Episode 3 · One Outs

One Outs

Hiromichi Kojima, star hitter of the Lycaons, heads to Okinawa to shake off a slump. What he finds instead is a pitcher who throws a 134 km/h fastball and wins at gambling. Toua Tokuchi owns the game of One Outs: one pitcher, one batter, money on the line. He has taken 499 straight wins. To him, baseball is just a paycheck. Kojima bets his own career on a single showdown and beats Tokuchi at his own game. That win drags the guy onto the Lycaons. Then the owner, Tsuneo Saikawa, offers him a lousy salary, so Tokuchi writes his own terms: five million yen for every out he records, fifty million owed for every run he gives up. One bad inning could bury him. One perfect game could make him rich. Teammates, executives, everyone in the league wants to see him crash. Can a man who only plays for cash survive a sport that runs on loyalty?