Another Matsui, Kotaro Kiyomiya making history in Japanese High School Baseball Championship

The former Yankees slugger from Japan, Hideki Matsui a.k.a. "Godzilla", has a formidable challenger in the person of a high school baseballer now making history in the Koshien, infielder Kotaro Kiyomiya. A fresh 10th grader of Waseda Jitsugyo High School of Tokyo, Kiyomiya hit his first homerun in his second at-bat in the third inning of the game against Tokaidai Kofu High School, August 15. 

Japan has produced a number of super baseballers so far - notorious Sadaharu Oh, the undisputed homerun king, Hideo Nagashima, "Mr. Giants", and of course Hideki Matsui, a reputed Yankees slugger. The emergence of Kotaro Kiyomiya, however, will likely overshadow them all, predict major baseball commentators. 

In his Little League days, Kiyomiya belted 132 homeruns and led his team, Tokyo Kitahama, to the championship in 2012 and won himself a nickname "Japanese Babe Ruth". According to a team manager of Tokyo Kitahama, that (the number of homeruns) was only the balls he autographed and if all balls that had flown over the fence were included the total should run up to 200 or even more. He swang a lot faster than any college hitters and in one of his junior high school games what seemed a mere line-drive to the second fielder turned out a homerun. 
His father used to constantly urge him to "grab the world"; that's exactly what he is after now. " I want to be a leading slugger in Japan and so a single homerun doesn't mean anything to me", says Kiyomiya.

Superstars in sports come and go; some momentarily shine and fade fast and others steadily build up and stay a long way. Kiyomiya seems to be one of the latter and in a decade or sooner Japan will have produced a genuine baseball legend of all time.