Sooner or later, one way or another, the University of Tokyo’s baseball team was bound to win a game. Any game. Just one.

The university, the top one in Japan and colloquially known as Todai, had not won a game in nearly five years, a stretch of 94 games.

Even in the context of the team’s well-established futility, the streak was demoralizing.

Back in October 2010, when Todai last tasted victory, 33 Chilean miners were rescued after weeks of being trapped underground. Who knew that the Todai team was about to be trapped in a different kind of darkness?

Since 1925, when Todai joined the baseball league run by the most powerful Tokyo-area universities, the team has won just 13 percent of its games.