January 21, 2022: Yanai, Japan – In a brief, multi-cultural ceremony, Lupin Cliff Hanger shortstop Shiro Adachi was wed to Cinde Chah his longtime girlfriend early this afternoon. Chah, 31, is an investment broker from Korea. The two met while the team was in Seoul during Adachi’s first season in the LRS, and have been dating steadily since.

The ceremony was attended by family, a few close friends, and teammates. It included an intricate meshing of a Japanese sake sharing ceremony (san-san-kudo) and the Korean kunbere. The bride wore her family’s red silk in a modern strapless fashion, and a traditional Japanese watabōshi headdress. The groom was immaculate in a simple suit and a tie that matched the bride’s dress.

“Cinde is a person who gives me an even balance,” Adachi said in the days before the ceremony. “She’s helped me a lot during this horrible season.” The shortstop came into 2021 with the burden of expectation on his shoulders, having won a Gurabukin (All-Leather) Award in the field and been a solid contributor at the bat (averaging 3 WAR over the past three seasons). But the wheels fell off, and he was eventually benched and then moved to second base in the last third of the slate.

“He was pressing everywhere,” Chah-Adachi said. “I just told him everything would be all right, that baseball is short, and that twenty years from now it wouldn’t matter because we’ll be someplace very different. I told him he should just enjoy wearing that dorky yellow and pink uniform and having a place to be who he was meant to be.”

Whatever she said, worked. When Adachi returned from the bench and took over at second base, his numbers soared to .293/.356/415 in September, including seven doubles and a homer. In addition, his glove came back, registering a partial-season zone rating that, when stretched out over an entire season, would have made him among the elite of the position.

The team’s acquisition of José Escobido in the off-season will certainly push Adachi back to shortstop, but the 29-year-old veteran isn’t worried. “I know I can play,” he said quietly. “And in the worst case, I always will have Cinde on my side.”

A solid Shiro Adachi at shortstop would go a long way toward helping the team. So whether baseball is short, or not, Lupin fans across the globe are wishing the happy couple a great honeymoon, and hoping that whatever magic was in the air last fall carries over into 2022.