RIP Futoshi Nakanishi

The news broke today that Hall Of Famer Futoshi Nakanishi passed away from heart failure on May 11th.  He was 90 years old.  

Nakanishi was born in Takamatsu in Kagawa prefecture on Shikoku, the hometown of legendary managers (and rivals) Osamu Mihara and Shigeru Mizuhara.  Mihara in particular would be a major influence on Nakanishi as it was Mihara who signed him to his first professional contract with the Nishitetsu Lions after Nakanishi finished high school.  Nakanishi actually wanted to go to Tokyo and attend Waseda University (Mihara's alma mater) but his parents arranged for him to join the Lions without his knowledge.  

He joined the Lions (managed by Mihara) in 1952 and hit ..281 with 12 home runs as a 19 year old, good enough to win the Rookie Of The Year award.  He really burst out the following year, hitting .314 with 36 home runs and 86 RBIs.  The latter two values led the league that year.  He put up similar numbers over the next five seasons, helping the Lions win three consecutive Nippon Series championships over the Giants in 1956-58.  During this stretch he also married Mihara's oldest daughter Toshiko.

Unfortunately his career then took a turn for the worse.  He got spiked during the 1959 season and missed half the year.  In 1960 he developed tendonitis in his wrist and tried to strength it by playing through it which probably made it worse.  He bounced back somewhat in 1961, hitting .304 in 99 games with 21 home runs.

He was made player-manager of the Lions in 1962 and led them to the Pacific League pennant the following year, losing to the Giants in seven games in the Nippon Series.  That would be his last season as a semi-regular, hitting .282 with 11 home runs in 81 games.  His playing time diminished over the rest of the decade with him only getting seven plate appearances in 1969, his final season.  He both retired as a player and resigned as manager at the end of the season, taking some responsibility as the "Black Mist" scandal broke as the season ended.

After spending 1970 as a commentator on TBS, Nakanishi embarked on a remarkable coaching odyssey that would see him coach or manage for seven teams over the next 27 years.  He spent 1971 to 1973 with the Yakult Atoms and is credited with helping Tsutomu Wakamatsu developing as a hitter.  He was then the first manager of the Nippon-Ham Fighters in 1974-75.  He became a coach for Hanshin in 1979 and took over as manager in 1980 when Don Blasingame got fired.  He kept the job through the end of the 1981 season.  He went back to Yakult in 1983 and again took over the manager's job in 1984 when Shiro Takagami resigned in mid-season.  He resigned himself 18 games later and Masayuki Dobashi ran the team the rest of the year.

It was on to Kintetsu in 1986 and he'd spend six years there as just a coach.  He spent a year with the Giants in 1992 and then joined the Marines in 1994.  Lightning struck again in Chiba for him as he replaced Soroku Yagisawa as manager in mid-season and guided the team for the remainder of the season (before being replaced by Bobby Valentine for the 1995 season).  His last three years coaching were spent with the Orix BlueWave from 1995 to 1997.

Nakanishi was a seven time All Star (1953-1955, 1957-1958, 1961, 1963) and a seven time Best 9 award winner (1953-1958, 1961).  He was Pacific League MVP in 1956.  He led the PL in batting twice (1955, 1958), home runs five times (1953-56, 1958) and RBIs three times (1953, 1956-57).  He narrowly missed winning the Triple Crown four times - missing the RBI titles in 1955 and 1958 by one each year and the batting titles by four points in 1953 and half a percentage point in 1956.  He was elected to the Hall Of Fame in 1999.

There were a lot of cards of Nakanishi issued during his playing career including menkos and bromides.  Here's a handful of them:

1958 Marumatsu JCM 32b (with Shigeo Nagashima)

1964 Marusan JCM 11

1964 Morinaga Standups

1967 Kabaya-Leaf #351

He's also appeared in a great many of BBM and Epoch's OB sets over the past 30 years or so.  Here's a couple cards:

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #T-07

2008 BBM Lions Memorial #06

2021 BBM Legendary Rookies #LR01

I was only able to track down cards of him as a coach or manager with four different teams and one of these is questionable - his 1975 Broder JA4 card identifies him as Fighters manager on the back but the photo shows him with the Yakult Atoms:

1975 Broder JA4

2003 BBM Fighters #087

2013 BBM Tigers Legends #51

1994 Marines Menko 

I swiped the image of his 1994 Marines Menko card from Jason.

I think my favorite one of his "modern" cards is this one from the 1999 BBM Nippon Series set.  He and Shigeru Sugishita took part in a "First Pitch Ceremony" to commemorate the 45th Anniversary of the 1954 Nippon Series between the Sugishita's Dragons and Nakanishi's Lions:

1999 BBM Nippon Series #S65