Japanese baseball legend Katsuya Nomura dies at 84

February 11, 2020

Tokyo--Former renowned Japanese professional baseball catcher and manager Katsuya Nomura died of ischemic heart failure at a hospital in Tokyo in the small hours of Tuesday. He was 84.

A batting triple crown winner, Nomura played mainly for the Nankai Hawks, now the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. Nomura led the Yakult Swallows, now the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, to a Japan Series victory three times as manager of the team.

A native of the town of Amino, now the city of Kyotango, in Kyoto Prefecture, western Japan, Nomura entered the Nankai Hawks, a Pacific League club, in 1954 from Mineyama high school in the prefecture and grew into a batter with a high probability of getting hits and at the same time with warning-track power.

In 1957, he became the Pacific League's home run champion, slugging 30 homers in the regular season for the year. This was Nomura's first batting title since he started his professional baseball career. In 1965, Nomura became the first triple crown winner since the end of World War II, with a batting average of .320, 110 runs batted in and 42 home runs.

Nomura won acclaim as a catcher for his ability to monitor and learn habits and personalities of batters. Nomura played a central role in supporting the Nankai Hawks' golden age, helping the team win the Pacific League pennant for three straight years from 1964 to 1966 and the Japan Series twice. He worked as playing manager of Nankai in 1970-1977, leading the team to a Pacific League victory in 1973.

After being dismissed as Nankai manager in 1977, Nomura moved to the Lotte Orions, now the Chiba Lotte Marines, in 1978, and then to the Seibu Lions, now the Saitama Seibu Lions, in 1979, both Pacific League teams, to continue playing as a catcher.

Nomura retired as a player in 1980 at the age of 45 after appearing in a total of 3,017 games, a record for a professional baseball player in Japan at the time.

During his professional career, he collected 2,901 hits, scored a batting average of .277 and 1,988 RBIs, and slugged 657 home runs. He won the Pacific League home run, batting and RBI titles nine times, once and seven times, respectively.

Nomura became manager of Yakult in 1990. At the team, he put priority on various data and foster such players as Atsuya Furuta, a catcher. Nomura led Yakult to a Central League victory in 1992. In the following year, Yakult under Nomura beat Seibu to win the Japan Series. Nomura helped Yakult win the Japan Series also in 1995 and 1997.

After serving as manager of the Hanshin Tigers in the Central League in 1999-2001, Nomura became manager of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in 2006. He led the team to finish second in the Pacific League in the 2009 regular season, the best result for the club since its establishment. He retired as manager after the end of the 2009 season.

As a manager, Nomura had a total of 1,565 wins, 1,563 losses and 76 draws. The number of wins is the fifth most for a manager in Japanese professional baseball.

Nomura, who fostered a number of players with his outstanding baseball theory, was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989.

While being known affectionately with the nickname of "Nomu-san," Nomura was also famous as an outspoken critic and for "boyaki," or grumbling, when talking about baseball.

Nomura was also known for a number of memorable remarks.

On one occasion, he said, "I'm like 'tsukimiso' (oenothera tetraptera), which blossoms quietly without being noticed." Nomura made the remark when he compared himself with Shigeo Nagashima and Sadaharu Oh, both baseball superstars, who played for and headed the Yomiuri Giants, one of the most popular professional baseball teams in Japan.

He wrote many books. Also, Nomura, as well as his wife, Sachiyo, who died in 2017, appeared in the entertainment world, including in a number of television shows.

Japanese right-hander Masahiro Tanaka, who moved to U.S. major league baseball after playing for Rakuten, paid tribute to Nomura.

"Manager Nomura taught me the essence of baseball and pitching from scratch," Tanaka, now playing for the New York Yankees, said. "Being able to meet him in my first year in professional baseball and to learn from him is one of the biggest fortunes in my baseball career." Jiji Press