On a brisk winter day, high-school freshman Rin Saito’s cleats crunch the snow as she rubs the leather of the ball against her gray and purple uniform. With each crack of the bat, she dreams of baseball stardom on the same field where global sensation Shohei Ohtani honed his skills as a teenager.
Saito, an Ohtani superfan and a power-hitting infielder, is among the scores of girls who leave their hometowns each year for Ohtani’s alma mater in Iwate. Since launching a girls’ team in 2020, Hanamaki Higashi High School has emerged as a magnet for the nation’s small but growing women’s baseball industry – one that has spawned the best women’s team in the world.