Four months later, Tomohiro Anraku is still pitching. This is not entirely surprising. The arm is a remarkably resilient machine. Over nine April days, in five games, as a 16-year-old, Anraku threw 772 pitches. It was as though Anraku and his coach were begging for his shoulder capsule to blow up or an elbow ligament to shear. Nothing did. No, the surprise came in the months after, when he started throwing again and the people who had come to gawk at Japan's newest teenage monster noticed something.

Anraku was throwing harder than ever. Just two weeks ago, his fastball was clocked at 98 mph. He had grown maybe an inch, to 6-foot-2, and added a few pounds through conditioning his legs, which he would need to survive this time. In the last of those five games in nine days, with his pitch count ticking toward the high 700s, the magic in his arm disappeared. He would not let that happen again.

View photos

At 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in Japan (9:30 p.m. ET Tuesday), Tomohiro Anraku will start for Saibi High School in a second-round game of Summer Koshien, the most important sporting event annually in Japan. To call it a tournament consisting of 49 high school baseball teams does not do it justice. The twice-a-year event, held during the spring and summer, combines the madness of March with the media coverage of the Super Bowl and the history of the World Series. It makes heroes out of kids whose belief that Koshien glory exceeds all and turns them into the tournament's willing martyrs.

The country will tune in as much out of curiosity as fascination, for a pitcher like Anraku – a kaibutsu, or monster – comes along but once a decade. Kaibutsu isn't just what you do. It is who you are. He is not just a boy who is willing to push his arm to and past its breaking point. By pitch No. 772, Anraku's fastball barely reached 80 mph. During the hundreds of pitches before that, Anraku struck a presence on the mound, not just towering over hitters but commanding the entire tournament, like a general.

A long tradition intertwines the military and Koshien, as if it not only breeds warriors but relishes in doing so. Should Anraku win his first game, he will pitch again Saturday or Sunday. Then Monday. And Wednesday. And finally Thursday. Five games. Nine days. Again. He will pitch every one of them, because that's what kids do at Koshien.

The man who could stop it is a 60-something named Masanori Joko. He is Anraku's coach. He heard the swell of criticism from the United States following Spring Koshien – of longtime agent Don Nomura telling Yahoo! Sports, "This is child abuse," and of doctors who have studied pitching injuries, savaging him for potentially ruining a million-dollar arm. Joko's response to the Japanese media in the weeks leading up to Summer Koshien has been fairly consistent.

He just hopes Anraku can be a little more efficient and keep his pitch counts down.









"It is a high school baseball player's ultimate dream," Junichi Tazawa said. He stood outside the Boston Red Sox's clubhouse about an hour before a recent game. Tazawa, in his fourth major league season, is one of baseball's top setup men and plays for the best team in the American League. And he still looks at Koshien wistfully, perhaps because he never got to play in it, or maybe because he's Japanese, and even those who know better cannot help themselves.

Story continues