Japanese Baseball Star Soars Into Stadium on Flying Motorcycle

Talk about making an entrance!

Boss Move

Talk about an entrance! Major League baseball player Tsuyoshi Shinjo, nicknamed "Big Boss," returned to Japan's Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters team as the new manager this week — and, memorably, he flew into the stadium on a hover bike.

Shinjo levitated above the field while a light show and loud music played, according to a new report published this morning in USA Today. A tweet from baseball podcast Farm to Fame shared a clip of the moment pictured below, with Shinjo astride the craft, which was an XTURISMO Limited Edition hover bike with multiple rotors on a black, ATV-like body and seat.

Hot Competition

The vehicle is made in Japan by ALI Technologies, according to a EuroNews report. A New Atlas story published in November of 2021 covered the vehicle's initial launch, at which point it cost 77.7 million yen, or approximately an eye-watering $680,000. It's not clear if Shinjo purchased the bike or if it was part of a marketing campaign, but we do know that only about 200 were made during the initial production run.

But hey, hover bike customers, don't fret over the limited supply! JetPack Aviation has also designed a "flying motorcycle" called the Speeder, which founder David Mayman said in a previous interview with Futurism was predominantly intended be used in emergency response or military operations.

ALI lists similar use cases on its website, too, so for a while at least it's unlikely we'll see hovering motorcycles of any kind in the wild. Even if that were the case, though, don't bet on them give your ball game a flying start. Sadly, the MLB reports that the Nippon-Ham Fighters lost to the Saitama Seibu Lions, 4-0.

More on advanced transport: The UK Is Training Paramedics to Use Jetpacks in Emergencies