Famous People in Japan



Ochiai Hiromitsu

Date of Birth 9 October 1953
Place of Birth Akita

Ochiai Hiromotsu was the youngest child of seven brothers and sisters. When he was a elementary school student, he was taught baseball by his brothers and joined a baseball team in his hometown.

He entered Gatanishi Junior High School and kept playing baseball in the team until he graduated, then entered Akita Technical High School and of course, he was took part in that baseball team. In high school, he was quite an obscure player. But after he graduated, he went on to Toyo University in Tokyo because of his ability in baseball. But, because he was getting tired of the games, he dropped out of the university team after half a year, instead aiming to become a pro-bowler. Later, he joined the Toshiba-Fuchu baseball team and had kept playing baseball there for a few years.

Here are the most important events in his baseball career:

1979: He was picked up third in the draft and joined the Lotte Orions. At last, he had become a professional baseball player.

1980: He established the record when he hit five consecutive home runs in the Eastern League and was able to join the Major League in the latter part of the season.

1981: He was the leading hitter with his batting average .326 and he had kept winning the title for three years.

1982: When he was 28 years old, he got the triple crown (the highest of a batting average, a run batted in and a home run). It was unprecedented for a batter of his age to get the title in the history of professional baseball in Japan.

1985: He got the second triple crown and MVP in the Pacific league by a marvelous record that he got .367 batting average, 52 home runs and 146 runs.

1986: He got an unprecedented third triple crown. After the season was over, he asked to be traded to the Central league and was transferred to the Chunichi Dragons. The team gave up important four men (Ushijima, Kawakami, Kuwata, Hiranuma) to get him.

1987: When he entered the team, his annual salary reached a hundred million yen.

1990, May: He got for the smallest number of the games to accumulate 350 home runs.

1992: He won a fifth king of home runs title and was the first baseball player who received three hundred million yen as his annual salary.

1993: He was permitted to enter the Yomiuri Giants through the free agent system and contributed to that the team won the championship in Japan.

1995: He attained two thousands hits.

1996: He attained five hundred home runs and one thousand and five hundred hits.Then he traded to '"Nippon Ham Fighters" becsuse Kiyohara entered "Yomiuri Giants".

1997: He attained one thousand hits in both Central and Pacific Leagues. References: Gendai Jinmei Jiten, 1994, Nippon Pro-Yakyu Data, Nippon Pro-Yakyu Nenkan '94

Reported by: Shinji Matsumoto
Data verified by: Motonari Izawa, Maiko Hisada
Date of Report: November 1995
Updated by: Makoto Yamamoto, October 1998

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