Daisuke Shioya had a kind of interesting career. He was a pitcher in high school but became an outfielder when he went to Asia University. He dropped out of college and signed with the Johnstown Steal of the independent Frontier League in the US in 1998. He both pitched and played outfield in a total of seven games with the Steal, hitting .000 and running up an ERA of 5.14. He returned to Japan and eventually declared for the NPB draft in 2002. He was 26 years old when he was drafted in the seventh round by the Orix BlueWave and apparently was already married and had a child. I've always gotten a kick out of the fact that his baby appeared on his 2003 BBM Rookie Edition card with him (#89):
He made a couple appearances with the
ichi-gun BlueWave in April of 2003 but despite pitching reasonable well (no runs, no hits and only one walk in two innings over three appearances) Orix sent him back to the farm team where he remained for the rest of his career (which ended after the 2005 season). If I'm reading the translation of
his Japanese Wikipedia page correctly he switched to being an outfielder and then back to being a pitcher after his appearances with the top team.
Happy Father's Day to Shioya and all the other fathers out there.
1 comment:
His son must be a teenager by now, I wonder how he feels about being on a card as a baby!
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