Sadaharu Oh: The Real Home Run King of Baseball

On September third, nineteen seventy seven, satahau Oh hits his seven hundred and fifty sixth home run in the MBL in Japan, becoming the all time leader in the world for home runs, passing his friend Hank Aaron and continues a career where he still holds a record for the most home runs in professional baseball in the world. Today, we're going to dive into how he did this in his unique story that's often forgot about outside of Japan today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. And today's trivia question is what home run hitter from Major League Baseball did sadaharu Oh face off agains now. Sadaharu Oh was born in nineteen forty in Japan. His father was Chinese and his mother with Japanese. This was very hard on him at the time because World War Two was going on in Japan was a major player on the Pacific battlegrounds, so they were often bouncing from place to place, and his father was also detained multiple times as he was Chinese and they thought he may be a spy. But luckily through all this, him and his family were able to come out of all this and he was able to get into what became the most popular sport in Japan, baseball, and in Japan, professional baseball didn't start until the nine thirties, just a little bit before he was born, but it had a huge boom, especially after World War Two, because their pro league started to develop more and more and they actually started to get more Americans to come over and play, and this helped boom the sport to now it is over twice as popular as the second most popular sport, which Assumo wrestling, And part of this boom was because of Oh. Now a little understanding about baseball in Japan, especially in the nineteen fifties and sixties and seventies when Oh was playing. It's huge. And just imagine if you're in America, Texas, what do we know about Texas? Texas? High school football in college football is number one, And that's what it's like in Japan except for baseball. So high school baseball and their national tournament for high schoolers is very very popular. I know had the opportunity to pitch in this. He actually started out as a pitcher, just like Babe Ruth and many other players, and he was a very good pitcher. He led his team to the championship his junior year of high school and unlike baseball today, back then you pitched as much as you could, and he pitched four consecutive complete games in a row and helped lead his team to the championship. And after high school was over, he had the option to go to college and play, but he chose to play for his hometown team, the Umiori Giants, where he initially signed as a pitcher, but as they got through his development, they know his pitching wasn't on par, but his hitting was so good they moved him to first base so he could get a chance to play behind a veteran where he could learn and become a great hitter. And he struggled his first year. His rookie year, he batted one sixty one, but every year he got better and better. His second year he batted two seventy and eventually he worked his way to hitting over three hundred for the rest of his career. And what really led to his change was in his second season, they got a new hitting coach that really worked on his hitting and changed his stance from being a normal stance that we see today to a very unique stance we don't see very often, which is called a flamingo stance. It's called that because he regularly stands on one leg. He was a left handed batter, and so he would stand with his right side towards the pitcher, and as a pitcher was getting ready to throw the ball, he would lift his right leg up almost to a ninety degree angle and then step into his swing. And this created a great way for him to not lunch and to keep his timing through every pitch, and it helped him so much that it led him to be one of the greatest hitters and is one of the most iconic poses that you see all the time. And he would practice this all the time, balancing on that one leg. He would do it even with the Samurai sword. As he worked on this, and it really was something he wanted to work on because he wanted to be a baseball player and he wanted to be great. As in his first three years he hit thirty seven home runs total, but in his fourth year he hit thirty eight home runs, and in nineteen sixty four he hit fifty five home runs, and from nineteen sixty three to nineteen seventy four he would hit over forty home runs every year but one where he hit thirty nine. And this consistency may remind you of a previous home run king we talked about in Hank Aaron, who never get huge numbers every year, but was consistently getting around forty home runs every year. That's exactly what Oh was doing as well. And they were actually kind of battling each other to see who could possibly break Babe Rufe's record, as it was around the same time they were playing each other. And in nineteen seventy four, the Atlanta Braves actually came over to Japan where they actually faced off against the Yumari Giants, and they held a mini home run derby between Hank Aaron and Oh where Aaron would win out ten to nine. But they always respected each other and would call each other friends. And many times they would hold these exhibition games in the sixties and seventies where they would bring MLB teams over here and they would have actual competitive battles, and this really showed that he wasn't just hitting in an underground league. He was a good player, and Hank Aaron would say that himself, and he started his career in nineteen fifty nine and it would go all the way till nineteen eighty when, at the age of forty, he would finally retire with a career batting average of three one hundred and one, having finished third all time in the Japan League in hits with two thousand, seven hundred and eighty six, and it would finished his career with eight hundred and sixty eight home runs, which is still the record all time for the most home runs by a professional baseball player. Now you may now many people say, well, the Japan League isn't as good as the Major League Baseball, especially back then, and maybe there's a little bit of difference, but it shows he was good and he faced off against good hitters and good players throughout his career as they would hold exhibition games in America hold exhibition games in Japan, and they would face off against each other, and he got praises from players after players saying he was one of the best players in the world. And it wasn't until more recently that we've been getting players from Japan regularly, as many players in Japan loved to play for their hometown teams love to play in their home country, but there is more money in America and in Major League. But we've seen successes in players like i Cho Suzuki, Hugh Darvish, Dice k Matchazaka, and more recently shohe Otani. We see that these players are having great success and there's been way more And the problem is you have to pay money just to sign these players, and then you have to pay their players, So it's a lot of money to get these players from Japan. But they're a great league and it's honestly even better than the minor league system, just below what the major league system is. If not right on part, it's very close. As we've seen these players come over and have major success in the major leagues, and that's because they're doing great in Japan just as well. So even though it's in a different league in a different part country doesn't mean he's not a great player, as he won eleven Japan Championships, was named MVP nine times, was the Triple Crown winner in back to back seasons, and was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety four. He was a great player, even though if you're in America, he probably don't know much about him. He was a hitter and he is, without controversy, the home run king of the world. I want to thank you for listening to Today's Daily Sports History. If you like this, please hit subscribe wherever you're listening. That way, you do not miss a single episode, because we'll be back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History and you won't want to miss out. And the answer to today's trivia question what home run hitter from Major League Baseball did Sadaharu oh face off against? And the answer is Hank Aaron, who won the home run derby ten to nine.