Pages

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

NPB Champion Players And Managers

NPB Reddit on Twitter tweeted out an article the other day that mentioned that Daisuke Miura, manager of the 2024 Nippon Series Baystars, was the twentieth series winning manager who had also won the series as a player.  This seemed an insanely low number to me so, of course, I had to go research it.

And it turns out that, yes, Miura is the twentieth person to win a Nippon Series as both player and manager.  However, it's a fairly common occurrence lately, as the last Series winning manager who did NOT win a Series as a player was Hideki Kuriyama in 2016.  Here's a table showing all twenty:

Champion As Player As Manager
Tetusharu Kawakami Giants 1951-53, 1955 Giants 1961, 1963, 1965-73
Masaichi Kaneda Giants 1965-69 Orions 1974
Tatsuru Hirooka Giants 1955, 1961, 1963, 1965-66 Swallows 1978, Lions 1982-83
Motoshi Fujita Giants 1961, 1963 Giants 1981, 1989
Masaaki Mori Giants 1955, 1961, 1963, 1965-73 Lions 1986-88, 1990-92
Katsuya Nomura Hawks 1959, 1964 Swallows 1993, 1995, 1997
Shigeo Nagashima Giants 1961, 1963, 1965-73 Giants 1994, 2000
Akira Ohgi Lions 1956-58 BlueWave 1996
Sadaharu Oh Giants 1961, 1963, 1965-73 Hawks 1999, 2003
Tsutomu Wakamatsu Swallows 1978 Swallows 2001
Tatsunori Hara Giants 1981, 1989, 1994 Giants 2002, 2009, 2012
Tsutomu Itoh Lions 1982-83, 1986-88, 1990-92 Lions 2004
Hiromitsu Ochiai Giants 1994 Dragons 2007
Hisanobu Watanabe Lions 1986-88, 1990-92 Lions 2008
Koji Akiyama Lions 1982-83, 1986-88, 1990-92, Hawks 1999/td> Hawks 2011, 2014
Kimiyasu Kudoh Lions 1982-83, 1986-88, 1990-92, Hawks 1999, Giants 2000, 2002 Hawks 2015, 2017-20
Shingo Takatsu Swallows 1993, 1995, 1997, 2001 Swallows 2021
Satoshi Nakajima BlueWave 1996, Fighters 2006 Buffaloes 2022
Akinobu Okada Tigers 1985 Tigers 2023
Daisuke Miura Baystars 1998 Baystars 2024

A couple things I thought were interesting:

  • While there's only twenty series managers who also won as a player, they managed 50 of the 75 Nippon Series winners
  • Tatsuru Hirooka is the only one who managed multiple teams to Series wins
  • The first Series winning manager who won a Series as a player with a team other than the Giants didn't happen until 1993
  • I was a little generous in listing Series winning years for a couple players.  I'm pretty sure Mori didn't play in the 1955 Series and Kaneda didn't play in the 1969 Series.  Nagashima broke his finger towards the end of the 1973 season and didn't play in Series.
I thought I'd share a pair of cards for each of the members of this club, one as a manager and one as a player.  I tried to find cards from the relevant seasons when I could but I had to use cards from OB sets for some of the older players.  I leaned heavily on BBM Nippon Series sets from 1991 to 2012 - I really wish they'd bring those back.

Tstsuharu Kawakami

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #398

2000 BBM Giants #G93

Masaichi Kaneda


1969 JGA 183

2009 BBM Masaichi Kaneda - Ultimate Southpaw #30

Tatsuru Hirooka


1961 Marukami JCM 14d

2022 BBM Swallows History 1950-2022 #24

Motoshi Fujita

2022 BBM Giants History 1934-2020 #13

BBM 2017 Time Travel 1989 #CT10

Masaaki Mori


1967 Kabaya-Leaf #10

1992 BBM Nippon Series #S1

Katsuya Nomura


1959 Maruta JCM 40

1993 BBM Nippon Series #S1

Shigeo Nagashima


1999 BBM Mr. Giants #G32

2000 BBM Nippon Series #S1

Akira Ohgi


2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #030

1996 BBM Nippon Series #S1

Sadaharu Oh


1973 Calbee #7

2003 BBM Nippon Series #01

Tsutomu Wakamatsu

1978 Calbee Type 1 #1


2001 BBM Nippon Series #S1

Tatsunori Hara

1989 Lotte #80

2012 BBM Nippon Series #S01

Tsutomu Itoh


1990 Lotte #5

2004 BBM Nippon Series #01

Hiromitsu Ochiai


1994 BBM Nippon Series #S20

BBM Nippon Series #S01

Hisanobu Watanabe


1990 Calbee #21

2008 BBM Nippon Series #S01

Koji Akiyama


1991 BBM Nippon Series #S58

BBM Nippon Series #S01

Kimiyasu Kudoh


2002 BBM Nippon Series #S8

2015 BBM 1st Version #001

Shingo Takatsu


1997 BBM Nippon Series #S9

2021 BBM 1st Version #298

Satoshi Nakajima


2006 BBM Nippon Series #S12

2022 BBM 1st Version #163

Akinobu Okada


2020 BBM Time Travel 1985 #03

2023 Epoch NPB #289

Daisuke Miura


1998 BBM Nippon Series #S6

2024 Topps NPB #22




No comments:

Post a Comment