Sadaharu Oh
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-->Sadaharu Oh (Japanese: , Hepburn romanization: Ō Sadaharu, Wade-Giles: Wang Chen-chih, pinyin: Wáng Zhēnzhì, born May 20, 1940, in Tokyo, Japan), is a former player and manager for Japanese baseball's most storied team, the Yomiuri Giants.
Oh is the son of a Chinese father and a Japanese mother and, though born in Japan, holds a passport of Republic of China.
In high school, Oh made many appearances at Koshien and suffered several tough defeats. In 1957, Waseda High School made it to the Spring Koshien Tournament with the second-year Oh as their ace pitcher. Right before the tournament started, Oh suffered serious blisters on two fingers of his pitching hand. The only way to heal the injury was with rest, but Oh refused to let his team down. Hiding his injury so as not to demoralize his team, Oh pitched the entire first game at Koshien and won. Oh's catcher noticed the bloodstained ball, but agreed to keep the injury secret from the rest of the team. The next day, Oh pitched another complete game and earned the victory, and again his catcher kept the injury a secret, but the blisters worsened. The pain and infection was unbearable, and now Oh faced the prospect of pitching two more games — on back-to-back days — for the championship. All the same, Oh pitched and won another complete game, enduring the worst pain of his life. After the game, on the eve of the Final, he had already lost all feeling in his fingertips, and was convinced he couldn't pitch in the Final.
That night, Oh was paid a surprise visit by his father, who had noticed the subtle injury while watching his son pitch on television. Oh's father had traveled 350 miles from Tokyo to bring him a Chinese herbal remedy. The miracle treatment worked, and Oh was able to just make it through his fourth complete game in four days, squeaking out a one-run victory. Oh had won the Championship, proved his fighting spirit, and earned fame and the respect of the nation.
In 1959, he signed his first professional contract as a pitcher for the Yomiuri Giants. However, Oh was a weak pitcher and soon switched to first base, working diligently with coach Hiroshi Arakawa to improve his hitting skills. This led the development of Oh's distinctive "flamingo" leg kick. It took the left-handed hitting Oh a few years to blossom, but he would go on to dominate baseball in Japan for the next twenty years.
Playing Career
Oh led his league in home runs fifteen times (and for thirteen consecutive seasons) and also drove in the most runs for thirteen seasons. More than just a power hitter, Oh was a five-time batting champion, and won the Japanese Central League's batting triple crown twice. With Sadaharu Oh at first base, the Yomiuri Giants won eleven championships, and Oh was named the Central League's Most Valuable Player nine times and to the All-Star team eighteen times.Sadaharu Oh retired in 1980 at age 40, having amassed a Japanese baseball record of 2,786 hits, 2,170 RBIs, and a lifetime batting average of .301. Moreover, his record of 868 career home runs is 113 more than Hank Aaron's Major League Baseball home run record of 755.
His hitting exploits benefited from the fact that, for most of his career, he batted third in the Giants' lineup, with another very dangerous hitter, Shigeo Nagashima, batting fourth.
Oh was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.
Speculation on an MLB Career
Oh's legendary career has led baseball fans in many countries to wonder how well he could have done had he played in Major League Baseball. While the differences between Major League baseball and Japanese baseball are easily noticeable—the parks in the Japanese leagues tend to be far smaller, the season is shorter, and, typically, managers during Oh's career used a three-man starting rotation.Managing Career
Oh was the assistant manager of the Yomiuri Giants between 1981 and 1983. He became the manager of the Yomiuri Giants between 1984 and 1988. He led the Giants to one Central League pennant in 1987.In 1995, he returned to baseball as the manager of the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks (later the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks). Oh led the Hawks to three Pacific League pennants in 1999, 2000 and 2003, and two Japan Series titles in 1999 and 2003.
In 2006, Oh managed the Japan National team, winning the championship in the inaugural 2006 World Baseball Classic over Cuba. On July 5, he announced that he was taking an indefinite leave of absence from the Hawks to combat a stomach tumor.[link]
Oh's tenure as a manager has not been without controversy. On three occasions, foreign players have challenged his single-season home run record of 55 (Americans Randy Bass in 1985, 54 HRs, and Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes in 2001, 55 HRs; and Venezuelan Alex Cabrera in 2002, 55 HRs). Each of these men played against teams managed by Oh late in the season with the record on the line. In each instance Oh's pitchers were either instructed or refused to throw hittable pitches, in order to safeguard Oh's record.
Reacting to treatment of Bass in 1985, Japanese baseball commissioner Hiromori Kawashima termed Oh's team's behavior "completely divorced from the essence of...fair play." In the wake of the most recent incident involving Cabrera, ESPN ranked Oh's single-season home run record #2 overall on its list of [The Phoniest Records in Sports].
Others
In 1988, Oh and Hank Aaron created the World Children's Baseball Fair (WCBF), to increase the popularity of baseball by working with youngsters.Oh was married to Kyoko Oh (王恭子 Ō Kyōko) and has three daughters.
Kyoko Oh died of stomach cancer in December 2001 at age 57. In December 2002, her ashes were stolen from their family grave. The reason for this theft is still unclear.
Ō is the Japanese rendering of the common Chinese surname Wang, which literally means "king". Many people feel the name is fitting as Oh is the all-time home run king.
Oh is mentioned in the lyrics to the Beastie Boys song "Hey Ladies".
External links
- [Oh for Cooperstown? Part I by Jim Albright]
- [Oh for Cooperstown? Part II by Jim Albright]
- [Oh Sadaharu @A Trivial Encyclopedia of Japan] (with links in multiple languages)
- [Japanese Baseball Data Archive at The Baseball Guru]
- [Oh Positive about managing Japan]
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