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| A Japanese citizen holds up an extra edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun to report the death of honorary director Shigeo Nagashima. |
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The Japanese professional baseball community is in sorrow.
Giants' lifetime honorary manager Shigeo Nagashima, who became a superstar representing Japan's high economic growth era and even earned the extreme honor of 'Mr. Professional Baseball', has died at the age of 89.
On the 3rd, the Japanese media Yomiuri Shimbun reported that honorary director Nagashima Yomiuri died at dawn at a hospital in downtown Tokyo due to complications of pneumonia, issuing an unusual extra edition.
Nagashima was born in 1936 in Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, and joined the Yomiuri Giants in 1958.
Since his first year in the league, he has become a superstar with a batting average of 0.305 with 444 homers and 1522 RBIs in 17 seasons, winning the RBI, home run, and rookie of the year. In particular, he led professional baseball to become a national sport in Japan along with the splendid heyday of the Yomiuri club by operating the legendary ON Four with Haru Osada (Wang Jeong-ki, current Softbank Chairman) and 'Legendary ON Four (Osada Haru-Nagashima).
Yomiuri became Japan's most popular club in the 1960s and 1970s by winning nine consecutive Japanese series championships, which were unprecedented in the 1960s and 1970s with ON guns. Nagashima also became a sign of Japanese professional baseball under the nickname "Mr. Professional Baseball".
Nagashima, who retired from active duty in 1974, said "I'm retiring, but our giant army (a nickname for Yomiuri's club) is immortal." After retiring from active duty, he opened a brilliant era of success as a leader. Nagashima, who made his Yomiuri debut upon retirement, led the Yomiuri for a total of 15 years, winning five Central League titles and two Japanese Series titles.
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| Honorary director (right) Shigeo Nagashima, who received the 2013 National Honorary Award, |
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Nagashima, who stepped down as Yomiuri's coach in 2001 and was elected as the "honorary coach of Jongshin", took over the Japanese national baseball team in 2002. However, while preparing for the 2004 Athens Olympics, he had a cerebral infarction and retired completely as a leader.
As such, Nagashima, who had a huge impact on the growth of Japanese professional baseball as a player and leader, received the 2013 National Medal of Honor. At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, he showed off his robustness as a torchbearer, and became the first Japanese baseball player to receive the Order of Cultural Merit that year.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
