Japanese Baseball Cards: RIP Yasuhiro Takai

Saturday, December 14, 2019

RIP Yasuhiro Takai

Former Hankyu Braves pinch hitting specialist Yasuhiro Takai passed away yesterday from renal failure at age 74. Takai graduated from a high school in Ehime Prefecture on Shikoku in 1962 and spent a couple seasons playing with Nagoya Nissan of the corporate leagues. He frequently broke the roof tiles on the houses beyond the left field wall of the team's ballpark which drew the attention of pro scouts, including one from the Braves. Takai signed with Hankyu in 1964.

He spent much of the first eight years of his professional career with the Braves' farm team. He hit reasonably well with the ni-gun team (he won the Western League batting title in 1967) but I think he wasn't very good defensively which limited his ability to play anywhere other than first base and the Braves were well covered at that position first with Daryl Spencer and then later with Hideji Kato. It wasn't until 1972 that he spent a significant amount of time with the ichi-gun Braves, getting into 86 games. While he appeared in the field in 64 games that year - the most of any season in his career - he established himself as a pinch hitter. He continued in this role for the next two seasons, culminating in one of his best seasons in 1974 when he hit a record six home runs as a pinch hitter. He made the All Star team for the first time that year and made history when he hit a 2 run sayonara home run off Hiromu Matsuoka of the Swallows to win Game One at Korakuen Stadium - it was the first come from behind sayonara home run in All Star game history. And of course Takai was pinch hitting when he hit the home run.

The Pacific League adopted the Designated Hitter in 1975 which gave Takai an opportunity to play more regularly although he still did a lot of pinch hitting. He hit his 19th career pinch hit home run in 1975 which put him past the then-MLB leader Jerry Lynch. He played in over 100 games in 1977 for the first time and was named to the Pacific League's Best 9 team as the DH. He had probably the best two seasons of his career in 1978 and 1979 when he hit over .300 with more than 20 home runs both seasons.

His numbers dropped off considerably in 1980 and didn't improve much in 1981. He was banished to the farm team in 1982 and decided to retire. He ended his career with 27 pinch hit home runs which is still the "world wide" record - the MLB leader is Matt Stairs with 23. Takai was a radio commentator for a number of years but other than that he doesn't appear to have been involved in baseball after he retired.

Takai had a handful of cards from Calbee, NST and Takara during his playing days. He's appeared reasonably often in modern card sets - it's been helpful that the 70's era Hankyu teams are very well represented in BBM's OB sets over the past 15 years or so. Here's a handful of his cards: