You don’t need a translator to understand Koji Uehara’s humility.
Just look at his clubhouse locker. A symbol of it hangs there before every game: His No. 19 jersey.
At 19, Uehara found himself out of baseball and out of school, working as a security guard and studying. From there, his goal of becoming a high school physical education teacher, much less a major-league pitcher, might’ve seemed distant.
Nevertheless, here Uehara is, in his 19th season of professional baseball, one season away from reaching his latest goal of matching his 10-year Japanese career with the same stateside.