Close but No Pennant

The victors write the history books. And in this case, the Hanshin Tigers’ book has just 6 chapters. In over 70 years of Central League baseball, they have won the pennant just those 6 times (1962, 1964, 1985, 2003, 2005, and 2023). When you’re only up against 5 other teams, that’s not a great number. Does that make the Tigers a bad baseball team? Well, not necessarily. There were a lot of seasons in which the team came extremely close to winning the pennant but came up short in the season’s final week or so. Here is a look at some of those years.

1957: Key Players Ran out of Gas

The Osaka Tigers had a solid campaign under manager Fumio Fujimura. They were never more than three games out of first place, and even found themselves at the top of the league at the end of August. With three “Best Nine” players (SS Yoshio Yoshida, CF Kenjiro Tamiya and 3B Hideshi Miyake), they could have won the team’s first CL pennant but ended up just one game out of first at season’s end.

1970: The Woes of a Player-Manager

This was the first season in which Minoru Murayama managed the team. At age 33, he was also one of the staff aces (alongside Yutaka Enatsu). Heading into the annual “Road of Death” August road trip, the team was a full six games out of first place. It looked like the Yomiuri Giants would take their sixth straight pennant without contest. But the Tigers got on a good roll towards the end of August. And that’s when tragedy struck. Facing the Carp back at home, slugger Koichi Tabuchi took a third-inning pitch flush on the ear (it was this bean ball that prompted adding ear flaps to players’ batting helmets). He was hospitalized and at risk of losing his life. The team lost its momentum and found itself six games behind again on September 18th. But the tides turned at that point, and by October 6th, the Tigers and Giants were tied at the top of the standings with identical records. A few days later, the two teams would face off at Koshien. They split the first two games of their 3-game head-to-head matchup. The winner of the next game would have first place to themselves.

And this is where the season was lost. With the Tigers up 3-1 in the top of the 7th, Enatsu found himself in a bind. The bases were loaded and he needed two more outs. Murayama was in the dugout and had to act quickly. His reasoning was, if anyone was a suitable reliever at this point, it was him, so he ran out to the bullpen to warm up. Enatsu lost some of his composure when this happened, and walked Sadaharu Oh (on pitches that he argued were strikes, but to no avail). He had no nerves left at this point, and a pitching change should have taken place here. But Murayama was in the bullpen and could not be fully aware of the on-field developments. The game-caller on the bench did not move, and so Enatsu was left in to face Shigeo Nagashima. Two pitches later, the lead was lost. Ultimately the Tigers lost this one 6-3, and fell 1.5 games back.

Despite the Tigers continuing to win more than they lost in their final 10 games of the season, the Giants never relinquished their lead in the standings, and the Tigers ended up two games out of first place. Who knows how the season would have ended if that fateful game had been won.

1973: Choosing the Wrong Starters at Season’s End

Early in the season, manager Masayasu Kaneda lost favor with his guys. Seeing ace Enatsu and another pitcher, Masatoshi Gondoh, coming back to the team hotel late, Kaneda ridiculed Gondoh for having spent too much time at pachinko parlors. Gondoh never really recovered emotionally, and the players rallied around him, vowing to win in spite of their manager, not for him.

Cutting to the chase, the Tigers were down to their final two games, and needed to win just one of them to clinch the Central. First up were the Chunichi Dragons. Normally, the Tigers would have put Jiro Ueda on the mound for this one, since he had a better record against the Dragons than Enatsu. But Kaneda held the philosophy that his best pitcher should be the one to clinch the pennant, and that was Enatsu. Unfortunately, he struggled to put together a solid game. And the bats did him no favors. The Dragons had hurler Senichi Hoshino (future Hanshin manager) on the mound, and since he harbored a huge grudge against the Giants, he was ready to do anything to prevent them from taking their ninth straight pennant. So early in the game, he threw nothing but fastballs down the pipe to the Hanshin hitters. But they couldn’t take advantage of his generosity. Legend has it that his kindness turned into fury, and he determined after a few innings that the Tigers weren’t worthy of the pennant. So he shut them down the rest of the way, meaning the Tigers would have to beat the Giants at home in the finale. The winner would take all. But there’s another twist: the Giants were on their way to Koshien by train when this one was coming to an end. As their train rolled into Nagoya Station, the players were able to catch a glimpse of the Chunichi Stadium scoreboard. When they saw that the Tigers had lost, they were extra fired up for the showdown the next day.

And they absolutely obliterated the Tigers, who put Ueda on the mound since Enatsu was completely spent from the previous day’s game. The final score was 9-0 for the Giants, and when Willie Kirkland struck out for the season’s final out, fans were furious. They raided the field, and in the commotion, chased the Giants from the diamond. Instead of celebrating their pennant on the field, the Giants retreated to their hotel, where they safely hoisted their manager into the air, being careful not to throw him into the ceiling.

The media, though, found a different scapegoat for this lost season. Since the gap was just a half-game, they looked back and found one game that the Tigers should have won. On August 5th, the Tigers hosted the Giants, and led the game 2-1 heading into the ninth. With runners on first and second and one out, they blew a possible game-ending double play. (They got the force at second, though.) Then with two outs, an easy fly ball was dropped by center fielder Junichi Ikeda. Both runners that were on base easily came home, and the Giants successfully reversed the score and won the game. Hard to pin the blame on Ikeda, but Hanshin media loves to play the “what if” game.

For the record, at season’s end, Gondoh walked into Kaneda’s office, punched him in the face, and announced his retirement.

1976: Turning the Catcher into a Scapegoat

Though the team had traded Enatsu the previous offseason, they boasted a hard-hitting lineup that included import stars Mike Reinbach and Hal Breeden, as well as legends Taira Fujita, young Masayuki Kakefu, and the aforementioned Koichi Tabuchi. The Tigers rode those hot bats to an 11-game winning streak in April, which put them in first for a while. But the Giants went on a hot streak of their own, winning 14 straight in May. Still, the two teams remained close in the standings and found themselves tied for first at the All-Star Break.

A nine-game losing streak and a generally terrible August put the Tigers 8.5 games behind the Giants, but in September the tides turned, and by month’s end, the Tigers were back to just 3 games behind. A pivotal (and rare) 5-game series against the Giants in October could have put the Tigers in the driver’s seat, but they went 0-2-1 in the first three games at Korakuen, and the Giants’ magic number was 1. Back at Koshien, the Tigers won both of their remaining games against the Giants to bring the gap back to three, and they even won 4 straight after that. However, amidst the Tigers’ 6-game winning streak, the Giants won one, and that was all they needed. The Tigers finished two games back, missing yet another golden chance to win a pennant.

In some ways, the absence of Enatsu and “lethargic, uninspired” play by Tabuchi (who played much of the season injured) were part of the reason for this one slipping away. Two offseasons later, Tabuchi was informed (in the middle of the night) that he had been traded to the Lions.

1992: Inexperience Costly, Phantom Home Run Pivotal

Check the historical standings and you’ll see how unlikely this season was. In the previous 5 seasons, there were four last-place finishes and one fifth-place finish. But somehow, this club got on a good roll. Hitters like Tom O’Malley and new import Jim Paciorek did well, and the pitchers combined to form the best staff in NPB, with a team ERA of 2.90. They were helped with the removal of the “Lucky Zone” which had given hitters much better chances at home runs from 1947 until 1991. The team even got a rare no-hitter this season from Toshiro Yufune.

As the season went on, Hanshin stayed near the top of the standings. They survived the “Road of Death” in August, and moved into first place on September 13, staying there through the end of the month.

That came in spite of a moment Hanshin fans call “maboroshi no ho-muran” (phantom home run). On September 11, Hiroshi Yagi came up as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the ninth with a runner on first and the score tied. He hit a full-count pitch deep, over the center fielder, and into the stands. Game over. Hanshin was one step closer to taking over first place. The hero’s podium was being mounted while… but wait a minute! The Swallows’ fielders insisted that the ball had caromed off the top of the wall and into the stands. After a long delay, the original call was overturned and the resulting ground-rule double meant two runners in scoring position, two outs, and a tie game. In the end, the Tigers only managed to preserve the tie after 15 innings and 6 hours 26 minutes of baseball (the longest regular season game in NPB history, for the record).

So anyway, with two games left in the season and the Tigers two games behind Yakult, they needed to win both of their head-to-head games with the Swallows. Unfortunately, they lost the first and ended the season two games back, tied for second with the Giants.

2008: Being on the Wrong Side of “Make Legend”

The Giants were no strangers to making huge comebacks. Some years earlier (1996, to be exact) they erased an 11.5-game deficit (to the Hiroshima Carp) to win the pennant. Their manager dubbed the late season charge “Make Drama.” This time around, it was our turn to be on the wrong side of history. It was called “Make Legend.” Our Tigers jumped out to a torrid start. On July 9th, the team was 51-23-1 and had what looked like an unsurmountable lead over the Dragons and Giants: THIRTEEN games. But by September 21, that lead vanished completely, as the Giants added to their legend as the strongest team in baseball.

Some people lay the blame for this one on the Beijing Olympics, which saw Hanshin send closer Kyuji Fujikawa, catcher Akihiro Yano, and infielder Takahiro Arai away for a good chunk of the summer. (Never mind that the Giants were also without the services of pitcher Koji Uehara and catcher Shinnosuke Abe for the same stretch.) Basically, from July 9th until season’s end, Hanshin was 5 games under .500, while the Giants were 25 games over.

Anyways, the teams were still tied for first on October 8th, when they faced each other and the Tigers lost. Two days later, the Tigers lost and the Giants won, and the dreams of a third pennant in six years had completely vanished. The gap was 2.5 games at season’s end, but the gaping hole in Tigers fans’ hearts was even bigger.

2010: Not Enough Quality Pitching

This was probably one of the best seasons offensively for the team, and that’s saying a lot because the 2003 and 2005 pennant-winning teams were pretty impressive. On the whole, they had a .290 team batting average, with 5 regulars hitting over .300 on the year. Add to that some impressive power numbers from Craig Brazell and Kenji Johjima (47 and 28 home runs, respectively) and you’ve got a club that looks like it could mash its way to the pennant. (Did we mention that Matt Murton set the NPB record for most single-season hits with 214 during this campaign?) And this team did, in fact, have the top spot in the league, and even a magic number, part way through September. Unfortunately, the team was without starter Minoru Iwata the entire season and only had limited health from Atsushi Nohmi as well. Put another way, when your third greatest innings-eater (with just 100 innings) is a worn-out 42-year-old (Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi), you’re not in great shape on the mound. In the end, this team finished just one game out of first, but failed to win a single game in the playoffs, and bowed out with a whimper.

2021: Did Not Tie Enough Games

The season got off to an outstanding start, as many teams did not have their import players in the country because of border restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Tigers took advantage as Jerry Sands and Joe Gunkel started strong and they got outstanding play from their rookie trio: Teruaki Sato, Masashi Itoh, and Takumu Nakano. With a 16-4 record in their first 20 games, they held first place for nearly the entire first half of the season. Their play leveled off a little after that, but they used a six-game winning streak at the end of interleague play (in mid-June), plus a win against the Giants immediately after, to open up an eight-game lead on those Giants. They were 21 games above .500 at that point, but limped to the mid-season break, and then spent August and September struggling to stay afloat. In fact, their spot atop the standings was threatened several times in September and finally, they fell out of first on the 22nd. Many of the first-half stars, in particular Sands (1 HR after August 14) and Sato (no hits in 59 PAs in August/September), cooled down significantly. But that would not be the end of this team, though… despite falling as many as three games back of the Yakult Swallows, the Tigers reeled off five straight wins at the start of October and remained in the hunt right down to the final game of the season. Thanks to a 6-1-3 stretch in games 133-142, all they needed was to win their final game (at home to the lowly Chunichi Dragons) while the Swallows would need to go 1-2 in their final three games. The Swallows did their part… However, the Tigers were blanked by the Dragons, ending their hopes of a pennant. They finished with more wins than any other team in NPB (77) but lost the league by 0 games and just 5 percentage points. Because of the pandemic, games ended after 9 regulation innings, which meant ties were on the rise. Because of how ties factor into the win percentage in NPB, the Swallows (73-52-18 = .584) won the CL over the Tigers (77-56-10 = .579). Those Swallows would also go on to win the Japan Series, while the Tigers bowed out in the first round of the playoffs, losing two straight to the third-place Yomiuri Giants at Koshien Stadium.