Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Hiromitsu Ohiai was the best player of the 1980s. He was a fearsome slugger who clobbered 510 home runs on the way to putting up a 311/422/564 slash line. Over 20 years he played for Lotte, Chunichi, Yomiuri, and Nippon Ham. (An aside: I know 'Nippon Ham' is the company's name and 'Fighters' is the team nickname, but it's still my favorite team name.) Ochiai had some truly amazing seasons. In 1985, for instance, he slugged .763. For some perspective, that season would rank 9th all-time in America, sandwiched between Ruth’s 1923 and Hornsby’s 1925. The only Americans to have ever posted a higher slugging percentage are Ruth, Bonds, and Gehrig. (Although, as always, context is important.) He is 12th all-time in Japan in runs scored, and 5th in RBIs. Ochiai is an all-time great.

He was, however, a late bloomer. He dropped out of college and went to play in the industrial leagues, from which he was drafted by the Orions. He was not a regular until age 28, but he caught up after his late start. Ochiai was a 3-time triple crown winner (1982, 85 and 86). Here he is hitting an opposite-field home run.

Beyond his great performances, Ochiai was known for his rejection of traditional Japanese baseball culture. He would skip workouts (which are notoriously rigorous in Japan), refuse coaching help, show up late to warm ups, that sort of thing. This was, apparently, something of a scandal in Japan. I think that Americans would write it off; obnoxious, sure, but we almost expect a star to be a bit of a prima donna.

This card lists him as an “infielder” which is a bit generous. He started his career at second and quickly switched to third. But by 1991 he was a full-time first baseman, and would never again appear at another position. In total he played about 1500 games at 1B and 650 at third.

The card is from the inaugural BBM set, in 1991. By contemporary standards it looks pretty plain, but this set was the first Japanese set to be modeled on American baseball cards, and it kicked off a period of intense innovation (with all of the parallels, inserts, etc., that you find in American cards) in the Japanese card market. YMMV on the merits of these developments. Personally I like the old menko cards the best.