The Hanshin Tigers' newest reliever stepped out of a plane and into the unknown in 2010. Waiting for him was a different style of the game he'd played all his life, not to mention the impending adjustments to a new country, new culture and new teammates.
Plus, he was in Japan on a one-year deal. So if it didn't work out, he might've been doing it all over again somewhere else in 2011.
"I was excited," Hanshin Tigers ace Randy Messenger told The Japan Times at Tokyo Dome on Saturday, some eight years later. "It was one of those where you want to prove yourself. I think I ended up trying to do too much instead of just staying within myself."