Oh Sadaharu

▪ Japanese baseball player

born May 20, 1940, Tokyo, Japan

 

 professional baseball player who played for the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants in the Japanese Central League for 22 seasons between 1959 and 1980 who holds the record for the most home runs ever hit. (See also Japanese baseball leagues). He is among the most revered of Japan's sporting figures. Oh led the league in hitting 5 times, led in runs batted in (RBIs) 13 times, and was selected Most Valuable Player on 9 occasions. During Oh's career with the Giants, they dominated Japanese baseball, winning the Japan Series 14 times, 9 of those times consecutively (1965–73).

      In 1959 the left-handed hitter batted only .161. He then studied Zen Buddhism and several martial arts to improve his batting skills, and he adopted an unusual batting stance—known as the flamingo—in which he stood on one leg while awaiting the pitch. His batting philosophy involved an attitude far different from that found in American baseball. Oh once stated, “My opponents and I were really one. My strength and skills were only part of the equation. The other half was theirs.”

      Oh led the league in home runs for 15 seasons and finished with a career total of 868. By comparison, the leading home-run hitter of all time in Major League Baseball in the United States, Hank Aaron (Aaron, Hank), had a career total of 755. It is difficult to compare these records. Aaron's feat was accomplished against the best pitchers in baseball at the time and in large American ballparks. Oh hit in smaller parks and against less-skilled pitching, but he forged his record while playing in a league with a 130-game season and against a large number of slow-ball, or junk-ball, pitchers. (A hitter can use the speed of the pitched ball for power; thus, it is harder to hit a home run from a ball pitched at 60 mph [97 km/hr] than from one pitched at 90 mph [145 km/hr].)

      When his playing career was over, Oh managed the Tokyo Giants for the 1984–88 seasons. After several years' hiatus, he began managing again in 1995 with the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks of the Japanese Pacific League. Some of his decisions as a manager stirred controversy and called into question the notion of fair play in Japanese baseball. Randy Bass in 1985, Karl (“Tuffy”) Rhodes in 2001, and Alex Cabrera in 2002, all foreign players, threatened Oh's record for most home runs (55) in a season in Japanese baseball. And in all three instances the prevailing attitude of Oh and others in Japanese baseball was that foreigners should not be allowed to break Oh's record; therefore, no hittable pitches were thrown by Oh's teams to Bass, Rhodes, or Cabrera near the end of the season. Rhodes and Cabrera did manage to tie Oh's record in 2001 and 2002, respectively, but they could not break it. In 1985 the response of the Japanese media and fans was largely supportive of Oh, but in 2001 fans at the ballpark booed the decision to pitch around Rhodes and protect Oh's record. Later the media explored the connection between Japanese baseball's diminishing fan base and its protectionist attitudes on the field. Globalism, racial attitudes, and concepts of sportsmanship were debated, and Oh's record was tarnished by the controversy. The public was quick to forgive, however, when Oh managed the Japanese team to victory in the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2006.

      In 1994 Oh was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in Tokyo. His autobiography, Sadaharu Oh: A Zen Way of Baseball (1984), was written with David Falkner.

Milton Jamail

 

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