For many players, leaving the game begs the huge question of what to do next, but for former big league reliever Takashi Saito, that period was remarkably brief.
A month after throwing his last pitch for his hometown Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, the former National League All-Star announced he would be joining the San Diego Padres as a front office intern, a job that took him to Nashville, Tennessee, this month for the baseball winter meetings.
At the time of the announcement, Saito said, "My premise is that for the future of Japanese baseball, people will be needed to enact change and this is my one chance."