How he doesn’t get drilled, American baseball fans will never know

July 23, 2015

By Brian Han

It’s becoming more and more apparent that baseball culture in Asian countries tends to be slightly more theatrical especially when it comes to batters.

But a new video that surfaced on Thursday shows a high school baseball player from Japan who takes his batting routine to an entirely new level.

Perhaps the best way to describe it would be that his style is a hybrid consisting of elements from both baseball and martial arts dance classes.

True, American players have their own rituals — the Boston Red Sox’s Pablo Sandoval has to always skip and draw crosses in the dirt before entering the batter’s box and many others have their superstitions — but those pale in comparison.

It’s probably safe to say that if he had used all that fancy footwork and bat-twirling in the U.S., he might get a slightly different treatment from the pitcher on the mound.