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Springtime means one thing for sports fans: baseball! While Major League Baseball is still toiling away in spring training and pre-season games, the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) league has already kicked off their season with the first games occurring at the end of March.

Since spring signals the time for new beginnings, what is more precious than the beginning of the first home game of the year? And with it brings the first opening pitch of the season. For the 2013 Japan Series winners, the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, they asked Genki Sudo and his group World Order to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

But how do you ask seven people to throw out one ball?

The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles are the pride of baseball in the northeastern Japan, with fans in six prefectures. Their championship win two years ago was extra special as it was their first title since their inception in 2005, and no doubt acted as a huge pick-up-me following the events of 2011. While their results last season were less than stellar (they came in last place…), they hope to rebound with the help and inspiration of World Order.

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World Order is Genki Sudo’s music and dancing group which produces some thought-provoking music backed up by some sweet robotic dance moves. RocketNews24 has documented their antics a number of times before, but it’s always nice to be reminded of the awesome things they do.

This unique music group would definitely make the first pitch a special one and they certainly didn’t disappoint.

Their particular skills were applauded as they made their way to the pitcher’s mound as a World Order unit. They marched up and greeted the crowd in their signature bowing style, much to the delight of fans.

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They then lined up single file at the mound and Genki wound up to throw…

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▼ It’s the Senjukannon (Thousand-armed Goddess of Mercy) ball!

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▼ Not content to just invoke the image of a goddess, the hands proceeded to move erratically in order to confuse the batter

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How could a batter possibly concentrate well enough to hit a ball thrown with that sort of distraction? Luckily for the hitters of the NPB, Genki Sudo couldn’t quite get the ball over the plate.

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It doesn’t matter as it was smiles all around from the robots of World Order and the attending crowd.

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As always it was an entertaining performance by World Order, and we would never expect anything less. It wasn’t a blistering 80mph fastball in the strike zone, but Genki Sudo can say with confidence, at least the pitch was not the worst ever ceremonial first pitch.

Images: YouTube (PacificLeagueMovie)
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