A year ago, before he was named to his first All-Star team, Seibu Lions slugger Hotaka Yamakawa felt his career in pro baseball was teetering on the brink of failure.Although he now leads all of Nippon Professional Baseball in home runs and runs batted in, the stocky 26-year-old first baseman was at a loss. Despite driving balls over walls more frequently than any player in Japan in nearly 20 years, Yamakawa had run into a different kind of wall."I'd get called up and pinch hit or even get a start," Yamakawa recently told Kyodo News. "But if I went hitless in a couple of at-bats, I might ge…READ FULL ARTICLE
