Big windup

STORY Mihashi moves on to high school convinced he is a lousy baseball pitcher. Once there, he meets the catcher Abe and the team manager Momoe who together, work to make Mihashi overcome his shyness and fear of being a terrible ace. Main Charcters Takaya Abe Abe is the teams catcher, and also one of their better batters. His skills as a catcher were developed during middle school, when he played in the Seniors league. Abe was paired with a talented pitcher named Haruna, whose pitches were so hard and lacking in control that he was constantly covered in bruises. However, he persevered, knowing that if he could catch Haruna's pitches, he would gain a place as a regular. Although he succeeded, Abe soon began to resent Haruna, who strictly refused to throw more than 80 pitches per game, even if it meant walking off the field, and never followed Abe's signs. Because of this, Abe initially values Mihashi for his obedience, desire to stay on the mound, and control. However, he comes to appreciate just how much work Mihashi puts in, and is determined to win games using Mihashi's pitching and prove to him that he is a good pitcher. Azusa Hanai Though he was the clean up hitter during middle school, Hanai now bats fifth at Nishiura. He is a very level-headed and relatively smart and observant person. He is reliable, knows his own abilities, willing to help when needed, but also is not afraid to talk back to Momoe-san, all of which are qualities that got him unanimously voted to become team captain. At first he tries to compete with Tajima, but eventually acknowledges the fact that Tajima is a better batter. Kousuke Izumi Izumi is one of the more experienced players on the team, good at batting and catching and most notably a very fast base runner. He is in the same class as Mihashi and Tajima and shares their lunchtime activities of talking, eating and then falling asleep. He attended the same elementary and junior high school as Hamada, although up until high school Hamada was a year above him. He appears to enjoy antagonizing Hamada and does not treat him with the respect due to a former senpai. Ren Mihashi Mihashi, the main character of the series, is a nervous boy with no self confidence. He is shown to have always had this personality, (which seems to come in part from his father, who displays some of the same mannerisms) however, it became much more pronounced in middle school, where he was bullied by his teammates on the baseball team after gaining a place on the team apparently through favouritism, as his grandfather owned the school. The other members of the team were resentful of this and felt that their reserve pitcher, Kanou, was far more talented than Mihashi. However, Mihashi refused to give up the mound and pitched in every one of their games, even when his teammates stopped trying and the catcher wouldn't give him signs to throw. Eventually, Mihashi decided to change schools for high school and succeeded in gaining a place in Nishiura. Although he felt guilty for ruining his junior high teams enjoyment of the game, and thus promised himself he wouldn't play baseball in high school, Mihashi let slip that he was a pitcher, and is thus dragged into the baseball club, who had no other pitcher.