Hiromitsu Ochiai

Ochiai has become a reporter. He has a regular column in Nikkan Sports. Also, he's helped out at the BayStars' camp the past couple of years as a ronin coach. He's given a lot of advice to Suzuki Takanori about being a #4 batter which doesn't seem to have helped.

The reputation you speak of is from Cromartie's book, "Slugging it Out in Japan." Ochiai was called, if I remember correctly, the foreigner who spoke Japanese. He definately knew how to use the system to his advantage. At least, until the Giants dropped him without so much as a "thank you" to get Kiyohara.

Nonetheless, Ochiai is still very active. I half expect to see him back on the field as a manager in the near future. No, there are no such rumors floating around. It's just a feeling.

Ochiai tutored Norihiro Nakamura during spring training of the 2001 season as part of Nakamura's hope that he could win a Triple Crown. He didn't get that, but he did come up with easily his best ever season and the lessons from Ochiai seemed to have helped there.

As for Suzuki, he's never had that much pop and really isn't a cleanup hitter stylistically. I like him a lot, but he's probably always going to be an average guy who will never produce all that much power.

Getting to Ochiai being kind of a man apart, that is true and it actually won him a lot of fans as a result. I think some of this was recounted in one of Whiting's books, wasn't it?