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The story
In a game between the Nippon-Ham Fighters and the SoftBank Hawks, SoftBank’s Yukyo Shuto hit an inside-the-park grand slam. The ball caromed hard off the outfield fence, and when the Fighters’ outfielder failed to field it cleanly, Shuto was able to race all the way around to home plate. On 5ch, posts poured in expressing amazement at the sheer rarity of an “inside-the-park grand slam” and noting how few times it’s happened in NPB history, while others pointed to Nippon-Ham’s shallow outfield positioning and sloppy fielding as the real cause — opinions split over where to place the blame.
What people said
He got way more bases than he should have
Are they stupid?
It hit the wall dead-on and center fielder Isobata couldn't handle the carom
For real?
1947: Akira Noguchi (Hankyu)
1950: Kiyoharu Sakata (Hiroshima)
1974: Sumio Hirota (Lotte)
1977: Willie Davis (Chunichi)
1989: Norio Tanabe (Seibu)
1997: Taisei Takagi (Seibu)
1999: Hiroki Kokubo (Daiei)
It's the 8th time in 27 years, so no wonder nobody remembers it
Wait, what was I even confusing this with…
Doing it two years running was quietly impressive though
Might be the first time I've ever heard of a "running grand slam"
Sounds like Kokubo pulled it off once before too
Meanwhile Shuto's over there stringing together highlight-reel plays
Beat the Hawks, Fighters!
Beat the Hawks, Fighters!
Pacific League TV clip's up
Shuto's way too fast man
Even the announcer mistook him for a runner from first — honestly, fair enough
He got home like 5 times faster than I expected, lmao
Right when the overhead camera angle kicked in, it cut away before the important part, lol
Though manager Shinjo apparently isn't going to be reminded of anything
Watch any Hawks-Fighters game and you'll get reminded every single time
https://youtube.com/shorts/lswg_aKiX_Y
Kokubo's was a ball that got past a shallow defense with nobody behind it, so that one's understandable
Today's one, if they'd just fielded the carom off the wall properly, is a triple at most
He's from Fukuoka, so it's a little treat for the hometown fans
And apparently he shut them down too
Two homers plus insane defense on top of it
Probably went up like 15 points or something
vs SoftBank: 0-2-1
vs Rakuten: 3-0
vs Lotte: 3-0
vs Seibu: 1-0
Serving themselves up as cold cuts for the Hawks lmaooo (pun on "Ham" — Nippon-Ham)
Beat Seibu but lose to the "toilet bowl" team?
What an assist machine (a mocking nickname rival fans use)
Background and Talking Points
An inside-the-park grand slam happens when the ball doesn’t clear the fence — often caroming hard off the wall — and the batter, capitalizing on a defensive miscue, circles the bases alone to score. It’s far rarer than a standard home run. As the thread notes, this is only the 8th such instance in NPB history, starting with Akira Noguchi in 1947, and the first since Hiroki Kokubo’s in 1999 — 27 years ago — which explains why it’s such an obscure, hard-to-recall event. Opinions in the thread split over the cause: some blamed Nippon-Ham’s decision to play a shallow outfield in the first place, while others zeroed in on the specific error of failing to field the carom off the wall cleanly. Shuto also had a big day overall, including a home run, which drove posts praising his combined offensive and defensive performance. That said, figures like the WAR increase mentioned in the thread are fan speculation, not official statistics, and should be read as such. Comments about Nippon-Ham’s outfield defense read as criticism of the team’s defensive setup rather than attacks on any individual player.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nanademo Jikkyo G) thread “Shuto’s inside-the-park grand slam wwwwwwwwwwwwwww.”
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