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01/09/2004 Archived Entry: "Japanese Baseball News: Ichiro Mentor Now a Hall of Famer"
Ogi Also Managed Nomo, Yoshii
Former Nishitetsu Lions second baseman and Kintetsu and Orix manager Akira Ogi, 68, was named to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame today along with the late Taiyo Whales submariner Noboru Akiyama, becoming the 150th and 151st men to be so honored.
Ogi was light hitting defensive whiz during Nishitetsu's golden era in the 1950's and 1960's, helping the club to five pennants and three consecutive Japan Series victories, before becoming a coach with the Buffaloes in 1970 Telling the press that he would like to be a mixture of two other Hall of Fame helmsmen he had worked for, Yukio Nishimura and Osamu Mihara, he would be named the team's skipper in 1988, guiding the usually bottom feeding Osaka outfit to a second place finish that year and a pennant in 1989.
Hideo Nomo was the ace of the pitching staff during most of Ogi's tenure and, much like he would do with Ichiro, he allowed the righthander to follow his own practice routine and didn't try to change his Luis Tiant-like windup. Therefore, while Nomo's tenure at Kintetsu was tempestuous and he was definitely overworked, it was due to conflicts with other team officials that Nomo decided at one point to try to organize a strike.
Unfortunately, Ogi had the misfortune to be managing at the same time the Seibu Lions were regularly destroying opposing pitching staffs like Godzilla did Tokyo and, even with the outstanding winning percentages he pushed his charges to, he decided to resign following the 1982 season despite a second place showing and joined the ranks of baseball commentators before the Orix Blue Wave tapped him in 1994 to run their on field affairs.
One of the first things that Ogi did, and something he will always be remembered for, was immediately insert a young, skinny outfielder into the lineup named Ichiro Suzuki, who set a new hits record, 210, that still stands to this day. No other player has ever transgressed the 200 mark in knocks in Japan.
What is particularly ironic about that is that is that Ogi's predecessor, former Yomiuri infielder Shozo Doi, had asserted that Ichiro would never hit with the batting style he was sporting at the time. Ichiro ignored him and the rest is history, as the Aichi Prefecture native went on to garner the first of seven straight batting titles in Japan and then seize another for Seattle to become the first ever Japanese MLB hitting champ.
Following the disastrous earthquake 1995 in Kobe, the home team Blue Wave lifted the city's spirits by snatching a pennant that season and then a Japan Series crown in 1996 against Yomiuri.
Before he was fired at the end of the 2001 season in the wake of a four games above .500 fourth place finish, Ogi accumulated a 926-745-49 record in 13 years as a shot caller with three pennants and the one Japan Series title. Since Ogi was forced out, Orix has become the joke of Japanese baseball.
That Akiyama had any sort of pro career is a miracle of sorts. He was originally an outfielder in high school, but was converted into a pitcher, using a three-quarter delivery at first. He continued to experiment and settled on a submarining style from which he whistled fastballs, curves, sliders and shuutos up to the dish, aiming to jam the hitters. Then when he moved on to Meiji University, his coach used to make him throw more than 1000 pitches a day in workouts. However, unlike a lot of other examples where overworked youngsters leave their best stuff behind before they graduate to the pros or end up being setup for career threatening injuries due to overuse, Akiyama never had even one elbow or shoulder problem during his 12 seasons with the Taiyo Whales.
After signing with Taiyo, Akiyama won a total of 52 games his initial two years in 785.2 innings, and he was dubbed the 1956 Rookie of the Year. Taiyo, though, was a dire performer and experienced six straight seasons in the Central League cellar before new manager Osamu Mihara came over from Nishitetsu before the 1960 season. Partially thanks to an incident at Chunichi Stadium on Opening Day of that campaign, when Akiyama was hit in the back of the head by an errant fungo bat and had to be hospitalized, the Whales dropped their first six tilts before righting themselves and ultimately, despite only three players in the lineup surpassing the .250 mark, rode Akiyama's MVP-level heroics (21-10 1.75) and a 33-17 record in one run games to the team's first ever pennant, the only one it would garner before 1998.
In that year's Japan Series against the so-called "Missile Lineup" off the Daimai Orions, almost nobody gave the Whales a chance to prevail, but with Akiyama starting all four contests in what became a sweep and bookending it by personally winning games one and four, they capped off a miracle that could rival the Mets 1969 championship over Baltimore. All four battles were decided by one run.
Akiyama would win 20 games or more three other times before he retired after the 1967 season, exiting the stage with a record of 193-171 and an ERA of 2.60. He later assumed the managerial reigns of the Whales for two losing seasons between 1975-1976 and then left the field for good to become a baseball commentator for Kanagawa TV.
On August 12, 2000, after not feeling well for most of the previous 18 months, he collapsed in his home of respiratory arrest at age 66. He was survived by his wife, Keiko.
