Last week, a bat used by Kazuhiro Kiyohara during his high school days was removed from an exhibition celebrating the long and rich history of high school baseball at Koshien Stadium.
The National High School Baseball Tournament had been Kiyohara's launchpad (he played in five Koshien tournaments, including the spring one), the start of the journey that took him to the upper reaches of Japanese baseball superstardom. But in the time it took to reach into a display case, he was gone.
There's a chance other sectors of the baseball world will partake in a similar scrubbing of Kiyohara, who was arrested for possessing 0.1 grams of a kakuseizai stimulant last week. Reports say police also found three syringes and four cell phones in the apartment he was using. He admitted to using drugs after his arrest last week, though he refuses to name his supplier. Jail time is also a possibility.