Without a team and mulling retirement, veteran Hirata finds everything changed with a single phone call.

 By Kubiyo Matushito, Niihamasports.com

 (Niihama City — September 1, 2018) — By the time the phone call came nearly two months ago, Masakazu Hirata had nearly given up.

 “I was ready to concede that my baseball career was over,” recalls the 30-year old infielder.

 Hirata had been a super utility infielder and a mainstay of the Niihama-Shi Ghosts organization since 2010.  He even appeared in both of the Ghosts’ only post-season excursions, in ‘10 and ‘11 at ages 22-23.

 But over the 2016 and ‘17 seasons, Hirata found his playing time diminished as younger stars emerged.  The worst news came at the end of the ‘17 season: General Manager Mike Dunn had opted not to tender an arbitration offer.  Hirata was — some said unceremoniously — shown the door.

 “It was a difficult decision,” recalled Dunn recently.  “Masa was extremely popular, and had been a very loyal, hard-working member of the organization for eight years.  And he had never complained when we demoted him on occasion to AAA.  But we needed to make some tough financial decisions, and with his arbitration looming, we opted to go with some of our younger players rather than tender an offer.”

 So on December 1, 2017, Hirata was suddenly a free agent, out of job, and wondering if he would ever play professional baseball again.  “My wife and my agent both tried keeping my spirits up.  I continued working out with a local high school team, mainly to keep my endurance and my timing.  But some days it was hard to motivate myself.”

 Hirata’s disillusionment increased when no other LRS squad invited him to spring training.  “I would have taken a minor league deal, and I told my agent to put out feelers.”  But there was no interest.

 He volunteered as an assistant coach at his elder son’s high school baseball team, all the while watching his cell phone for messages.  “After a while, the reality became, uh, more real.  There were no messages.”  Hirata began studying for a real estate broker’s license, but his heart wasn’t in it.  “My entire life had been baseball, and I still had no desire to do anything else.”

 Then came the remarkable phone call, on July 9th.  “Actually it started with a text message,” Hirata remembers, “my agent told me to get home and wait for a call.”

 And when the call came, a surprise: not only was an LRS team calling, it was none other than the Ghosts.  Hirata was talking, once again, with Dunn.

 The team had, early in the season, lost their All-Star second baseman, Eisaku Ito.  Ito suffered a torn labrum after just twenty games and was done for the year.  “At first we tried filling in at second with some younger organizational guys, (Kosaku) Kiyomizu and (Shozo) Aoyama.”

 But while both players excelled defensively, neither provided much offense.  Since native-born infielders who can hit are at a premium in the LRS, efforts at working a trade were in vain.  “We expect Ito to return next season, so selling the farm for a starting second baseman was not worthwhile.”  Dunn scoured the waiver wire each week in search of an infielder who could help, again to no avail.

 “Then,” recalls Dunn, “I thought of Masa.”  He picked up the phone.

 And that, dear readers, is how Masakazu Hirata went from a potential retiree to firmly back in the big leagues.  “I’m not only back,” the veteran says with a touch of amazement, “but I’m the starting second baseman for a team that might be playoff-bound.”

 Hirata, thus far, has responded with precisely the type of offense for which Dunn was searching: he is hitting .314 with a .402 OBP after 25 games.

 And he’s hoping that his ability to hit for average will keep him in the lineup as the team vies for its first postseason appearance since 2011.  “The baseball gods enjoy curveballs,” Hirata muses.  “To end up in the playoffs, starting, when I thought my career was done — that is one hell of a curveball.”

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