New coaches

The first two new appointments in Mayumi's coaching team were made yesterday. They are

Takashi Yamaguchi who will be the pitching coach and will wear 85. He is Tigers current scout and played for Hankyu Braves as a relief pitcher between 1975 and 1982. He then enjoyed a coaching career with Orix before joining Hanshin.

Yoshiaka Oka who will be chief coach and will wear 82. He played for Hiroshima Carp, Nankei Hawks and Hanshin in a career which lasted from 1972 to 1984. After this he was a radio commentator before becomeing a coach with Orix in 2002. He wants to focus particularly on base running which he felt was lacking.

(Background information from Gary Garland's marvellous website Japan Baseball Daily).

The full coaching teams are as follows

First team

Kantoku: Mayumi (72)
Head Coach: Kido (91)
Fielding Chief: Oka (82)
Pitching: Kubo (84)
Pitching: Yamaguchi (85)
Hitting: Wada (86)
Hitting: Nakamura (87)
Base-running: Yamawaki (89)
Base-running: Kuji (92)
Battery: Yoshida (81)
Training: Ito (74)
Training: Ebino (93)

Second team

Kantoku: Hirata (78)
Pitching: Nakanishi (71)
Pitching: Hoshino (70)
Hitting: Yagi (76)
Hitting: Machida (73)
Base running: Tateishi (88)
Base running: Tsutsui (79)
Battery: Shimada (83)
Training: Suzuki (90)
Development: Tohyama (75)
Development: Kato (97)

Numbers in brackets are the shirt numbers. There is no place for Hirosawa in this team and Wada has been moved over to hitting. Kuji has joined the first team as another new coach and Yagi as a farm team batting coach. Teruyoshi Kuji joined Tigers in 1992 and had a mediocre career before being traded to Chunichi in 1997. He returned to Tigers in 2003 when he knocked in six RBIs as a pinch hitter. He finally retired in 2005.

Kasai (pitching coach) has retired from the farm team as well Suzuki has moved to the farm team from the first team.