His Favorite Pastime

When Yamamoto first appears the most important thing in his life is baseball. Yamamoto is a freshman at the middle school just like Gokudera and Tsuna whose life revolves around his position as a starter on the baseball team. Just by knowing that Yamamoto is a freshman and a starter we know he is skilled. It is uncommon for an inexperienced player to become a starter which means Yamamoto has exceptional abilities. Yamamoto has apparently been starting for various baseball teams his whole life. Yamamoto shows natural talent however, he also practices non-stop. In his Vongola 77 profile, it states that he is known to spend most of his free time at the local batting cages. Yamamoto's dream is to become a top baseball star for a major league team and he always works his hardest to prove himself as a skilled baseball player worthy of making it to the top.

Yamamoto's dedication to his sport makes him physically strong because of his constant practicing and his crosstraining workouts to stay in shape. Despite that, it is also his biggest weakness. When Yamamoto breaks his arm due to his excessive practicing he tries to jump off the roof of the school because he believes he'll never be able to reach his goal after having broken his arm. He finds that without baseball he has become useless because baseball is the only thing he's good at. Tsuna his able to convince him that baseball isn't everything but it still remains an important part of his life.

"Still, it is kind of sad forgetting about baseball, even if it is just for a little while." - Yamamoto Takeshi, Ch. 246

It the future arc we learn that the Yamamoto Takeshi of ten years later has become caught between two worlds. He is stuck between the mafia world at Tsuna's Rain Guardian and the world of professional baseball. Yamamoto spends most of his free time practicing baseball however he is held back because he refuses to abandon his friends and "family" to commit himself to a fairly normal life as a professional athlete. Squalo tells Yamamoto that it is one of the things he hates most about him is that despite the effort to push Yamamoto towards the path of the sword he refused to commit.

If forced however, Yamamoto would choose his family and the sword over baseball. During the Ten Years Later Arc Squalo comes to train Yamamoto and at that time he explains that he will have to choose. He says the answer is "obvious". When returning home he continues to play baseball but he does not commit to it to the same extent as before. It becomes just a game.