Sadaharu Oh

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Sadaharu Oh 王 貞治
Oh as manager for the Japan national team in the 2006 World Baseball Classic
First baseman
Born: May 20, 1940 (1940-05-20) (age 69) Sumida, Tokyo, Japan
Bats: Left	Throws: Left
Professional debut
NPB: April 11, 1959 for the Yomiuri Giants
Last professional appearance
October 12, 1980 for the Yomiuri Giants
NPB statistics
Batting average	.301
Home runs	868
Hits	2786
RBIs	2170
Teams
As Player Yomiuri Giants (1959–1980) As Manager Yomiuri Giants (1981–1988) Fukuoka Daiei Hawks • Fukuoka Softbank Hawks (1995–2008) Japan (2006)
Career highlights and awards
9× Central League MVP (1964, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977)
Member of the Japanese
Baseball Hall of Fame
Inducted	1994

Sadaharu Oh or officially Wang Chenchih (Chinese: 王貞治; pinyin: Wáng Zhēnzhì, Hepburn: Ō Sadaharu, born May 20, 1940), is a former baseball player and manager of the Yomiuri Giants in Nippon Professional Baseball and is the former manager and currently the chairman of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. He holds the record for home runs in the Nippon Professional Baseball league, having hit 868 in his career. He is also known as the first person to be awarded People's Honor Award.

Oh is the son of Shifuku Oh (王 仕福, Ō Shifuku^?, pinyin Wáng Shìfú), a man from Zhejiang Province, Republic of China,^[1] and a Japanese mother and was born in Sumida, Tokyo, Japan. He has held a passport from the Republic of China (Taiwan) since birth, as do his three daughters.

Playing career

Prep career

In high school, Oh made many appearances at Koshien Stadium and suffered several tough defeats. In 1957, Waseda Jitsugyo High School made it to the Spring Koshien Tournament with the second-year Oh as its 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 pain. After the game, on the eve of the final, he had already lost all feeling in his fingertips, and was convinced he could not pitch in the final.

That night, Oh was paid a surprise visit by his father, who had noticed the injury while watching his son pitch on television. Oh's father had traveled 350 miles from Tokyo to bring him a 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.

Professional career

In 1959, he signed his first professional contract as a pitcher for the Yomiuri Giants. However, Oh was not a strong enough pitcher to succeed professionally 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 three years to blossom, but he would go on to dominate the baseball league in Japan.

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 2,786 hits (third after Isao Harimoto (Jang Hoon) and Katsuya Nomura), 2,170 RBIs, a lifetime batting average of .301, and 868 home runs.

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; the two players forming the feared "O-N Cannon". In his autobiography, Sadaharu Oh: A Zen Way Of Baseball (ISBN 978-0812911091), Oh said he and Nagashima were not close, rarely spending time together off the field. Oh was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.

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 baseball 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.^[2] On July 17, 2006, Oh underwent laparoscopic surgery to remove his stomach and its surrounding lymph nodes. The surgery was considered to be a success. ^[3] Although the tumor was confirmed to be cancerous, it was caught in early stages. He returned to coaching the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, although he announced he would retire at the end of the 2008 season as manager (but remain as Hawks' GM). He retired as a manager in 2008.

Home run record controversy

On three occasions, foreign-born players have challenged Oh's single-season home run record of 55 and faced Oh-managed teams late in the season. On every single occasion, Oh's pitchers refused to throw strikes to them.^[4]

In 1985, American Randy Bass, playing for the Hanshin Tigers, came into the last game of the season against the Oh-managed Giants with 54 home runs. Bass was intentionally walked four times on four straight pitches each time. Bass reached over the plate on the fifth occasion and batted the ball into the outfield for a single. After the game, Oh denied ordering his pitchers to walk Bass, but Keith Comstock, an American pitcher for the Giants, later stated that an unnamed Giants coach had threatened a fine of $1,000 for every strike that any Giants pitcher threw to Bass. The magazine Takarajima investigated the incident and reported that the Giants front office had likely ordered the team not to allow Bass an opportunity to tie or break Oh's record. For the most part the Japanese media remained silent on the incident as did league commissioner Takeso Shimoda.^[5]

In 2001, American Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes, playing for the Kintetsu Buffaloes, hit 55 home runs with several games left. The Buffaloes played the Oh-managed Fukuoka Hawks on a late weekend series in Fukuoka. Rhodes was intentionally walked during each at-bat. Hawks catcher Kenji Johjima could be seen grinning as he caught the intentional balls. Again, Oh denied any involvement and Hawks batting coach Yoshiharu Wakana stated that the pitchers acted on his orders, saying, "I just didn't want a foreign player to break Oh's record." Rhodes completed the season with 55 home runs. Hawks pitcher Keizaburo Tanoue went on record saying that he wanted to throw strikes to Rhodes and felt bad about the situation.^[6][7]

In 2002, Venezuelan Alex Cabrera hit 55 home runs with five games left in the season and his team played Oh's Hawks. Oh told his pitchers to throw strikes to Cabrera, but most of them ignored his order and threw balls well away from the plate. After the game, Oh stated, "If you're going to break the record, you should do it by more than one. Do it by a lot."^[8] In the wake of the most recent incident involving Cabrera, ESPN listed Oh's single-season home run record as #2 on its list of "The Phoniest Records in Sports."^[9]

Others

Oh became friends with Hank Aaron, his contemporary in Major League Baseball. The two squared off in a home run derby before an exhibition game at Korakuen Stadium on 1974-11-02, after Aaron eclipsed Babe Ruth's home run record. By that time, Oh was running away with the Japanese home run record, having become the first Japanese baseball player to hit 600 career home runs that year. Aaron won, 10-9.^[10] In 1988, Oh and 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 had three daughters with her. Kyoko Oh died of stomach cancer in December 2001 at age 57, the same illness he would combat in 2006. In December 2002, her ashes were stolen from their family grave.^[11]

"Ō" is the Japanese rendering of the common Chinese surname "Wang", which translates to "king".

On December 4, 2007, Oh said in Chiyoda, Tokyo that it is just a matter of time before his record of 868 home runs will be broken. "I think the 868 record will be broken. There's nobody near that mark in Japan, but I think Alex Rodriguez can do it", he added. "He has the ability to hit 1,000."^[12]

In 2002 and 2005, he was named by President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan as Ambassador-at-Large of the Republic of China. President Ma Ying-Jeou honored Sadaharu Oh with the "Order of Brilliant Star" on February 5, 2009, in Taipei. Oh called receiving the award, "The highest honor of his life." ^[13]

During the 2009 World Baseball Classic Oh attended many of the games played by Japan.

References in popular culture

The Beastie Boys song "Hey Ladies" on their second album, Paul's Boutique, features the line "And I got more hits than Sadaharu Oh."

Statistics

References

External links

• Nippon Professional Baseball career statistics from Japanesebaseball.com
• Oh for Cooperstown? Part I by Jim Albright
• Oh for Cooperstown? Part II by Jim Albright