Dice-K is known as a legend of the Koshien, due to his otherworldly performance in the 1998 Summer Koshien. In the quarter-final game, Dice-K threw an astonishing 250 pitches in 17 innings in a win for his team, Yokohama High School, over powerhouse PL Gakuen. Furthermore, the previous day, he threw a 148-pitch complete game shutout. The next day, in the semifinal game, his team came back from a 6-0 deficit in the eighth inning to score seven runs, four in the eighth and three in the ninth.

Dice-K then came out of the outfield to pitch the bottom of the ninth for the win. Dice-K wasn’t done pitching in the tournament though. The next day, in the championship game, he threw a no-hitter, the second ever in a final. This miraculous performance quickly elevated him to rock-star status in Japan, and paving the way for the rest of his glorious career. 

Hiroki Kuroda was a great pitcher in high school as well, but never got to display his full talents on the Koshien stage. He was always looked at in comparison to his father, Kazuhiro Kuroda, was also a professional baseball player who played for the Nankai Hawks. Unlike Dice-K, whose school was known as a baseball powerhouse, his high school, Uenomiya High School, was known more for the upbringing of cricket players. He never got to make a name for himself early on like Dice-K.

In his final year of eligibility to play in the Summer Koshien, his high-school team was denied participation in 1992 due to an assault of a student by a former coach. The following year, after leaving for Senshu University, his high-school team went on to win the Summer Koshien. The rest of Kuroda’s career will also be defined by bad luck.

Both Dice-K and Kuroda broke into the professional league of Japan with success, but via very different paths. Kuroda, not as well revered yet by the masses in Japan, due to his lack of a Koshien appearance in his last year, waited to play professional baseball until after college. After a good showing in college (Senshu University was not a baseball powerhouse college, rather, it was known for its academics and individual Olympic-class athletes), he was drafted in the second round of the 1996 draft to the Hiroshima Toyo Carp.

Following the overshadowing trend that plagued Kuroda through his earlier years, he was once again overshadowed in his rookie season by the Carps first-round draft selection, pitcher Toshikazu Sawazaki, who won Rookie of the Year honors that year. Kuroda persevered and became a consistent part of their starting rotation, racking up at least ten wins over four consecutive seasons from 2000 to 2003, and led the league in complete games from 1999-2005. “Mr. Complete Game”, his nickname, was a complete package for any team to desire .

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