Masaichi Kaneda

• Born: August 1, 1933
• Birthplace: Heiwa, Japan
• Died: October 6, 2019
• Place of death: Tokyo, Japan

Sport: Baseball

Early Life

Masaichi Kaneda was born in Japan to Korean parents and became a naturalized Japanese citizen in 1954. His younger brother Tomehiro Kaneda also played professional baseball. Japan has a sizable Korean population, many of whom were brought to Japan against their wills in the early part of the twentieth century. Kaneda did not discuss his Korean heritage with the press, but whenever he had an outburst or fight with another player, the Japanese press attributed it to his Korean heritage, a view that was stereotypical and ethnically insensitive.

The Road to Excellence

In 1950, Kaneda joined the Kokutetsu Swallows (now known as the Tokyo Yakult Swallows). In 1951, he pitched a no-hitter against the Hanshin Tigers. He was known for his excellent fastball and curveball. In an interview with The New York Times in 1974, he recalled that he once pitched against Joe DiMaggio and was urged to play in the United States by the New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel. Kaneda declined the offer because of the language barrier and regretted the decision. He later faced many American major-league players when they toured Japan. He said of all the American stars to which he pitched, Stan Musial was the most difficult to get out.

The Emerging Champion

On August 21, 1957, Kaneda pitched a perfect game. The Swallows, for whom he played the majority of his career, were often in the bottom of the baseball standings, making his career record even more remarkable. He reflected on his career and pitching style in a 1987 interview with The New York Times, stating that his “team was weak. [The players] made a lot of errors. If I didn’t get strikeouts, I couldn’t win. That’s why I made an all-out attack on strikeouts.” Kaneda distinguished himself from many players of the time in that he was argumentative, telling his coaches when he would pitch and always insisting on three days of rest between pitching assignments. As several of his contemporaries, such as Tadashi Sugiura and Katsuhisa Inao, had their careers shortened because of injuries related to overuse, his insistence on rest was a wise strategy.

In 1965, as Stengel had tried to before, the San Francisco Giants attempted to lure Kaneda to Major League Baseball. Initially interested, he was still concerned about the language barrier and in the middle of his quest for four hundred wins and four thousand strikeouts, so he declined the offer. He joined the Tokyo Giants instead. Some wondered if money was also an issue: At the time, he was making more money than an American club could have offered. After winning his four hundredth game in 1969, he retired, ending his career with four hundred wins. The Giants retired his jersey number in 1970. During his baseball career, he had fourteen consecutive seasons in which he won twenty or more games. During his peak, he was the highest paid athlete in Japan.

Continuing the Story

After retirement, Kaneda worked as a baseball commentator, and in 1973, he began a five-year stint as the manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines; he managed the team again in 1990 and 1991. In 1974, with his brother pitching, the Marines won the championship series, beating the Tokyo Giants. As a manager, Kaneda was known to be a disciplinarian and was involved in a public feud with American player Jim Lefebvre, who played for the Marines for five seasons. Part of his managing strategy in 1974 was to wake the team up at 7 a.m. and have the players complete a ten-mile run.

Also in 1974, Subaru brought Kaneda to the United States to star in a television commercial, becoming the first Japanese celebrity to do so. During the visit, he donated a glove and ball to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. In 1978, he created Meikyukai, one of the two Japanese baseball halls of fame. In 1988, he was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

Kaneda died in a hospital in Tokyo, reportedly from acute cholangitis, on October 6, 2019, at the age of eighty-six.

Summary

By 2020, Masaichi Kaneda remained the only pitcher in Japan to have won four hundred games, and he had held the Japanese baseball records for complete games, with 365; strikeouts, with 4,490; and home runs by a pitcher, with 36. During the 1950s, he was the most dominant pitcher in Japanese baseball.

Bibliography

Belson, Ken. "Masaichi Kaneda, Japan's 'Emperor' of Baseball, Dies at 86." The New York Times, 11 Oct. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/sports/baseball/masaichi-kaneda-dead.html. Accessed 27 Aug. 2020.

Whiting, Robert. The Chrysanthemum and the Bat: Baseball Samurai Style. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1977.

Whiting, Robert. The Meaning of Ichiro: The New Wave from Japan and the Transformation of Our National Pastime. New York: Warner Books, 2004.

Whiting, Robert. You Gotta Have Wa. New York: Macmillan, 1989.