Former Rising Sun 3B Takeshi Hayashi has been busy since his playing days. Since retiring in 2023, he’s started his own hitting academy in Fujisawa. Young hitters come from all across the country to spend time with one of the top power hitting 3B during his playing days. With this success, Hayashi was at a crossroads. Do you stay where you’re comfortable or do you take things to the next level? The next level was expansion across the rest of Asia, and long story short his financial advisors are no longer employed.

Broke and without an academy to fall back on, Hayashi took the Claymores offer of $10,000 per season to lead their young hitters development at Rookie level Khartoum.

“I wanted to get back in the professional game, but still work with younger players. Some may scoff at the pay, but I didn’t lose everything. I consider this opportunity as just that, an opportunity to be in this game and continue making a positive difference in the development of young players.”

At age 50, Hayashi has time to continue evolving himself and grow as a professional coach. GM Sean Bain expressed this sentiment with his vision of his minor league coaching staff.

“We’ve been molding our staffs to not only help our players develop, but to also help these coaches grow within the organization as well. Hayashi won’t say it, but he has experience beating up on the Rising Sun. We look forward to getting him out of his shell when the cameras aren’t around.”

Takeshi Hayashi joins a revamped Khartoum Raiders staff with manager Mito Nii and pitching coach Fred Sorley.