Decades of precedent began to crumble with an Instagram post.
The post, which caught the eye of scouts for the Athletics, included video of a nimble teenager vacuuming up ground balls on a dirt field in Japan. The kid pitched from the stretch and fired a fastball at 92 miles per hour (148 kilometers per hour). He planted his feet in the left side of the batter’s box and unleashed a smooth but violent swing.
His name: Shotaro Morii. The post advertised his aspirations of playing college baseball in the United States. The A’s, hopeful that Morii would consider the nearly unprecedented jump to an MLB organization instead, sent Toshiyuki Tomizuka, a Japanese area scout, to see Morii in person.
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