Chicago, July afternoon. Seiya Suzuki stepped out of the locker room, put on his cap, and took a deep breath. Thousands of people were chanting his name from the stands at Wrigley Field. But in his heart, there was always a young spectator who had never been there…
Seiya grew up in Arakawa, Tokyo – a working-class neighborhood where after-school baseball games were the only distraction for the kids. Seiya was the oldest, and had a younger brother – Yuto – who would always run behind him, cheering and begging… to pick up the ball.
They had dreamed that one day, they would both be on the field – Seiya as a batter, Yuto as a catcher. But that dream was shattered when Yuto was diagnosed with a congenital heart disease. He couldn’t play sports, and he couldn’t even go to school. During Seiya’s days at the baseball school, Yuto was hospitalized – but he always sent him small cards, written in crooked handwriting:
“You are my light. If I can’t run, run for me.”
The year Seiya was called up to the Japanese national team, the young Yuto quietly passed away during a bout of illness.
Many years later, Seiya Suzuki officially joined the MLB, becoming the pride of Asia in the Chicago Cubs. He was often called “the cold man from Tokyo” by the media because he rarely celebrated, rarely smiled, and never looked up at the stands. But those who were observant would notice: before each time he entered the field, Seiya always quietly wore a red string around his left wrist, inside of which was engraved the Japanese words:
「走るよ、代わりに。」– “I will run for you.”
The Cubs coach said that Seiya was once asked to film a major sports commercial, but he turned it down. Instead, he sent money back to Japan, contributing to the construction of a rehabilitation center for children with heart disease called “Yuto Home.” No press, no announcement, just a bronze plaque quietly mounted at the gate: “Every child deserves to run, dream, and live the life my brothers and I dreamed of.”