*****

On a frigid winter day in 1985, Hirokazu Tatsuta was in the bullpen at his high-school baseball field. His manager had told him to improve his command of low pitches. Over and over, he hurled the ball into a catcher's mitt held close to the ground.

Then a pain and tingling sprung up in his arm. Something was wrong with his shoulder. The doctors couldn't figure out what it was. The young man never regained his form and he never stood on the mound again for the team.

...