Yu Darvish

Yu Darvish who is a Japanese Starting Pitcher for Texas Rangers of the Major League Baseball was born on 16th August 1986. He is considered as one of the best pitchers in the Japanese Professional Baseball by many people. He is the native of Habikino, Osaka, Japan and is of Persian and Japanese ethnicity.  As a child, he was named as Sefat Farid Yu Darvish. His father Farsad Darvishsefat is Iranian whereas his mother Ikuyo is a Japanese.

Yu began to play the baseball while he was in his second grade. He led his team to quarterfinals of National Tournament and was also a third-place finish in International Tournament as the member of Habikino Boys. While he was in junior high, Yu was scouted by over 50 High Schools. Darvish opted to attend the Tohoku High School that is located in Northern Sendai which is a noted baseball powerhouse that has produced players like Seatle Mariners, Kazuhiro Sasaki and Takashi Saito.

He made his first professional debut on 15th June of 2005 for Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. Yu recorded his first complete Game Win on 6th August which was the game against Lions and his first complete Game Shutout on 18th September. The following years, he had a breakout year. that year, he won Asia Series Most Valuable Player Award.

He then made his National Team debut in 2007 Asian Baseball Championship against the Chinese Taipei on 3rd December 2007. He resigned with Nippon Ham Fighters on 22nd December 2007 for 200 million yen and the payment at the piece rates, up 128 million yen from the year 2006. He was at the age of 21 when he became the youngest player in the Japanese baseball history who reached 200 million yen mark.

Later, Darvish again agreed to a deal for 2011 season on 6th January 2011 that made him highest paid player in the Japan. he signed the deal for 500 million Yen which was $6,065,490 US dollar when converted on the same day. He was elected to play 2014 MLB All-Star Game on 6th July of 2014. He entered the game in the third inning to retire all the three batters. Prior to that, Darvish has also played internationally. He had pitched in 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2009 World Baseball Classic as the member of Japanese National Team. Later, he together with Ichiro Suzuki and Daisuke Matsuzaka decided not to play in 2013 World Baseball Classic.

To talk about his personal life, Darvish was married to his longtime girlfriend Saeko who is a Japanese actress. In a post-game interview on 9th August 2007, he stated the relationship about him and Saeko. He also stated that he and Saeko were planning to get married and also she was pregnant with his baby. The couple exchanged their vows in the month of November of 2007.

The Japanese tabloids reported it as a shotgun wedding. Darvish and Saeko have two sons together. Due to some personal reason, they got divorced in 2012. Their divorced was finalized on same day that Darvish officially signed with Texas Rangers.

Apart from that, he is now at the age of 28 and stands tall at the height of six feet and five inches. He knows some of the words in Persian but he does not speaks it. He holds both the Iranian as well as Japanese citizenship but he has chosed the Japanese nationality as he hopes to play with the Japanese team. He is a pitcher who plays with his right hand. He throws from the three quarter arm slot in drop and drive motion. He has a fast curve and slow curve.

In addition to that, he has also established the humanitarian fund that is dedicated to construction, installation as well as the maintenance of the wells, the well pumps, and the rainwater storage facilities for developing the countries.  The fund is called ‘Yu Darvish Water Fund’ and it was established in the month of February 2007 which is managed by Japan Water Forum.

He had announced that he has a plan to contribute the fund by donating 100000 yen for each time he notches the regular season win. He is also active in social networking sites and to know more about him, we can also follow him on his twitter account.