Taisuke Yamaguchi: First Intercity Victory through "learning while teaching, teaching while learning"

2022/04/11

The first victory in the 94th year since the club's founding. The Tokyo Gas Baseball Club achieved its long-awaited goal of becoming the best in Japan at the 92nd Intercity Baseball Tournament held at the Tokyo Dome last December. I am entering my fourth year as manager, but I have experienced more failures than successes. I kept the single-minded determination to turn those failures into fuel for success and climb to the top of Japan.

Corporate baseball is said to be the pinnacle of amateur baseball. Adults engage in heated battles for the championship in two major tournaments: the Intercity Baseball Tournament and the Japan Amateur Baseball Championship. Tokyo Gas had never won either tournament. I wanted to change that history. However, although we participated in the Intercity Tournament in 2018 when I was appointed manager, we were eliminated in the qualifiers in 2019 and 2020. During this period of being unable to break through the wall, I visited seniors from the Juku Baseball Club who had experience winning the Intercity Tournament to learn about the policies, mindsets, and strategies of winning teams. While everyone was unique and had different tactical preferences, what they had in common was a deep love for the company, baseball, and the players, and a serious commitment to finding ways to give players confidence.

Starting last year, which I approached with unwavering determination, I received cooperation from Dr. Tsutomu Fuse, a PhD in sports psychology and a senior from the Juku Baseball Club. In the end, I, as the manager, may have been the one most influenced. In particular, the concept of "role personality." This involves maintaining one's original personality while performing the personality of an assigned role. The turning point was a crushing defeat in the Japan Championship qualifiers last June. I made up my mind and told the players, "Any player who isn't serious about becoming number one in Japan, I'll send you back to the company." No one came forward. I shifted from being a "manager of emotion" to playing the role of a "ruthless manager" in order to win. By clarifying each player's role and making strict demands to fulfill them, the players began to face their weaknesses and tackle practices they were not good at. In the September Intercity qualifiers, we secured the right to represent Tokyo as the first seed for the first time in three years and climbed straight to the top.

With Tokyo Gas's victory, managers from the Juku have won the Intercity Tournament eight times in the past 15 years, a winning rate of over 50%. This began with Manager Yorihiko Inde (Toshiba) in 2007, followed by Manager Hideaki Okubo (ENEOS), Manager Tetsuya Horii (JR East, current manager of the Athletic Association Baseball Club), Manager Hirokazu Hashiguchi (Osaka Gas), and myself. In my own small way, I hope to contribute to the future of the baseball world in the spirit of "learning while teaching, teaching while learning."