Eleven years before Shohei Ohtani captured the attention of American baseball fans by agreeing to a minor league deal, Takashi Saito walked the same path, but with none of the fanfare.
Cast off by the Yokohama BayStars, the right-hander won a spring training invite in his bid to sample major league competition before retiring. Although he failed to win a job on the Los Angeles Dodgers' Opening Day roster at the age of 36, Saito finished 2006 as the club's closer and made the National League All-Star team the following season.
Now a Pacific Rim adviser for the San Diego Padres, Saito spoke last week about the challenges facing Japanese pitchers moving to the majors, and touched on the issues surrounding Ohtani, whom he tried to recruit for the Padres.