Hall of Famer and former Hiroshima Toyo Carp manager Takeshi Koba passed away last week at age 85. Koba started playing baseball in post-war Kumamoto and played in the 1953 Koshien tournament with Seiseiko High School. He went on to Senshu University but had to drop out when his father died in an accident. He took a job with Nittetsu Futase and played for their corporate league baseball team. He joined the Carp in 1958 and spent 12 seasons playing in Hiroshima. His best season as a player was probably 1963 when he battled Shigeo Nagashima for the Central League batting title until late in the season when a pitch from Whales pitcher Gentaro Shimada broke his jaw and put him in the hospital. He finished the season with a .339 average, second in the league behind Nagashima's .341. It was the only season that he hit over .300. He was a three time All Star, won a Best 9 award in 1963 and led the Central League in steals in 1964 and 1968. He was traded to the Nankai Hawks prior to the 1970 season and retired as a player after 1971.
He coached for Nankai for a couple seasons before returning to Hiroshima as a coach in 1974. When Joe Lutz, the first Westerner to manage in Japan, resigned early in the 1975 season, Koba stepped in as manager. He led the team to their first ever Central League pennant that season. The Carp were beaten by the Hankyu Braves in the Nippon Series that year but Koba would lead the team for another 10 seasons, winning three more CL pennants and three Nippon Series championships, beating the Kintetsu Buffaloes in 1979 and 1980 and Hankyu in 1984. He is the only manager to win a Nippon Series championship with the Carp. After sitting out the 1986 season he returned to the dugout as the manager of the Yokohama Taiyo Whales. He managed the Whales for three seasons but never got out of the lower half of the standings. After leaving the Whales he did some TV announcing and was baseball director of Tokyo International University. He also unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Hiroshima in 2002.
Here are some cards of Koba as a player...
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| 2009 BBM Carp 60th Anniversary #113 |
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| 2015 BBM Carp Legends #77 |
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| 2020 BBM Carp History 1950-2020 #10 |
...and as manager:
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| 1975/76 Nippon-Ham |
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| 1979 TCMA #33 |
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| 2009 Epoch All Japan Baseball Foundation 15th Anniversary #27 |
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| 2011 Epoch OB Club Managers #19 |
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