Baseball: Former Fighter, Giant Yang finds 2nd wind in America

Yang Dai-kang, a veteran of 15 Japanese pro baseball seasons, is now, after a trying first year in American independent ball, eyeing a return to elite competition.

Yang is no stranger to making do in a foreign land, the 35-year-old native of Taiwan having moved to Japan as a teenager to attend high school, where his ball-playing success led to a 15-year pro career with the Nippon Ham Fighters and Yomiuri Giants.

He has come away from his latest baseball adventure with a perspective he lacked a year ago. With the Giants in 2021, Yang focused too much on results, was unable to maintain his motivation and became lost.

He asked the club for his release, thinking at the time he just "purely wanted to play baseball," and decided once more to take his baseball challenge to a new land.

Yang traded the high life of a Giants player for the Oconomowoc, Wisconsin-based Lake Country DockHounds of the independent American Association.

Despite an unfamiliar environment on and off the field, Yang received a minimum of support, and with bus rides lasting from seven to 15 hours, found it hard at first to maintain his fitness.

The road trips, however, became a learning opportunity. Yang took to reading about psychology on the bus and gained an awareness that "obsession with results can lead to a loss of concentration."

"Before games, I'd wonder what I would do if I didn't produce, put more pressure on myself and be unable to move as expected," he said.

With better physical and mental balance, Yang had 10 multi-hit games over a period of a month starting in early August. In 77 games, he batted .260. His nine home runs were mostly to the opposite field, suggesting his power was alive and well.

Yang will put his revised approach to the test this winter in the Australian Baseball League as he heeds the words of his Giants skipper, Tatsunori Hara, who said, "Put that idea of what you want to be in the center of your thoughts."

And though the clock on his physical skills is ticking, Yang appears to have found himself and regained his forward momentum.

© Kyodo News