Daniel Padyšák signed a contract in Japan
Czech national team pitcher Daniel Padyšák signed a contract with Japanese team Oisix Niigata Albirex playing in the minor Eastern League. The club announced this information on their web pages.
We had to wait till the end of February to discover where will the currently best Czech pitcher play. In the end he heads to Eastern League, which is a minor league, hierarchically under Central League, which is one of the two competitions forming NPB. Team Oisix Niigata Albirex is, however, not in the organization of any NPB team, but joined the league as an independent team in the previous season.
Team is located in Niigata and plays their home games at Niigata Prefectural Baseball Stadium with capacity of 30 000 places. This stadium also hosted NPB All-Star Game in 2010.
„I am very exited and thankful for the opportunity which I was given by Oisix Niigata Albirex club,“ said Daniel Padyšák for the club web. „Since World Baseball Classic I dreamt about playing in Japan and get to know Japanese baseball. I will do everything to help the team and to grow as a player, but also as a person. I am looking forward to your support!“
After finishing his college career in USA, Padyšák moves to Japan. In the previous season he played for Georgia University where he threw 22.1 innings with ERA 7.66. He spent 5 season in college baseball with 189.2 innings pitched, ERA 4.98 and 181 strikeouts.
