Uehara’s dramatic rise from overlooked off-season signing to post-season hero mirrors the improbable journey of his baseball career. Unlike many Japanese professional players, Uehara, who hails from the western Japanese city of Osaka, wasn’t a high school star. He played outfield and, in his final year of high school, he backed up a more prominent pitcher on his team, Yoshinori Tateyama, who had a long career in Japan with the Nippon Ham Fighters and played for two years with the Texas Rangers. But he rarely took the mound and no professional teams took him seriously.
Uehara applied to the Osaka College of Physical Education, but he failed to pass the entrance exam. Instead of quitting, Uehara went to prep school, worked out at the local gym and got a part-time job working night-time construction. On his second try, he was accepted and made it on the university’s baseball team.
After a year and a half of not pitching, he discovered that his fastball had gained velocity. Never a hard thrower, his fastball had ticked up to above 90 miles per hour. He quickly became the ace of the team’s pitching staff and was selected to represent Japan in the Intercontinental Cup, an amateur international tournament. There, he caught the eye of scouts by defeating Cuba in the finals, snapping the island country’s 151-game winning streak in international competitions.