Baseball: Stewart’s rough Japan journey coming to crossroads

Four years after he blazed a trail as American baseball’s first marquee amateur to turn pro in Japan, SoftBank Hawks pitcher Carter Stewart Jr. appears to have emerged from the wilderness.

Stewart’s signing with SoftBank in 2019 looked like the ideal match of elite-level talent and a deep-pocket team with Japan’s strongest track record for developing talent, but that big payoff has yet to arrive.

“There are a lot of steps to the process. Coming over here, there were a lot of expectations, and I let that weigh on me a little bit. The entire adjusting to the culture, learning the language, learn...