2005: A Look Back
Discussion in the Open Talk forum
Comments
Re: 2005: A Look Back
[ Author: Guest: John Brooks | Posted: Dec 25, 2005 3:52 AM
]
I guess I should add a little bit more on this, like a mention of the Hanshin Tigers, the Aoki 200 hits, and the Sasaki, Nomura, and other retirements.
Hanshin Tigers
The Hanshin Tigers were led by manager Akinobu Okada, who led them to a 87-54-5 record. Okada who was criticized often for his poor management in 2004, led the Tigers strongly in 2005. The Tigers were led by CL MVP Tomoaki Kanemoto, Makoto Imaoka, Norihiro Akahoshi, and Andy Sheets.
There pitching was led by Tsuyoshi Shimoyangi(who went 15-3 with a 2.99 ERA), Kei Igawa, Naohisa Sugiyama, Yuuya Andoh, and Shinobu Fukuhara. They were led by a strong relief combination named J-F-K, which stood for the relievers Jeff Williams, Kyuji Fujikawa, and Tomoyuki Kubota.
Later on in the season, the Murakami Fund which owns a 38% stake in the Tigers, suggested the Tigers be placed on the stock market. That notion was met which upmost opposition from fans, the Hanshin Tigers, and the NPB ownership itself. Hopefully, the Murakami Fund problems will disappear, I hope so anyway.
Aoki: 200 Hits
Yakult Swallows outfielder Norichika Aoki was the second NPB player to achieve the feat of 200 hits, with 202. Aoki was the first player since former and now defunct Orix BlueWave outfielder Ichiro Suzuki hit 210 hits in 1994. Aoki also broke the previous CL hit record by former BayStar Bobby Rose.
Farewells
2005 was a year of many farewells in the NPB. Longtime closer Kazuhiro Sasaki announced that he was going to retire in 2005 after he had elbow surgery. The Daimajin was second in Japan in career saves at the time of his retirement. For his retirement game, he struckout longtime friend Kazuhiro Kiyohara of the Yomiuri Giants. Sasaki retired with a 43-38 record, with 252 career SV's, and a career 2.41 ERA.
Carp infielder Kenjiro Nomura announced that he was retiring following the 2005 season. Nomura managed to reach the 2,000 hit plateau, finishing with a .285 average, 169 HR's, and 765 HR's.
Also, Chiba Lotte Marines infielder Kiyoshi Hatsushiba also announced his retirement. Hatsushiba batted .265 with 232 HR's and 879 RBI in his career.
Other Notable Mentions
Yakult Swallows catcher Atsuya Furuta reached the 2,000 hit plateau this year, Furuta currently has 2,069 hits. The Swallows announced that they were naming the longtime Swallows catcher player-manager, at the end of the season.
Kazuhiro Kiyohara reached the 500 HR plateau this year. Kiyohara's season was cut short by knee surgery, Kiyohara finished the season with 514 HR's.
The Hiroshima Carp welcomed back former Carp Marty Brown back as manager. The Yomiuri Giants named former manager Tatsunori Hara manager, after they said they had Hanshin Tigers Special Director and former Tigers manager Senichi Hoshino as a possible managerial candidate. Though, Hoshino was never a real possibility as Hoshino as always has been critical of Nabestune's actions, and Hoshino himself said that he never even heard from the Giants. The Hoshino rumors were more seen as a ploy to spark interest in the falling Giant ratings.
Hara is also worth a notable mention, as he left the Giants his first time through as a manager because of disagreements with Watanabe. Though in his re-hiring as Yomiuri manager, Nabestune bypassed the team owner and named him team manager.
Hanshin Tigers
The Hanshin Tigers were led by manager Akinobu Okada, who led them to a 87-54-5 record. Okada who was criticized often for his poor management in 2004, led the Tigers strongly in 2005. The Tigers were led by CL MVP Tomoaki Kanemoto, Makoto Imaoka, Norihiro Akahoshi, and Andy Sheets.
There pitching was led by Tsuyoshi Shimoyangi(who went 15-3 with a 2.99 ERA), Kei Igawa, Naohisa Sugiyama, Yuuya Andoh, and Shinobu Fukuhara. They were led by a strong relief combination named J-F-K, which stood for the relievers Jeff Williams, Kyuji Fujikawa, and Tomoyuki Kubota.
Later on in the season, the Murakami Fund which owns a 38% stake in the Tigers, suggested the Tigers be placed on the stock market. That notion was met which upmost opposition from fans, the Hanshin Tigers, and the NPB ownership itself. Hopefully, the Murakami Fund problems will disappear, I hope so anyway.
Aoki: 200 Hits
Yakult Swallows outfielder Norichika Aoki was the second NPB player to achieve the feat of 200 hits, with 202. Aoki was the first player since former and now defunct Orix BlueWave outfielder Ichiro Suzuki hit 210 hits in 1994. Aoki also broke the previous CL hit record by former BayStar Bobby Rose.
Farewells
2005 was a year of many farewells in the NPB. Longtime closer Kazuhiro Sasaki announced that he was going to retire in 2005 after he had elbow surgery. The Daimajin was second in Japan in career saves at the time of his retirement. For his retirement game, he struckout longtime friend Kazuhiro Kiyohara of the Yomiuri Giants. Sasaki retired with a 43-38 record, with 252 career SV's, and a career 2.41 ERA.
Carp infielder Kenjiro Nomura announced that he was retiring following the 2005 season. Nomura managed to reach the 2,000 hit plateau, finishing with a .285 average, 169 HR's, and 765 HR's.
Also, Chiba Lotte Marines infielder Kiyoshi Hatsushiba also announced his retirement. Hatsushiba batted .265 with 232 HR's and 879 RBI in his career.
Other Notable Mentions
Yakult Swallows catcher Atsuya Furuta reached the 2,000 hit plateau this year, Furuta currently has 2,069 hits. The Swallows announced that they were naming the longtime Swallows catcher player-manager, at the end of the season.
Kazuhiro Kiyohara reached the 500 HR plateau this year. Kiyohara's season was cut short by knee surgery, Kiyohara finished the season with 514 HR's.
The Hiroshima Carp welcomed back former Carp Marty Brown back as manager. The Yomiuri Giants named former manager Tatsunori Hara manager, after they said they had Hanshin Tigers Special Director and former Tigers manager Senichi Hoshino as a possible managerial candidate. Though, Hoshino was never a real possibility as Hoshino as always has been critical of Nabestune's actions, and Hoshino himself said that he never even heard from the Giants. The Hoshino rumors were more seen as a ploy to spark interest in the falling Giant ratings.
Hara is also worth a notable mention, as he left the Giants his first time through as a manager because of disagreements with Watanabe. Though in his re-hiring as Yomiuri manager, Nabestune bypassed the team owner and named him team manager.
About
This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
Copyright (c) 1995-2024 JapaneseBaseball.com.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.
Inter-League Play
We had inter-league play in the NPB in 2005, finally the fans get to experience the other six teams from the other league. It gave the fans a broader perspective, instead of playing the same old 6 six teams over and over again. Also, it was proved a big success, and will be back in 2006.
Internet Broadcasting
The Softbank Hawks and Seibu Lions were the two NPB teams that had live Internet video broadcasts. The ability to have live Internet broadcasts allowed users across the world to tune in live and watch NPB games. It helped a lot of us outside of Japan who had no other way to watch NPB games watch live games. It was a big plus, but just too bad that more teams didn't follow suit.
Rakuten: The New Team
The Rakuten Eagles led by Hiroshi Mikitani came out of the Orix-Kintestu merger as the new expansion team, located in Sendai. The Eagles were mainly made up of remaining players not protected by the new Orix-Kintestu team. Though the Eagles did have a couple name players in Koichi Isobe (the former Kintestu Buffaloes team captain) and Hisashi Iwakuma (the former Buffaloes ace, who went 15 and 2 in 2004), and highly sought after college pitcher Yasuhiro Ichiba (which was the part of many scandals in '04).
The Eagles went on to name Marty Kuehnert general manager and Yasushi Tao manager. They went onto to win column their first game, but were quickly crushed by Chiba in the second game of the season 26-0. Kuehnert was dimissed as GM on April 29th after Rakuten went 6-22. The season was frustating for Rakuten as they went 38-97-1, finishing 51.5 games back. Though, the postive part for Rakuten is they posted huge profits and they have been able to spend cash this off-season on free agents.
On September 25th, Rakuten announced Tao wouldn't return for 2006. Following the season, Rakuten named former NPB all-time great and current Shidax (Industrial League) manager Katsuya Nomura manager. This off-season, Rakuten has so far signed Cedrick Bowers and Lin-Ying Chieh, and are looking at former Marine Rick Short who flirted at .400 in AAA this year.
Nabestune Returns
Last year, following the "Ichiba scandal" where the Giants were caught paying college pitcher Yasuhiro Ichiba huge sums of money, Yomiuri Shimbun chairman Tsuneo Watanabe announced he was resigning to prevent any shame to the Yomiuri name. Though many saw his resignation as a way for "Nabestune" to save face and live to fight another day, like he did this season.
Nabestune this year announced that he was returning to the Giants as the team chairman. Though it's wise to mention he was never gone to start out with, as he was the Yomiuri Shimbun Chairman. This year he was strong as ever in his criticism of Rakuten owner Hiroshi Mikitani, Livedoor owner Takafumi Horie (who he has basically said, "would enter the NPB over [his] dead body"), and everything else in sight. 2006 will see the same old Nabestune that we all know.
Nippon Series
The Hanshin Tigers led by Akinobu Okada and the Chiba Lotte Marines led by Bobby Valentine met in the Nippon Series. The Marines quickly got off to a 30-2 lead in the first three games, by scoring 10 runs in each of the three games, before sweeping the series by winning the fourth game and outscoring Hanshin with a 33-4 difference.
Chiba Lotte Marines
The Marines were the NPB champs, winning the Nippon Series as mentioned above. They were led by fan-favorite manager Bobby Valentine. The Marines finished 84-39-3, second behind the Softbank Hawks in the Pacific League. The Marines were led by good pitching, six pitchers with 10 wins or more: Watanabe, Serafini, Kobayashi, Shimizu, Kubo, and Ono. The Marines, following a Nippon Series win, went on to defeat the China Stars, Sinon Bulls, and the Samsung Lions in the first ever Asian Cup. Bobby Valentine proposed to have a White Sox-Marines matchup, but so far there has been no response.
Akira Ohgi: Passing of a Legend
Akira Ohgi, the longtime manager of both the Orix BlueWave and Kintestu Buffaloes, died of respiratory failure on December 15th. Ohgi played for the Nishitestu Lions from 1954 to 1967. He became a coach with the Nishitestu Lions following his playing career in 1968, then moved onto Kintestu in 1970, serving as a coach from 1970 to 1987. He then became a baseball commentator, then managed the Kintestu Buffaloes (1988-1992), and Orix BlueWave (1994-2001), and became famous for helping spring Ichiro Suzuki to fame after former Orix manager Shozo Doi said that Ichiro would "never hit with that batting style." Ohgi later went onto to manage the new Orix Buffaloes team in 2005, as he was hired because of his experience with both Orix and Kintestu. Ohgi led the Buffaloes to a 4th place finish.
Under Ohgi's leadership, Ichiro won seven batting titles and broke the single-season NPB hit record with 210 hits (which still stands). Ohgi led the BlueWave to pennants in 1995 and '96, after the deadly Kobe earthquake which killed 6,000 plus. Ohgi had a 988-815-53 record as a manager and was instrumental in the careers of many players such as Ichiro Suzuki, Hideo Nomo, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, So Taguchi, Norihiro Nakamura, Masato Yoshii, and many more.
[Edited by: Admin on Dec 24, 2005 9:24 PM, JST]