STANFORD, Calif. — When home run balls start landing on the Stanford football team’s practice grass way beyond the wall in right-center field, everybody knows new Japanese slugger Rintaro Sasaki must be taking batting practice at nearby Sunken Diamond. Even the swim coaches have trained themselves to be on high alert at the pool deck more than 450 feet away just in case the left-handed hitting Sasaki somehow sends one that far — and they believe he will do so soon enough.
His coach is counting on it. “He might splash a few,” Stanford coach David Esquer said. “He’s pulling toward the pool for sure.
” Sasaki, who hit 140 high school home runs and then made waves by opting out of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league draft, has been immersing himself in classes and a new culture on Stanford’s Bay Area campus for two-plus months. He’s learning English in impressively speedy fashion and getting settled in a baseball routine that has included road trips with the team before he begins his collegiate career in earnest this fall. The 19-year-old prospect will make his U.
S. debut Tuesday in the MLB Draft League, of New Jersey along with others hoping to one day develop into major leaguers. Before leaving town, the savvy Sasaki reminded Esquer his games will be streamed so the coach can watch.
He has also requested help in finding another team once the Draft League season ends. “He’s fired up for it,” said Esquer, the seventh-year Stanford coach who prev.
