Former Toei Flyer and Hankyu Brave shortstop Yutaka Ohhashi passed away about ten days ago at age 79. Ohhashi had been a star in the mid-60's at Asia University, winning four Best 9 awards and setting a Tohto League record with 20 career home runs (a record since surpassed by Tadahito Iguchi). He was the number one overall pick by Toei in the 1968 NPB draft (which apparently predates the system now in place where multiple teams can select a player in the first round and a lottery is used to determine who gets the player).
He was pretty much immediately made the Flyers' starting shortstop in his rookie season of 1969. His defense was sound but his offense was not great. He hit .217 in 1969, .183 in 1970 and .213 in 1971.
He was somewhat unexpectedly dealt to the Hankyu Braves after the 1971 season in a blockbuster trade involving both teams' starting shortstops. Toshizo Sakamoto had committed an error in the 1971 Nippon Series that contributed to the Braves losing the Series to the Giants in five games and the team apparently wanted him out of Nishinomiya. The Braves sent Sakamoto, Koji Okamoto and Seigo Sasaki to Toei for Ohhashi and Masayuki Tanemo. Ohhashi found some of his lost collegiate power in Kansai, reaching double digits in home runs in his first three seasons with Hankyu after never reaching that level for the Flyers. His batting average, however, remained in the low .200's.
I think he pretty much became the dictionary definition of "good-field, no-hit" in the 70's. NPB instituted the "Diamond Glove" award in 1972 (later renamed the "Golden Glove") and Ohhashi won the first seven Pacific League awards for shortstop. His lack of offense didn't prevent him from winning the Best 9 awards for PL shortstop from 1972 to 1976. As far as I can tell, the only offensive category he ever led the league in was sacrifices in 1977. He was a three time All Star (1970, 1973 and 1975) and helped the Braves win three straight Nippon Series Championships between 1975 and 1977.
He retired after the 1982 season and spent the next 21 years coaching for the Braves (1983-90), Dragons (1991-92), Swallows (1993-2000) and Dragons again (2001-03). He went on to coach in Taiwan for the Uni-President Lions in 2005-07 and in South Korea for the SK Wyverns in 2008.
I was a bit surprised to discover that I really only had one card of his from when he was active (not including his appearance on the Braves multi-player card from the 1975/76/77 Calbee set). He's appeared with some regularity in BBM and Epoch OB player sets over the past 25 years although never with the Flyers - I suspect the fact that there's never been an OB Fighters set that covered time before they moved to Hokkaido has something to do with that. Here's a handful of his cards:
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| 1977 NST #236 |
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| 2002 BBM All Time Heroes #168 |
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| 2009 BBM Hankyu Memorial #27 |
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| 2011 BBM Tohto 80th Memorial #10 |
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| 2013 BBM The Trade Stories #06 |
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| 2017 BBM Time Travel 1975 #07 |
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| 2021 BBM Buffaloes History 1936-2021 #26 |
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