Early Life and High School Career
Wada was born in Kōnan, Aichi Prefecture, a member of the age group often referred to as the "Matsuzaka Generation". He began playing baseball as a first grader at Kōnan Municipal Fujisato Elementary School for the Kōnan Danchi Baseball team.
In 1991, Wada and his family moved to Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, Wada's father's hometown. Wada enrolled in Shimane Prefectural Hamada High School in Hamada upon graduating from junior high, leading them to the 79th National High School Baseball Championship in the summer of his second year of high school (the equivalent of eleventh grade in the United States) in 1997. His team faced Akita Commercial High School, led by current Tokyo Yakult Swallows ace Masanori Ishikawa, in the first round, but Wada walked that very Ishikawa with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning and suffered a walk-off loss.
Wada's team secured a berth in the national tournament again the following summer (1998). They defeated Niigata Prefectural Shibata Agricultural High School, whose battery consisted of right-hander Togashi Kazuhiro (who later played for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters) and catcher Ken Katoh (currently with the Yomiuri Giants), in their first game. They faced Teikyo High School, the East Tokyo champions, in their next game. Though Wada, who was not only the team's ace but also their cleanup hitter, gave up a home run to current Fighters outfielder Hichori Morimoto, Hamada High won 3-2, making it to the quarter-finals. They narrowly lost in the quarter-finals to Toyota Otani High School (led by current Orix Buffaloes outfielder Katsuaki Furuki) in extra innings.
Though Wada had ruptured his left triceps muscle the previous fall and struggled to even reach 130 km/h (81 mph) with his fastball during the tournament, Teikyo High players remarked after facing Wada that " looked like it was 150 km/h (93 mph)."
Read more about this topic: Tsuyoshi Wada
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life, high, school and/or career:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Early rising is no pleasure; early drinking’s just the measure.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“But the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself.... Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. This power is identical with what we earlier called the Subject.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The report reflects incredibly terrible judgments, shockingly sparse concern for human life, instances of officials lacking the courage to exercise the responsibilities of their high office and some very bewildering thought processes.”
—Jane Jarrell Smith, U.S. widow of American astronaut Michael J. Smith. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, p. 13 (June 30, 1986)
“The difference between de jure and de facto segregation is the difference open, forthright bigotry and the shamefaced kind that works through unwritten agreements between real estate dealers, school officials, and local politicians.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)