a double play. Because each pitch requires a great amount of concentration, one fatal flaw of this pitch is that he becomes easily tired. When Hyūma Hoshi is mentally unhinged and lacks concentration, he is unable to use the pitch. Mitsuru Hanagata once protested against the pitch (partly to confirm whether Hyūma's magic ball was perfect) that it was a beanball because it was aimed near the opponent's head, but the umpires dismissed his complaint, saying that it was aimed at the only bat worn by the batter that would not be a dead ball even if the ball hit him.

#### Hints to its creation

Shortly after joining the Giants team, Hyūma Hoshi's pitch quality was exposed as light, which is fatal flaw for a professional pitcher. Feeling his limitations as a fastball pitcher, Hyūma Hoshi begs Shoichi Kaneda at the Taiwan camp to teach him how to change his fastball. Kaneda advises Hoshi to "「星の若さなら新しい変化球を編み出せ」 / invent a new breaking ball if you are so young. Hearing this, Hyūma begins to think, "「新しい変化球こそ本当の大リーグボールじゃないか」/ A new breaking ball is the real Dai League Ball."

Kaneda was injured in that Taiwan camp and left the game. The emotional Hyūma burst into tears and threw two balls in a row to Shibata that were extremely dangerous, and the second was hit by the bat. The ball was a pitching error, and the fast-footed Shibata got off to a slow start and was out at first base.

When Hyūma's fastball was hit by Hōsaku Samon, while sitting in Zen meditation at a temple in Kamakura, he got a hint from a Zen monk that "「打たれてもいいと思えば打たれなくなる」 / if you think you can be hit by a fastball, you will not be hit by a fastball." With this, the basic form of the first Dai League Ball was created in Hyūma's mind.

#### Special training and its development

To develop the Dai League Ball No. 1, Hyūma Hoshi first learned boxing, kendo, and observed marksmanship. On the training grounds, Hyūma continued to throw balls against Ban Chūta (who is blindfolded) to complete the Dai League Ball No. 1. He used Sadaharu Oh as a test subject and demonstrated it to Giants officials.

The first Dai League Ball that Samon received was towards his face, and after Samon fell on his buttocks, the ball hit his bat. If he had stood still, it would have hit him directly in the face. Hyūma even predicts the sudden movement of the batter who was surprised by the approaching ball.

#### Appearance of an improved form

On September 18, 1968, at the Yomiuri Giants vs, Hanshin Tigers game, Mitsuru Hanagata (who had been secretly training by hitting an iron ball with an iron bat) gave a warning that he'd score a homerun. As predicted, he hit the first Dai League Ball, and the Giants suffered a tragic defeat. However, Hanagata himself was seriously injured after he hit Hyūma's pitch, it destroyed every muscle in his body during the impact.

After being hit by Hanagata, Hyūma modified the Dai League Ball to hit the grip end of the bat. This improved version was called "the most advanced version of the dai league ball No. 1" and so on. He further refined his control by training with Ban on a fishing boat, aiming at a 50-yen coin hanging from a fishing rod, and beat Darryl Spencer, who had trained like Hanagata and challenged to the Japan Series, by hitting the ball to the grip head. As a result, however, Hyūma's mental fatigue made him more vulnerable, and in his first Japan-America baseball game against Ozuma, he collapsed immediately after pitching a complete game, requiring hospitalization.

During the incident with Mina Hidaka, it caused Hyūma to self-destruct into a downward spiral of despair and he become unable to throw pitches, until he later on revived like a phoenix once again. However, Ozuma eventually defeated him by using the method devised by Ittetsu, "Hold the bat horizontally on the home plate once, guide the ball to the center, and then hit it."

## Trivia

### Related pages:

* Dai League Ball Training Cast
* Screw Spin Sliding
* Iconic Kyojin no Hoshi scenes that are mostly parodied

## External Links

* wikipedia.org/wiki/巨人の星#大リーグボール
* wikipedia.org/wiki/大リーグボール