Kenta Maeda just wrapped his first season in the Major Leagues, and it was a pretty great one overall. The 28-year-old Dodger starter threw 175.2 innings, with a solid 3.48 ERA – good for 3.2 fWAR – and helped his team get all the way to the NLCS.
But now that the season is over, he took advantage of the clause in his contract which provides him with four round-trip business-class airline tickets between Japan and LA (no, for real!), and flew back home to do some charity and have some fun in the offseason.
Maeda also participated in some sort of Punked-style TV show, where in he disguised himself as an old man before striking out some pre-teens. It’s pretty amazing. Here was the plan:
Pretty simple, right?
1) Take MLB starter Kenta Maeda, make him look old
2) Unleash him on young baseball players
3) Laugh at the results
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOHg2EGh2Zm/
Step one -> Done.
Step Two: See Below …
https://youtu.be/OdtkdnP6RD0?t=10m
And … step 3 (over and over and over).
If you start the video from the beginning, you can see the entire transformation and the the clumsy hustle Maeda put on before the real show began. It really is excellent work; Maeda is such a badass.
That said … I’m not the only one who wants to see a 90 MPH fastball grooved past one of those kids, right?