Baseball was still a demonstration sport for the 1988 Summer Olympics held in Seoul, South Korea. As in 1984 there were eight countries participating and also as in 1984 Cuba was not one of them. Cuba had joined North Korea in boycotting the games and was replaced by Australia. The Netherlands and Puerto Rico joined Australia in participating in the tournament for the first time, joining 1984 teams Japan, the US, Canada, South Korea and Taiwan. Like the previous tournament the eight teams were split into two divisions - Blue (Japan, Netherlands, Taiwan and Puerto Rico) and White (USA, Australia, Canada and South Korea). All the games were played in Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul (the current home of the LG Twins and Doosan Bears of the KBO).
The Olympics were still not allowing professional players so again Japan's 20 man roster was made up of a mix of college and corporate league players although the number of corporate league players grew to 17 from 13 in 1984. The head coach was Yoshinobu Suzuki, coach of the Toshiba corporate league team (and one of the coaches of
). The coaches were Katsuji Kawashima from Yamaha and Masatake Yamanake of Sumitomo Metal. Here's the player roster:
The 1988 games used the same tournament format that the 1984 games used. Each team would play the other three teams in its division in the first round. Following this round, the first place team of each division would play the second place team of the other division in the semi-final round. The winners of the two semi-final games would play in the final game (the gold medal game although since it was a demonstration sport no "official" medals were actually awarded) while the losers would play in the "third place" (bronze medal) game.
Japan went undefeated in the first round, beating Puerto Rico 7-1, Taiwan 4-3 (in 12 innings) and the Netherlands 6-1. They defeated South Korea 3-1 in the semi-finals to move to the final game - a rematch against 1984 silver medal finalist Team USA.
Team USA again was made up solely of collegiate players. The roster included a number of future major leaguers including Robin Ventura, Tino Martinez, Jim Abbott, Andy Benes, Charles Nagy, Mickey Morandini, Ben McDonald, Scott Servais and Bret Barberie. Stanford coach Mark Marquess was the coach of the team. The US had gone 2-1 in the first round, defeating South Korea 5-3 and Australia 12-2 but losing to Canada 8-7, before beating Puerto Rico 7-2 in their semi-final matchup. In the final game, Japan took an early lead with a single run in the bottom of the second but Team USA scored three runs in the top of the fourth (including a couple on a two run home run from Martinez) and added another in the top of the fifth to lead 4-1. Japan cut the score to 4-3 with two in the bottom of the sixth but Martinez hit a solo home run in the top of the eighth to push the final margin to 5-3. Abbott pitched a complete game for the victory.
13 of the 20 players on the team went on to play professionally in NPB. Two of the players, Atsuya Furuta and Hideo Nomo, are in both the Japanese Hall Of Fame and the Meikyukai (Golden Players Club) while a third, Kenjiro Nomura, is only in the Meikyukai. Here's a card and a write up on each of those 13 players:
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| 2000 BBM Diamond Heroes "Golden Battery" #GB2 |
It was a bit of a fluke that Atsuya Furuta was on the Olympic team that year. He had graduated from Ritsumeikan University in 1987 and was almost taken by the Nippon-Ham Fighters in that fall's draft but they ultimately decided against drafting him due to concerns about his eyesight. So instead he spent two years with Toyota's corporate league team before the Swallows drafted him in the second round of the 1989 draft. New Swallows manager Katsuya Nomura installed him as Yakult's starting catcher in 1990 and the rest was history. Furuta was the regular catcher for the Swallows until he was named player-manager for the 2006 season. In the meantime, he won two Central League MVP awards (1993 & 1997), made nine Best 9 teams (1991-1993, 1995, 1997, 1999-2001, 2004), won ten Golden Gloves (1990-1993, 1995, 1997, 1999-2001, 2004) and made the All Star team every year of his career (1990-06 plus he was a coach in 2007, his final year as Swallows player-manager). He was part of four Nippon Series champions (1993, 1995, 1997 & 2001) and was Series MVP twice (1997 & 2001). He won the batting crown in 1991, becoming just the second catcher to ever do so (and first to do it in the Central League) after Nomura. He got his 2000th hit in 2005, again only the second catcher to do so after Nomura. He retired as both player and manager after the 2007 season and was elected to the Hall Of Fame in 2015.
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| 1992 BBM Nippon Series #S53 |
Like Furuta, Takehiro Ishii spent two years in the corporate leagues after graduating from college. In his case his college was Hosei University (graduating in 1986) and the corporate league team was Prince Hotel. He was the Lions 2nd round pick in the 1988 draft and made the
ichi-gun team's bullpen out of training camp his first season. He moved into the starting rotation the following year and put together his best season in 1992, when he went 15-3 with a 1.94 ERA, winning both the Sawamura Award and the Pacific League MVP along with making the Best 9 team and winning the Shoriki Award. He topped off the year by throwing two complete game victories in the Nippon Series, winning Game Three 6-1 and Game Seven 2-1 in ten innings. He won the Series MVP award. He ultimately played in five Series with the Lions (1991-94 & 1997 - he was on the roster for the 1990 Series but did not get into a game when the Lions only used six pitchers to sweep the Giants). He was selected for the All Star game three times (1990, 1992 and 1995) although he declined to play in 1995. He was traded to the Fighters following the 1997 along with Hiroshi Narahara for Yukihiro Nishizaki. The Fighters released him after 1999 and he joined the Taipei Gida of the short-lived Taiwan Major League (TML) as a player-coach. He went 16-5 with a 1.74 ERA in 2000 which earned him the league's MVP award. He retired after 2001 and became the team's manager for the 2002 season. The league merged with the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) after that and he moved on to Korea, becoming the pitching coach for the Lotte Giants in 2003. He returned to the Lions as a coach in 2004 and worked for them in a number of capacities ever since.
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| 1993 Tomy #161 |
Terushi Nakajima was a teammate of Ishii's on the Prince Hotel corporate league team. He had been a pitcher in high school and was a potential prospect for the 1980 draft but since his father had passed away the previous year his mother urged him to join the corporate league team instead to have a more stable path to professional baseball. He ultimately spent eight years with the team. He developed circulatory issues in his arm and converted to the outfield in 1984. The 26 year old was the oldest player on the Olympic team roster who went on to play in NPB. He was the first round pick of the Fighters in 1988 (he was also selected by the Hawks but Nippon-Ham won the lottery for him) and made the Fighter's Opening Day lineup in 1989. He hit a 3 run sayonara home run to win that Opening Day (ruining the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks' inaugural game in the process) - he was only the second rookie to hit an Opening Day walk off shot (Yoshio Anabuki was the first in 1956). Like Ishii, his best season was probably 1992 when he hit .290 with 13 home runs and made the All Star team. After a couple poor seasons in 1994 and 1995 he was picked up by the Buffaloes on waivers. He only hit .227 in 42 games with the
ichi-gun team in 1996 and spent all of 1997 and 1998 with the farm team before retiring. He was a coach for Kintetsu in 1999 and then spent the next nine years as a scout, first for the Buffaloes and then for the Fighters. He returned to the coaching ranks in 2008 with a two year stint with the Fighters. He joined the coaching staff of the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions of the CPBL in 2011 and ended up becoming the manager of the team when Lu Wen-sheng resigned due to a betting scandal. He stepped down from that position in the middle of the 2013 season. He became a coach for the Tokushima Indigo Socks of the independent Shikoku Island League in 2014 and became their manager for the next two seasons. In addition he managed the All Star team that the league sent to play in the Can-Am League in North America in
2015 and
2016. He moved on to be the hitting coach of the KBO's Hanwha Eagles in 2017 and was named the head coach of Kyoto Gakuen University starting this year.
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| 1994 Takara Buffaloes #11 |
Obviously Hideo Nomo is the most well known player on this roster. I've written
a post on him recently so I'll just refer to that instead of writing something new here. He was the first of I think four players who played in the Olympics for Japan as an amateur who later played in North America. He retired in 2008, making him the last active player from the 1988 team.
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| 2000 BBM #473 |
Kenjiro Nomura had been a star at Komazawa University. He won four Best 9 awards and was the first player in the program's history to make the top team as a freshman. He was the number one pick of the Carp in the 1988 draft and spent the 1989 season as a backup on the
ichi-gun squad. He was the starting shortstop for the Carp for most of the 1990's, during which time he led the league in steals three times (1990, 1991 & 1994) and hits three times (1991, 1994 & 1995), made three Best 9 teams (1991, 1995 and 1996), won a Golden Glove award in 1995 and made eight All Star teams (1990, 1991, 1993-1998). He was the first left handed batter to achieve the "Triple Three" (.300 average, 30 home runs, 30 steals) in 1995. Like Furuta, he got his 2000th career hit in 2005. He retired after that season and was a baseball commentator for a couple years. He managed the Carp from 2010 to 2014, finishing third and making the Climax Series in 2013 and 2014.
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| 1990 Lotte #32 |
Hirofumi Ogawa was the third Olympic team member from the Prince Hotel corporate league team. He spent four years with the team after graduating from high school before he was taken in the second round of the 1988 draft by the Orix Braves. Like Nomura with the Carp, Ogawa was the starting shortstop for Orix for most of the 1990's although he was nowhere near the star that Nomura was. He made the 1991 Best 9 team, was selected to three All Star teams (1991, 1992 & 1994) and played in two Nippon Series (1995 & 1996). He had an odd achievement of homering from every slot in the lineup, only the fifth batter in NPB history to do so. He was part of a six player trade after the 2000 season - Orix sent him, Yu Sugimoto and Kazuyuki Maeda to the Yokohama Baystars in exchange for Kiyoshi Arai, Hisashi Tokano and Tatsuya Shindoh. He retired after the 2004 season (a year spent entirely with the Shonan Searex, the Baystars' farm team in Yokosuka) and coached for both Orix and DeNA since then.
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| 1997 BBM #291 |
Like Nomura, Takeshi Ohmori had been a big collegiate star. He hit .356 with 17 home runs and 78 RBIs over 88 games at Keio University, making the Tokyo Big Six Best 9 team three times and winning just the sixth ever Triple Crown in the circuit's history one season. The Giants took him in the first round of the 1989 draft. Despite his numbers with Keio and his impressive numbers with the Giants' farm team (he led the Eastern League in home runs three times (1992, 1993 and 1996) and RBIs twice (1992 and 1996), he was never able to make much of an impact with the
ichi-gun Giants. He only managed to get in 123 games with the top team in eight years and his average never went above .200. He was traded to the Buffaloes midway through the 1998 season for Shinichiro Minami and Yoshihiro Seo but suffered a shoulder injury that kept him on their farm team for all of 1999. He retired after that and has been a scout for the Giants ever since.
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| 1991 Calbee #28 |
At 19 years old, Tetsuya Shiozaki was the youngest member of the 1988 Olympic baseball team. He spent three seasons playing for Matsushita Electric before he was drafted by Seibu in the first round of the 1989 draft. He spent his first seven seasons working out of the bullpen as a setup man and was quite good in that role, making the All Star team in 1995. He tied an NPB rookie record by striking out eight consecutive batters in a game against Orix in 1990. He moved into the rotation in 1997, going 12-7 with a 2.90 ERA but moved back into the bullpen in 1999 and pretty much remained there for the remainder of his career. He pitched for the Lions in eight Nippon Series over the course of his 15 year career - 1990 (he was one of the six pitchers and had a three inning save to end the deciding Game Four), 1991, 1992, 1993 (he won an "Outstanding Player" award after appearing in 5 of the 7 games in the Series and notching 2 saves), 1994, 1997, 1998 and 2002. He retired at the end of the 2004 season and has either worked or coached for the Lions ever since.
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| 1996 BBM #207 |
The Dragons and Giants both considered drafting Tetsu Suzuki in 1987 after he graduated from Keio University but he decided to play for the Kumagai Gumi corporate league team instead. After two seasons with them he was taken by the Lions with their second pick in the 1989 draft. He resisted signing at first but eventually relented. He only got into 36 games with the Lions
ichi-gun squad in his first four seasons and most of those were in 1991 when he went 4-6 in 20 games. He made 14 starts that year and had two complete games and a shutout. He made his only Nippon Series appearance that season, throwing two innings in relief in Game Four and giving up a home run to Takashi Osanai. He was traded to the Carp for Yukihiro Ueda after the 1993 season and worked out of their bullpen for two seasons before being sold back to Seibu. He retired following the 1997 season and has worked for the Lions ever since, doing scouting and other activities.
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| 1994 BBM Late Series #586 |
Kenji Tomashino was the only future NPB player on the roster who was not taken in the first or second round of the draft - he was the Swallow's third round pick in 1988. His older brother Seiji played for the Lions for 15 years from 1983 to 1997. Kenji's best season was his first - he only hit .263 but he had 32 steals - good enough for the Central League lead until Kozo Shoda of the Carp (and member of
the 1984 Olympic team) stole six bases on the last day of the season to pass him. He ended up winning the Rookie Of The Year award. His numbers and playing time diminished after his first season (although he did appear in both the 1992 and 1993 Nippon Series). The Swallows released him after the 1997 season and he was picked up by the Carp where he ended up backing up Shoda at second base during Shoda's final season. He retired following the 1999 season and coached for Hiroshima for the next three years. He's been a baseball commentator since then.
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| 1991 Q Card |
The Seibu Lions ultimately drafted four of the seven pitchers (six who went professional) on the Olympic team roster. Tomio Watanabe was the first of the four they drafted as he was their number one pick in the 1988 draft. Watanabe had been a star pitcher at Ino Shogyo high school, leading them to the 1985 Spring Koshien tournament championship (the first time his school had ever made the tournament). He beat powerhouse PL Gakuen (led by Kazuhiro Kiyohara and Masumi Kuwata) in the semi-finals of that tournament. He had spent three seasons with NTT Shikoku after graduating. He had elbow surgery about a month before the 1988 draft and I think he was treated by Seibu's doctor. He made the Lions' starting rotation in 1989 as soon as he recovered from the surgery and went 10-7, then 13-7 in 1990 and 11-6 in 1991. He won nine consecutive decisions starting in 1989 and ending in 1990. He was another one of the six Lions pitchers in the 1990 Series - he threw a complete game shutout in Game Three, again beating Kuwata. He also made appearances in the 1991 and 1992 Series. He made the All Star team in both 1990 and 1991 (although he didn't actually appear in any of the games in 1991) and led the Pacific League in ERA in 1991. He missed time in 1992 and 1993 with elbow and back issues. After the 1993 season he was part of a blockbuster trade when the Lions sent him, Koji Akiyama and Tomoyuki Uchikawa to the Hawks for Makoto Sasaki, Katsuyoshi Murata and Takehiro Hashimoto. He spent four injury-plagued years in Fukuoka before he was sold back to the Lions for the 1998 season. After spending all of that year with the farm team he retired. He's been a scout for Seibu ever since.
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| 1990 Takara #8 |
20 year old Kunji Yonezaki was the youngest position player on the roster but he'd spent three years in the corporate leagues playing for Nippon Life after graduating from high school. He was the number one pick of the Kintetsu Buffaloes in the 1988 draft. A hamate bone injury in his hand caused ligament damage and prevented his NPB career from getting going. He only appeared in 114 games with the
ichi-gun Buffaloes in his five seasons with them, the bulk of those (70 games) coming in 1990. He did make one appearance in the 1989 Nippon Series. He was traded to the Hanshin Tigers after the 1993 season for Akihiro Shimada and spent five seasons with them although the last two were only with the farm team. He retired following the 1998 season and opened a yakitori restaurant in his home town of Toyonaka, Osaka-prefecture. Yonezaki spent his entire baseball playing career in his native Kansai as his high school, corporate league team and first NPB team were all located in Osaka and his second and final NPB team plays in nearby Nishinomiya.
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| 1991 BBM #16 |
Shuji Yoshida spent two years with Hokkaido Takushoku Bank of the corporate leagues after graduating from high school. He was the Giants' first pick in the 1988 draft (although he was really a consolation pick after they originally picked Kenjiro Kawasaki but lost him in the lottery to Yakult). Surprisingly for a first round pick he only got into 45 games over the next five and half seasons with Yomiuri's
ichi-gun team. I'm not sure why he wasn't used more as he doesn't seem to have been injured and he put up respectable numbers, at least in his first two seasons. I wonder if it had something to do with him announcing at the Giants press conference introducing the draft class of 1988 that while he was a Giant he was really a fan of his home prefecture Chunichi Dragons. He was traded to the Hawks midway through the 1994 season for Katsuya Kishikawa. He didn't pitch much with the top team his first couple seasons with the Hawks and when he did he didn't pitch particularly well but he eventually found his niche as a setup man in the bullpen. He appeared in at least 49 games a season from 1997 to 2003, leading the Pacific League in holds twice during that time (1998 and 2001) and also made the All Star team twice (2000, 2002). He pitched for the Hawks in three separate Nippon Series (1999, 2000 and 2003) to go along with his appearances in the 1989 Series with the Giants. All those innings out of the bullpen caught up with him though and injuries kept him on the farm team for all of the 2004 and 2005 and most of the 2006 seasons. The Hawks released him after 2006 and he was picked up by the Orix Buffaloes. He had a decent 2007 season with Orix, appearing in 20 2/3 innings over 36 games and posting a 2.61 ERA, but was released at the end of the year. He retired after not drawing anyone's interest after the 12 team tryout that fall. He played for the celebrity club team Ibraki Golden Golds after retiring and later coached for the Hawks and Eagles.
I want to mention that despite never having appeared in NPB, one of the coaches and one of the other players have had baseball cards.
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| 2011 BBM Legend Of Tokyo Big Six #105 |
Pitching coach Masatake Yamanka holds the record for most wins in the Tokyo Big Six with 48. He after graduating from Hosei he spent seven years playing for Sumitomo Metal in the corporate leagues before moving into coaching positions. He managed Sumitomo Metal from 1981 to 1984 and was head coach of Hosei from 1994 to 2002. He was elected to the Hall Of Fame in 2016.
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| 2017 BBM Infinity #044 |
Atsuyoshi Otake was a star at Waseda University before playing for Nippon Steel Hirohata. He later managed the team (now renamed Nippon Steel Kimitsu) from 1994 to 2000. He was also the head coach at Waseda from 2005 to 2010 and so appears on the back of the Waseda team cards in BBM's Tokyo Big Six sets from 2008 to 2010.
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| 2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version #24 |
