One guy getting a lot of attention these days, including gaudy front-page coverage in Japan's daily sports newspapers and on TV "Camp Report" segments, is Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters rookie phenom Sho Nakata.
Just 18 years old and right of high school in Osaka, the kid has been knocking the cover off the ball at the Fighters' spring training ground in Okinawa. And it is big news every day counting how many balls Nakata hits over the fence and how much farther than 100 meters he's hitting them.
He was Nippon Ham's No. 1 pick in the high school draft last October and is of course looking to make the varsity roster in his first year. They've given him a prestigious single-digit uniform number, 6, abandoned by veteran Yukio Tanaka, who just retired after 22 years with the club.