The real home run king
The Emperor of Swat
By ROBERT WHITING
New York Times
SORRY, Barry Bonds. You’re still 112 home runs away from the home run record, the real record, that is. Hitting 756 dingers is certainly quite an achievement, more than anyone else has hit in Major League Baseball history. But it is far behind the world record, the 868 homers slugged by Sadaharu Oh when he played for the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants from 1959 to 1980.
Many naysayers in America play down this achievement. They argue that it doesn’t really count because Oh played in Japan, where the players are smaller and the fences are closer than they are in North America. But that view is narrow-minded and misinformed.
There are 127 million people in Japan, where, in contrast to the United States, baseball is still the national pastime. Most of them, it is safe to say, care more about Sadaharu Oh than they do about Barry Bonds or his home run record. Oh’s home runs were usually wicked line drives, not high fly balls, and they sometimes put dents in the outfield seats. And he hit all of his circuit blasts in 127 fewer games and 524 fewer at-bats than Bonds needed just to pass Hank Aaron.
Oh batted against some of the toughest pitchers ever to play the game, wickedly effective breaking-ball artists. Like Oh, they were kept from playing in the United States by a restrictive reserve clause that bound players to their Japanese teams, even after their contracts expired, and by the quaint notion of loyalty. During Oh’s era, Major League Baseball players who ended their careers in Japan reported that two or three pitchers on each Japanese team could have played, and in some cases even starred, in North America.
(Continued here.)
By ROBERT WHITING
New York Times
SORRY, Barry Bonds. You’re still 112 home runs away from the home run record, the real record, that is. Hitting 756 dingers is certainly quite an achievement, more than anyone else has hit in Major League Baseball history. But it is far behind the world record, the 868 homers slugged by Sadaharu Oh when he played for the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants from 1959 to 1980.
Many naysayers in America play down this achievement. They argue that it doesn’t really count because Oh played in Japan, where the players are smaller and the fences are closer than they are in North America. But that view is narrow-minded and misinformed.
There are 127 million people in Japan, where, in contrast to the United States, baseball is still the national pastime. Most of them, it is safe to say, care more about Sadaharu Oh than they do about Barry Bonds or his home run record. Oh’s home runs were usually wicked line drives, not high fly balls, and they sometimes put dents in the outfield seats. And he hit all of his circuit blasts in 127 fewer games and 524 fewer at-bats than Bonds needed just to pass Hank Aaron.
Oh batted against some of the toughest pitchers ever to play the game, wickedly effective breaking-ball artists. Like Oh, they were kept from playing in the United States by a restrictive reserve clause that bound players to their Japanese teams, even after their contracts expired, and by the quaint notion of loyalty. During Oh’s era, Major League Baseball players who ended their careers in Japan reported that two or three pitchers on each Japanese team could have played, and in some cases even starred, in North America.
(Continued here.)
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