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Can a Full Bladder Take Down a Pro Baseball Player? Japan Finds Out

An amateur pitcher hatches the most desperate strategy imaginable: wait until a former pro can barely walk, then throw.

· 5 min · YouTube

What's going on

A 26-year-old man from Osaka has spent his whole life on the pitcher's mound — school teams, adult leagues, weekend rec ball. He never made it to the pros, but he has one dream left: strike out an actual professional baseball player. Just once. He knows a fair fight isn't an option, so he came up with a different plan. What if the batter was desperate to use the bathroom? His theory: even the greatest athlete can't focus on a fastball when their bladder is about to explode.

The show arranged a real matchup at a stadium in Osaka — an amateur pitcher versus Yoshio Itoi, a retired outfielder who spent nearly two decades in Japan's top professional league and was one of the most feared hitters of his era. *(Itoi is perhaps best known for his massive physique, his cannon of a throwing arm, and a career batting average that made opposing pitchers lose sleep.)* To make the challenge "fair," a medical device was used to measure Itoi's bladder fullness in real time — the numbers climbing on screen as he drank glass after glass of water before the at-bat. A fanfare sound effect played every time the meter ticked up. The pitcher waited. The crowd waited. Then, at peak desperation, the ball was thrown.

Comments

How is he hitting it that far with THAT swing lmaooo
The bladder meter totally flipping between Punch and Itoi was comedy gold lol
This is the stupidest premise and I love it so much
This is an absolutely unhinged way to market their company’s bladder measurement device, and it works perfectly
Right? And the wild thing is it actually works as entertainment lol
“I want to face a pro baseball player who really needs to pee” — what a sentence to exist
Starting to read a love letter out loud while the man is desperately holding it in… that’s genuinely evil lmao
I noticed it before on sports variety shows too — Itoi is just naturally hilarious on camera. Love him
At a certain angle it kind of looks like an Ichiro stance, and then the ball just rockets out of there lmao
If you hit a rubber softball (Japanese recreational leagues use a rubber ball rather than a hardball) with full force it squishes and dies on contact, so ironically the bladder-induced power reduction gave him the perfect swing weight
Right! So unlike a regular guy, being superhuman actually let him convert the desperation into something useful lmao
The inside pitch near his feet almost causing an emergency bladder situation had me dying
They rented out a whole stadium for this absolute nonsense of a segment lol
The little fanfare that plays every time the bladder meter goes up omg
The letter to his wife that read like a 10-year-old wrote it, and Itoi’s “do this at your own house” response — I lost it lol
And so, Itoi discovered a batting technique that doesn’t rely on muscle power. A legend is born
The tension leaving his body actually resulted in cleaner hip rotation — the centrifugal force did the work. In a weird way it’s textbook form
Itoi doing that weird little sprint to first and Punch chasing after him waving a towel — the image alone is priceless
Can’t believe they actually pulled this off lol. Also wild that the bladder sensor works from the outside
His resume is genuinely insane — calling him in for something like this is kind of disrespectful on paper, but he made it work as entertainment AND hit the ball far. Respect
Hitting that far with that form… pros really are something else
Even with a rubber ball, that swing and that distance — ridiculous
Not tensing up probably helped — with a rubber softball you actually lose distance if you muscle it
Still drinking protein shakes in retirement… the commitment is real
This absolute lunacy of a segment has such a Kansai TV energy (Osaka’s local TV culture is famous for leaning into absurd, physical comedy) and I’m here for it
Why are they spending this much money on something this ridiculous lmaooo
Going all out on the dumbest requests possible — that’s exactly what this show is
Classic Knight Scoop energy
On TV the bladder meter used the Dragon Quest level-up jingle — the YouTube version had to swap it out, and that’s somehow funnier
Barely any retired pro baseball players can make it in TV variety, but Itoi seems like he could build a whole second career out of it
Behold: the true “Pee Swing” batting style
First time seeing Punch in about 20 years and he looked well — got a little emotional honestly 😂
Tuned in for the Aimyon segment (Aimyon is a popular Japanese singer-songwriter) and this ended up being the best part of the episode by far
This is giving major “Mizu Dau” vibes (a well-known variety show famous for extreme human experiment segments)
Knight Scoop is basically the show that invented that format lol
PSA for any kids watching: don’t hold it in. Even once can cause a bladder infection, and if it becomes a habit it’s genuinely miserable to deal with
Setting aside the comedy, that bladder monitor actually seems like a legitimately useful medical device
Punch sets the stage and then superhuman Itoi just walks in and steals the whole show 🤣

My take

That he could still connect under those conditions is a reminder of just how deep athletic instinct runs. The body remembers even when the mind is... elsewhere. Probably not a situation he'll find himself in again, which almost makes the hit more impressive.

Comments loosely translated for tone.

Source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho70b9PSZ-4