He develops feelings for Gorō's kindergarten teacher and nearly marries her. However, he tragically dies after being struck in the head by a pitch from Joe Gibson, an American pitcher who came to Japan from the MLB. During his childhood years, he played for the Yokohama Little league, and later Koshien high school alongside Shigeno. Chiaki Honda was the deceased wife of Shigeharu Honda. / Momoko was Gorō's nursery school teacher when he was younger. After Gorō left nursery school, she dated his dad Shigeharu and was engaged to him at the time of his death. She adopted Gorō and raises him as a single parent until she marries Hideki Shigeno several years later. Her name changes to Momoko Shigeno. She then has children of her own, a boy named Shingo and a girl named Chiharu. Hideki was an ace pitcher for the Yokohama Marine Stars. He and Shigeharu were buddies since high school, and Shigeno had been an irreplaceable friend to the Honda's. When Shigeharu was down due to his arm injury, Hideki sparked the thought for him to transform into a slugger instead. When Shigeharu died, he became reacquainted with Momoko and Goro (they last met at Honda's funeral), giving baseball-related advice to Goro. Then in early Spring three years later, he married Momoko and adopted Goro as his son. Around 1996, his son Shingo was born. In 1996 the Yokohama Marine Stars traded him to the Fukuoka Eagles (Hawks in the Movie). Then in 2000, the Yokohama got him back. However, following a period of bad performances, Shigeno announced his retirement after that season. For the remainder of the season, Shigeno's performance picked up again. His back number, #17, retired with him. (in the anime, the bad performances and retirement occurred during the 2002 season instead) After retiring from professional baseball, he became a sports commentator. In 2001, his daughter Chiharu was born. In 2005, Shigeno was recruited as the head coach as well as the pitcher coach of the Japan National Team for the Baseball World Cup. Initially, Sato was a boy who was forced by his mother to focus on his studies to become a responsible adult. While Gorō was playing catch by himself one time, he saw Toshi staring from his window. At first, Toshi did not want to play catch with Gorō, but Gorō went to Toshi's house and convinced Toshi to play