I have a few general rules about baseball books I read, especially when it pertains to players:
- If possible, nothing from while they are still playing. (I have read Tomoaki Kanemoto‘s books and also Tsuyoshi Nishioka‘s book, but I purposely ignored Takashi Toritani‘s.)
- I want to read the first one they put out after their retirement. Sure, it’s interesting to read Akinobu Okada‘s thoughts no matter when he writes them, but to best know the player and his career, soon after retirement is ideal.
- Only books about Hanshin Tigers players, though exceptions can be made for special talents.
And this is a talent whose contribution to the game cannot be understated, even if the man himself is not even the most popular player in his own team’s history. Still, when you have 868 career home runs as a pro, you deserve recognition and respect.
Sadaharu Oh’s career also lines up with one of the best times in Hanshin Tigers history – in fact, from 1959 to 1980, the span of Oh’s career, the Tigers won the pennant twice, and finished 2nd seven more times – five of which were during the Giants’ V9 (1965-73 consecutive Japan Series titles). And so, I expected to read a lot about his rivalry with Yutaka Enatsu (who got many milestone strikeouts against Oh, but was also taken deep in key situations) in particular and the Tigers in general.
No such luck. In fact, I would not go so far as to say I was disappointed with this one, but I will say that it was quite repetitive and touched on rather trifling (from a 2020 Hanshin fan’s perspective) issues, like his decision to retire and his relationship with Shigeo Nagashima. However, there were some take-aways from the book, and I will share them here:
- His family actually wanted him to sign with the Hanshin Tigers. That’s right – despite his growing up in Tokyo and idolizing the Giants, his family thought that his best chance to make it and have a long career would be with Hanshin. Unfathomable now, but the reasoning was that the Tigers tended to sign guys out of high school, while the Giants tended to choose them after 4 more years of seasoning in university. Oh went pro straight out of high school, and with there being no draft system in place, was free to go where he wanted. He ignored his family’s wishes and signed with his favorite team. RESPECT YOUR ELDERS NEXT TIME!
- He would not have gone pro out of high school were it not for a few factors: 1) He was disqualified from playing with his high school mates in the National Sports Festival (not to be mistaken with Koshien, at which he pitched his team to the championship as a high school junior). The reason? His father is Chinese and so is Sadaharu’s citizenship. No non-Japanese allowed! He said, “I’m going to play baseball where nationality will not limit what I can and cannot do! No college baseball for me!” 2) After being eliminated in the semi-finals of a high school baseball tournament, he resented the “win-or-go-home” system that crushed the souls of so many baseball boys who poured hours, days, weeks, months of practice time into this tournament. He did not want to do that all over again in college. 3) His father (a ramen shop owner), who wanted him to become an electrical engineer, gave him that extra push and supported his decision to try to become a pro baseball player.
- On that note, the way Oh talked of his father made me think about my own fatherhood. I am a foreigner trying to raise boys in Japan, where they may never fully be viewed as “pure Japanese”. Oh’s father worked his butt off to make sure his family was functional. He also watched his son pitching at Koshien on TV, saw that his son had blisters that were bugging him when pitching (apparently none of his teammates or coaches noticed, though), got on a train immediately, met his son in his hotel (or ryokan), brewed up some Chinese medicine/cure, told his son to go out there and throw with all his might the next day, and then headed back to the train station to go back to Tokyo. (Sadaharu and Waseda won.) What a father! Makes me want to go to great lengths for my kids, too!
- Oh said a few things that can now be seen as inconsistent. Remember, this book was published in 1981, the year after his retirement. He said he would not ever want to wear another team’s uniform (he is now working for Masayoshi Son and the SoftBank Hawks), and he said that baseball is a team sport more than an individual one. You play for team glory, and let individual accolades take care of themselves. Keep in mind that he managed the Giants squad that pitched around Randy Bass, as well as the Hawks squad that pitched around Tuffy Rhodes, both of whom had a shot at breaking his individual record for single-season home runs! His complicity in the “strategy” is uncertain, but a ton of shade has been thrown on him through the years because of the coincidence.
- He believes in corporal punishment for players to an extent – or at least, he did back in 1981. He would not get away with publishing such an opinion in 2020, no matter who he is!
All in all, I am glad I took a step outside of my comfort zone and read about someone’s passionate love for the team that I fiercely dislike. I will probably never read another Giants book again, unless my friend Scott Mathieson writes one!
Regardless of my allegiances, I would not recommend this book because it has not aged particularly well, and as likable as Sadaharu Oh is, he was way better at hitting the long ball than he was (is?) at writing books.
TL;DR — A decent way to pass time, but Hanshin fans aren’t meant to read Giants books.