This article appears on JAPAN Forward’s SportsLook website.
OBITUARY | Baseball Great Shigeo Nagashima Dies at 89
An 11-time Japan Series winner as a player, Yomiuri Giants third baseman Shigeo Nagashima was the nation’s most popular player throughout his legendary career.
(June 3, 2025)
By Ed Odeven
Yomiuri Giants legend Shigeo Nagashima, a prolific winner during his pro baseball career and a national icon for decades, died on Tuesday morning, June 3 of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital. He was 89.
A native of Usui (now known as Sakura), Chiba Prefecture, Nagashima spent his entire career with the Giants, first as a player, then as a manager. He later became the storied franchise’s lifetime honorary manager.
Known as “Mr. Giants,” Nagashima won the Central League Rookie of the Year honor in 1958. As a rookie, he led the league in home runs (29) and RBIs (92). He also hit .305 and stole 37 bases that year.
Three years later, he helped lead Yomiuri to his first of 11 Japan Series titles as a player.
As manager, Nagashima guided the Giants to Japan Series crowns in 1994 and 2000 during his second stint in charge (1993-2001). He also led the team from 1975-80 as dugout boss.
After attending Rikkyo University and playing for the school’s baseball team, Nagashima made an instant impact as a 22-year-old rookie. He thrived in the spotlight. As the Giants’ cleanup hitter, he batted one spot in the lineup behind all-time home-run king Sadaharu Oh. They were ubiquitously nicknamed “O-N” during Yomiuri’s V-9 dynasty years ― when the Giants won nine consecutive Japan Series titles from 1965-73.
A Remarkable List of Achievements
Nagashima was a five-time Central League MVP and received four Japan Series MVP accolades. He also won six CL batting titles and led the league in RBIs in five seasons.
When he retired at age 38 in 1974, he had played in 2,186 regular-season games, smacking 444 home runs and recording 1,522 RBIs. He had a .305 career batting average and scored 1,270 runs.
Nagashima was a mainstay in the team’s lineup for 17 seasons, a durable athlete who played 120-plus games every year.
He was a 17-time CL Best Nine Award recipient at third base.
Moreover, Nagashima transcended any so-called normal levels of celebrity status.
Nagashima was “the most beloved sports figure in the land,” best-selling author Robert Whiting observed in a 1977 article he penned for Sports Illustrated.
In his memoir, Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys . . . and Baseball, published in 2021, Whiting described Nagashima as a “national heartthrob.”
The longtime baseball writer also recalled that “he swung so fiercely and fielded his position so aggressively the shortstop was almost unnecessary.”
A Moment Etched in National History
On June 25, 1959, Emperor Hirohito (posthumously known as Emperor Showa) and his wife, Empress Nagako (known as Empress Kojun after she passed away), attended a pro baseball game for the first time.
In fact, it marked the first time a Japanese emperor had attended a pro game.
On that night, the Yomiuri Giants faced the Osaka (now Hanshin) Tigers at Korakuen Stadium in the nation’s capital.
With the score tied 4-4 in the bottom of the ninth inning, Nagashima stepped to the plate as the leadoff hitter. He crushed a high fastball from Tigers rookie Minoru Murayama over the left-field wall at 9:12 PM. It’s a moment etched in time in the national heartbeat of Japan.
In a December 2014 interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Giants’ inception, Nagashima described his game-winning blast off Murayama as the most memorable moment of his baseball career.
“More than anything else, the game played in the presence of the Emperor comes first to my mind,” Nagashima was quoted as saying. “After all, it’s probably the game most often noted in the 80-year history [of the Giants].”
In the interview, the Japanese superstar provided insightful context to what happened that night at Korakuen Stadium.
“In our time, the Emperor was revered as something like a god,” Nagashima remembered, according to The Yomiuri Shimbun. “He was coming to see a pro baseball game for the first time. The players, the manager and coaches all talked about playing before the Emperor. We were nervous the whole time. We had never experienced such nerves in other games.”
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Ed Odeven Reporting 