Tsuwabuki, Sanshirou

石ツワブキ・サンシロー

Sanshirou Tsuwabuki is a former professional baseball player who joined the Space Dragon crew just as his sports career was poised for success, with a major debut in the Japanese national league as the new pitcher for the Red Sun team.
Japanese baseball held high expectations for his considerable talent, but Sanshiro was stopped by the Black Birds, whom Darius sent to Earth to kill him. He was completely unaware that he was one of the humans whose superior powers could interfere with Darius' invasion of Earth. To kill him without compromising the secrecy of their plans, the Black Birds staged a game accident that caused a fracture in Sanshiro's left wrist; the consequences of this injury forced him to retire from baseball. Afterward, he survived two more ambushes by Darius' killers and finally understood the terrible threat facing Earth and mankind. Consequently, he accepted Prof. Daimonji's proposal to become the new pilot of the Gaiking, thus completing the crew of the Space Dragon.
Sanshiro experienced this dramatic change in his life traumatically: his will could not compensate for what the accident had done, and he had to face the new challenge of fighting for Earth's survival with no choice, unlike his new fellow companions on the Space Dragon. Despite all this, Sanshiro will not spare himself at all when performing his duty of protecting Earth with the Gaiking, even though his past life never prepared him for a mission like fighting the monsters of the Black Horror Army. Sanshiro will rule the battlefield and win with the same valour that could have made him a baseball champion, but even the supreme task of Earth's survival will not make Sanshiro forget his identity as a man with other affections in peacetime, which will remain his strongest desire until he gives them up after realizing that Darius' war stole the time of his life.