Former Seibu Lions player and Shinsaku Katahira passed away at 9:58 a.m. on Monday morning after losing his battle to pancreatic cancer. He was 68 years old.
Katahira spent majority of his playing career with the Nankai Hawks from 1972-1981. He was traded with Masahiro Kuroda to the Lions for Yoshinori Yamamura and Rutsuo Yamashita prior to the 1982 season and saw some glory.
After only experiencing one Pacific League Pennant in 1973 with the Hawks, he experienced won the first Lions pennant in the Seibu era in 1982 and went on to win their first of several Japan Series titles in the 1980s, where Katahira was the starting 1B. After defeating the Dragons in six games in 1982, the Lions repeated in 1983, defeating the Yomiuri Giants in seven games.
Katahira hit .306 in 1985, but his best season came in 1986, where he hit .292/.332/.522 with 17 home runs. The Lions won the Japan Series that season against the Hiroshima Carp in eight games, which was his final year in Tokorozawa.
His playing career ended with the Yokohama Taiyo Whale (present day Baystars) from 1987-1989. Katahira served with the Lions as an ichi-gun batting coach (1990-1993), ni-gun batting coach (1994) and even ni-gun manager (1995-1997, 2008-2009).
After NPB, he served as a baseball commentator and coached a women's professional baseball team. For a member of the Golden Era and even coach for the back end of it, may he R.I.P.
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Thanks for the heads up - I'm going to do a post on him momentarily.
ReplyDeleteJust a nit-picky comment though - I know you were trying to say that Katahira experienced a Pacific League pennant with Nankai in 1973 but the way you've phrased that paragraph it looks like you're saying that the Lions won the pennant in 1973.
Fixed. Thanks!
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