Yu Darvish is really an expected pitcher in Japan.  He debuted in the national  high school  games in Japan, and after joining the pro-league he never failed to show his guts in pitching and the results were always amazing each year.

Personally, among the Japanese players in American major league teams,  I think Hideo Nomo and Darvish are the real heroes  for me.

Hideo Nomo is still in my memory as the van of the Japanese baseball players who went across the Pacific Ocean to the USA.  He already was million dollar income player in Japan, but he decided to go to the USA as a test player with only 100,000 dollar contract a year.   The result of his brave action was now known to all of us in Japan.

And Darvish is truly exciting pitcher now in Japan.  He is the god-sent talent in baseball but he never stop his efforts for enhancement of his pitching.  He is a little like Ichiro Suzuki in the sense that both players are, in a way, stoic and never compromise whatever the results are.

I thought Darvish would soon get contracted with Texas Rangers after the first negotiation right on Darvish was transferred to Rangers.

Some say the reason for delay in making contract is the gap of money between Darvish and Rangers.   As Boston Red Sox Apparently failed in getting a famous pitcher, Daisuke Matsuzaka,  it might be natural that American teams don’t want to bet such a big money to Japanese players.   Matsuzaka was really expected to win constantly every year, but he was not as good as the Japanese career.

I suppose that Darvish is a far greater pitcher than Daisuke Matsuzaka.   So I hope he would join in Rangers after all.

One different thing between my heroes, Darvish and Nomo, might be a hungry heart.  Nomo was really such a guy with hungry spirit to search for his dream and success in the USA with much less money, but as we know, Darvish is regarded a great player already before the contract, so he requests much much instead of being a dream weaver.