One Outs

Plot: The story starts in Okinawa, in a training camp-- the ace batter of the Lycaons, a notoriously weak professional baseball team with a record of losses, Hiromichi Kojima, is trying to find out just why his team can never make it to the championships. During his training, he discovers the game of One Outs, a gambling derivative of baseball, and the game's champion, Toua Tokuchi.
The rule of the game is simple: if the pitcher can strike the batter out in three pitches, the pitcher wins.

No one had ever been able to get a hit from Toua.

This is the Lycaons' and Toua's fateful meeting, and it's here that the story begins.