Hiromitsu Ochiai
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| Chunichi Dragons — No. 6 | |
| Manager (baseball) | |
| Born: 1953-12-09 | |
| Bats: Right | Throws: Right |
| Nippon Professional Baseball debut | |
| [[]], 1979 for the Lotte Orions | |
| Teams | |
| Lotte Orions (1979-1986) Chunichi Dragons (1987-1993) Yomiuri Giants (1994-1996) Nippon Ham Fighters (1997-1998) Chunichi Dragons (2004-current)* *As manager |
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Hiromitsu Ochiai (落合 博満 Ochiai Hiromitsu, born December 9, 1953) is currently manager of the Chunichi Dragons in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball. He is considered to be one of the most important people in the history of Japanese baseball, winning numerous batting awards and being the only player to receive the prestigious triple crown batting award three times.
Ochiai was born in Akita, Japan, a rice-farming area of northern Honshū. Ochiai was the youngest of five children and grew up enjoying spending time in the cinema rather than on the baseball field. At Toyo University, he quit after one year as he did not approve of the traditional way freshman players had to cater to the senior players on the team. He joined Toshiba Fuchu, a team in the Japanese industrial league, after leaving Toyo university.
In 1978, at 25 years old, the third baseman joined Lotte Orions after being selected in the third round of the draft. Lotte manager did not care for his unorthodox right-handed batting style and Masaichi Kaneda criticized Ochiai, but Isao Harimoto supported Ochiai and Ochiai did not quit.[1] From 1981, Ochiai played a regular role for his team, and in 1982 he won his first triple crown batting title. He also won the Triple crown in 1985 and 1986, and continued winning titles through 1991.
In 1987, Ochiai was traded to the Chunichi Dragons by the Lotte Orions. During the 1994 season, the Yomiuri Giants picked up Ochiai as a free agent. After the Giants signed Kazuhiro Kiyohara in 1997, Ochiai joined the Nippon Ham Fighters at the age of 43. At the conclusion of the 1998 sesason, Ochiai retired.
Ochiai's style is called Oreryu(オレ流). Oreryu means "to do with only my style." The word described how he acted according to his personal philosophies.
Hiromitsu Ochiai has been the manager of the Chunichi Dragons since 2004. He led the Dragons to the Japan Series during his inaugural year as manager in 2004, again in 2006, and led them to victory on the third try in 2007.
[edit] Career batting statistics
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Japanesebaseball.com - Nippon Professional Baseball career statistics
| Preceded by Koichi Nakano |
Japan Professional Sports Grand Prize Winner 1982 |
Succeeded by Tatsuro Hirooka |
| Preceded by Randy Bass |
Japan Professional Sports Grand Prize Winner 1986 |
Succeeded by Ayako Okamoto |
Template:Japanese-baseball-bio-stub
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