Recalls that SoftBank did not let Chiga go to the United States that year: like a child being taken away from a toy

New York Mets' Japanese ace Chiga Toshida, who is challenging the major leagues for the 2023 season, shared in a recent interview that the reluctance of the SoftBank Hawks of the parent ball club to let him go to the United States was as disappointing to him as if he had taken away a child's toy.

In his 11-year career in Japan, he accumulated 87 wins, a defense rate of only 2.59, and 1,252 strikeouts in his career, although he repeatedly expressed his willingness to travel to the United States during his time for SoftBank, the team was unwilling to let him go, so he could only announce the exercise of overseas FA at the end of the 2022 season and obtain overseas free agent qualification, signing a five-year, $75 million contract with the Mets, and successfully pursuing his dream.

Talking about his many years of hard work in Japan, but he has never had the opportunity to challenge a higher level, Chiga said in an exclusive interview with the New York Post recently: "My state has been high and low, there are good days and bad days, maybe I was not so motivated in bad days, but then I think back to when I was in Japan, I couldn't come here, that feeling of frustration, I think back to that incident, I really wanted to come here at that time, and now I'm here, I'm lucky, I've been trying to get myself here, And now I want to extend my career as long as I can."

Chiga revealed that he felt as if he was a different person when he couldn't come to the big leagues, saying, "It's like, when you take a toy from a child, the child will be very frustrated because I didn't have a chance to come here."