Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks infielder Kenji Akashi briefly went viral across baseball late last week when he hit a three-run sayonara home run and celebrated with a backflip onto home plate. Well, near home plate, as he had to go back and actually step on it.
Before long, videos of Akashi's acrobatics were being tweeted out by accounts connected to both MLB and the World Baseball Softball Confederation, baseball's governing body, among others. It was also shown on MLB Network in the U.S.
While the flashy move probably surprised some outside Japan, NPB players are no strangers to post-homer celebrations. Backflips certainly aren't the norm, but bat flips and various other "home run performances" are fairly common around NPB, where apparently a lot of the prickly unwritten rules MLB often grapples with (resulting in players getting hit with pitches) were lost in translation.