Remembering Hiroki Kuroda’s remarkable professional career

While fans in the United States are enjoying a World Series of historic proportions, another playoff series just took place across the Pacific in the Nippon Professional Baseball league. The Japan Series, the baseball championship of NPB, featured the Hiroshima Toyo Carp and the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. My rooting interest, as a neutral American observer, was with the Carp, who featured none other than Hiroki Kuroda for his final professional start.

The Carp won the first two games of the series, and it seemed like Kuroda had a chance at getting a title before his retirement, but the Carp then lost four straight games, a couple in brutal fashion.

Game three, Kuroda’s final start, went…