Major League Baseball: From Benchwarmer to Legend

Lin Ye, an ordinary modern-day baseball fan, accidentally transmigrates to Japan in 2012 and takes over the body of a high schooler who’s been “perpetually stuck on the bench” at a weak Tokyo school. His body is frail and has no fundamentals; he can’t even throw straight. He becomes the whole team’s laughingstock as soon as he joins: he swings and hits his own leg during practice, gets smacked in the face by a fly ball, and is publicly mocked by the captain for “wasting balls” when he sneaks in extra practice.

But he brings with him a modern understanding of baseball tactics and an ironclad devotion to the game. He builds strength during winter training with mineral water bottles, and uses old notes and MLB batting theory to fix his swing. From the first glimmer of hope in a pinch-hit infield single to earning a starting spot with “perfectly placed line drives,” he keeps fighting. He drops a fly ball at the prefectural tournament, is overwhelmed by a 150 km/h fastball at Koshien, gets demoted to the farm team after an injury in the NPB, and is booed by fans during his MLB debut, who shout, “Go back to Japan!” Time and again, he tumbles into the depths, and time and again, he claws his way back up from the dirt. He switches to playing the infield, studies pitchers’ habits until dawn, and after a serious knee injury, spends a year rehabbing while still clutching his bat.

From high school benchwarmer to Koshien dark horse, from NPB development player to Japan Series champion, and finally to the man who delivers the walk-off home run in the World Series, he uses the bruises from countless failures to break into a legendary home field of his own over the course of nine innings of life. When he finally retires at forty, the Yankees raise his number 18 jersey. Then he turns back to the field at Sakuraoka High School, sees a new generation of benchwarmers, remembers himself crying in the equipment room, and smiles as he hands them a bat.