30-30 Vision

As a matter of fact, you hit the nail on the head with your Hiroshima guess. Nomura not only hit 30-30 last year, but he also bettered .300 for his batting average. That's quite a feat anywhere!

As for any others, well, I'm afraid that I don't have access to such data. Does anybody else know?

[Format edited by: westbaystars on Sep 16, 2002 8:34 PM JST.
Expired link also removed.]

I think you will find that it was Kanemoto who did it last year and that Nomura had previously done it (possibly 1994)

While poking around

http://www.inter.co.jp/Baseball/index.html

for a few minutes, it is clear that Akiyama Koji was the power-speed king of his day (if not all-time; I don't have any access to earlier stats). Check him out:

year   hr  sb
1987   43  38
1989   31  31
1990   31  51

That's 3 times in 4 years (plus some other good seasons that fall short), and in addition he's got 400 hr and 300 sb lifetime, which is very impressive. Too bad he didn't get a shot to compete in mlb during his prime -- probably comparable to Canseco, maybe faster with a little less power.

Cheers, sr

[Format edited by: westbaystars on Sep 16, 2002 8:36 PM JST. Link also updated to new site: www.npb-bis.com]

On the Pro Yakyu mailing list, Aladdinsane-san came through again with a great resource (in Japanese). It's a list of players who hit over .300, hit 30 home runs, and had at least 30 stolen bases.

Here's the translation:

Year, Player, Team, Avg, HRs, SBs
1950, Bessho, Mainichi, .335, 43, 34
1950, Iwamoto, Shochiku, .319, 39, 34
1953, Nakanishi, Nishitetsu, .314, 36, 36
1983, Minota (?), Hankyu, .312, 32, 35
1989, Akiyama, Seibu, .301, 31, 31
1995, Nomura, Hiroshima, .315, 32, 30
2000, Kanemoto, Hiroshima, .315, 30, 30

Also, Aladdinsane-san gave me credit for mentioning Nomura, but the credit should go to Rithifruss-san.

[Format edited by: westbaystars on Sep 16, 2002 8:43 PM JST.]

Shinjo was hit by the Marlins today because he swung at a 0-3 pitch the day before when the Mets had a huge lead. I can't help but feel sorry for Shinjo because it's really a stupid unwritten rule that only exists in MLB.

If I recall correctly from my JPB watching days back in the early 90s. Akiyama somersaulted his way home after hitting a homerun in the Japan series vs. Hiroshima(?), I think he did it again a couple years later.

Imagine if someone did THAT in MLB.

Akiyama certainly has my vote for the greatest 5 tool player of all-time, certainly the best I've ever seen. Why Kiyohara was the poster boy for Seibu is beyond me. (Similar to Oh-Nagashima?)

I think that there are a couple of reasons why Kiyohara was more of a fan favorite than Akiyama. First, Kiyohara had a lot of hype coming out of PL Gakuen, playing on the same team as Masumi Kuwata whereas Akiyama was from a no name school in a small town in Kumamoto Prefecture who was undrafted. Moreover, just Kiyohara's sheer size got him a lot of attention. He was kind of Japan's equivalent of Jose Canseco (sans the speed Jose had earlier in his career) in that they were both big guys with relatively compact swings who produced from the get go. As good as McGwire was his rookie season, he was still in Canseco's shadow. That's what happened to Akiyama, as great a player as he unquestionably was.