Information AboutSadaharu Oh |
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Sadaharu Oh (, , 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 Japan ese mother and, though born in Japan, holds a Taiwan ese passport. 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 Run s 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. 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 pronounced — 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 — many veteran American players who observed Oh's play firsthand compared his strength and skill to Aaron and Ted Williams . The overwhelming consensus among these players and baseball scholars is that Oh would have been a star in Major League Baseball, and cite possible lingering bad sentiment by Americans due to Japan's role in instigating the United States' involvement in World War II as a reason he played his entire career in Japan. The successful transition of later Japanese league stars such as Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui have lent credence to this as well. MANAGING CAREER Following his retirement from playing, Oh was hired to Manage the Yomiuri Giants in 1984 . He was manager until 1988 when he and Hank Aaron — also retired — created the World Children's Baseball Fair (WCBF), to increase the popularity of baseball by working with youngsters. In 1994 , Sadaharu Oh was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall Of Fame . The following year he returned to baseball as the manager of the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks and managed the Hawks to the Japanese Championship in 1999 . The Hawks also won the 2000 Pacific League Pennant, but lost the Japanese Series to the Yomiuri Giants. In 2006 , Oh managed the Japan National team, winning the championship in the inaugural 2006 World Baseball Classic over Cuba . 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 Cuban 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 OTHER FACTS Oh was married to Kyoko Oh ( ''Ō Kyōko''), who 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
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