Again he won the ERA title, an All-Star selection, and even led the league in wins, but would ultimately lose the coveted Sawamura Award to young Yomiuri Giants ace Masumi Kuwata (15-6, 2.17).
On January 28, 2009, at age 40, he was accepted into the Graduate School of Sport Sciences of Waseda University, and on March 25, he graduated first on the list of this school.
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The draft generated some controversy, since Kuwata had repeatedly expressed a desire to enter Waseda University, prompting other teams to refrain from picking him in the draft.
Several professional baseball players first made their mark at Kōshien, including Eiji Bandō, Sadaharu Oh, Koji Ota, Suguru Egawa, Masumi Kuwata, Kazuhiro Kiyohara, Hideki Matsui, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yu Darvish and Masahiro Tanaka.