Masataka Yoshida, 'a baseball rat', eager to meet favorite player Bryce Harper
When longtime major league outfielder Adam Jones arrived in Japan to play for the Orix Buffaloes in 2020, he noticed one player right away — a player everyone called Harper-san, who wore No. 34. It wasn’t Bryce Harper himself, of course, but one of his biggest fans: current Red Sox outfielder Masataka Yoshida. Yoshida not only wore 34 in Japan for Harper, but named his French bulldog Harper and uses an Instagram handle (BH_Masataka34) with Harper’s initials and number. When Nippon Professional Baseball had a game where players wore nicknames on the backs of their jerseys, Yoshida,...
Source: theathletic.com