As the United States prepared to face Japan in the knockout stage at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Nick Martinez issued a warning to his peers.
"Don’t swing at the fork,” Martinez, now a star relief pitcher for the San Diego Padres, told them. Martinez was referring to Kodai Senga of Japan and his forkball, which is nicknamed the "ghost fork."
Martinez had spent four seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan, as both a teammate and an opponent of Senga’s. He knew how haunting the ghost fork could be, yet his fellow Americans could not lay off the pitch.