On June 26th, Sadaharu Oh, president of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks professional baseball team, appeared at a press conference to announce the establishment of the "Kyushinkai General Incorporated Foundation" in Tokyo.
Kyushinkai was established with the aim of "creating a future in which global heroes who will excite the world and give hope and dreams to children, surpassing Sadaharu Oh and Shohei Ohtani, will continue to be born from the baseball and sports worlds." In the "BEYOND OH! PROJECT" that has been launched, organizations and groups related to the baseball world will come together to carry out various initiatives, such as creating opportunities to play baseball.
On this day, Vice President Hideki Kuriyama read out a letter from Shigeo Nagashima, who supported the activities of Kyushinkai and passed away on June 3rd. "I would like to help in any way I can. I hope that baseball will become even more popular from now on," read the letter that Nagashima wrote to Oh in May of this year.
Oh expressed his gratitude, saying, "After Nagashima fell ill, we hardly had any chance to meet, but I'm glad that he had those feelings. I know that Nagashima felt the same way."
When asked about his expectations for the birth of a star like Nagashima, he said, "It makes a big difference for a person to have someone to aspire to be like. I never thought that someone like Ohtani would come along and become the home run leader in Major League Baseball in my lifetime. I feel fortunate to have been able to share the same era. I very much welcome the birth of a star, and I look forward to seeing someone incredible emerge."
