Japanese baseball great Oh to have museum

Here's hoping they have a display mentioning Randy Bass' run on Oh's home run record in '85 and how Oh as Manager instructed his team to pitch around Bass so he wouldn't break his record.....kind'a doubt that'll be in there though.....

lincolnman

Please. He was a great ball player who has done incredible things for the sport and is a good man. That should be enough.

He is making the museum for himself, he is an ego freak and he is not even Japanese. I thought I saw the last of him. Arrrrrgh

USNinJapan2, lest we forget Tuffy Rhodes and Alex Cabrera, who also fell victim to Oh (and supporters) and their discriminatory ways. Oh was one of the best Japanese League players, but his name will be forever tarnished by those who know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadaharu_Oh#Home_run_record_controversy

USNinJapan2 -- agree, but, by the same token, for folks to compare his accomplishments to Hank Aaron's is ludicrous. At the time he played, Japanese professional baseball was only comparable to AAA ball in the states. Maybe not that good. And, as others have pointed out, his legacy has certainly been tarnished by the xenophobic way he and Japanese pro baseball have tried to protect his records.

Let's not forget how his team (Hawks) were also stealing signs from opposing teams.

He may have been a decent player in the day but he doesn't rank high on my list of favourite players.

stealing signs is fine. being an egotistical jerk who discriminates against foreign players (despite being one yourself) is lame.

Japanese ball is not the same level as MLB, hence his records are not, nor will ever be, legitimate.

japanese baseball great who happens to be taiwanese

"Oh also holds the Japanese single season home run record of 55, which has been equaled by Tuffy Rhodes" and why it has never been broken would make for a heated discussion.

Japanese baseball is at about somewhere between 3A and MLB level. Oh's records are Oh's records, but even he doesn't believe he would have hit 800 home runs if he had played MLB.

Japanese baseball is at about somewhere between 3A and MLB level.

Why bring that up? Why run the man's legacy down, and Japanese baseball? NPB competes against itself not the MLB. It doesn't matter what it's skill level is compared to the MLB as long as the league is competitive (and it is - 7 different champions in the last 9 years).

Oh's mom is Japanese. Makes him Japanese enough. He's still the best player to come out from Japanese baseball and probably the only one who's recognized globally. I never heard of Nagashima until I came here, but definitely growing up, we all heard of Oh.

Teenage golfer Ryo Ishikawa has a museum although he has never won a PGA or Major event but Oh has not had one until now? Go figure!

this guy's record is bogus. Only because of the fact that they cheated other players out of breaking it. his "record" was once featured on world's most bogus records on a great sports show called "best damn sports show". To his defense though, im sure the decision was handed down from a higher up to not let one of those barbarians break "our" record.

Look, you have to give this old Taiwanese bloke some credit - apparently he was one of the better players to play in Japan. However, he was not known for sportsmanship or fair play - as evidenced by refusing to allow American Randy Bass to break his record. Good player, yes - good sport, no.

i dont dispute the fact that he was a great player. i just think his "record" should have an * next to it. as for the museum, have at it. any baseball player that hits 800 home runs in any level of baseball is a great athlete.

i dont dispute the fact that he was a great player. i just think his "record" should have an * next to it.

His single season record? Why? Nobody has broken it. He got it fair and square. There's nothing bogus about it (despite what that Fox show says). There's only been three other players to even approach it.

The guy was clearly the best player in Japan for the bulk of his career yet he trailed far, far behind Nagashima in popularity because he wasn't 100% Yamato. You can't really blame him too much for being a bit of a poor sport about his records going away.

As for his career record, indisputable. It's hard to see anyone breaking that one.

Yes, but those players clearly would have broken his "record*", had they been given the fair oppurtunity. That's why his record is bogus.

What did MLB players of his time think of him? [Unless otherwise noted, these quotes come from an appendix in Oh’s autobiography.] Source: http://baseballguru.com/ctomarkin/analysisctomarkin07.html

Tom Seaver: “He sure hit me. He was a superb hitter. He hit consistently, and he hit with power. If he played in the United States, he would have hit 20-25 home runs a year, and what’s more, he’d hit .300. He’d be a lifetime .300 hitter. He had tremendous discipline at the plate. He knew the strike zone extremely well…He could pull your hard stuff, and you couldn’t fool him off-speed.”

Hal McRae: “Oh had tremendous patience as a hitter . . . He had good power. I don’t know how many he would have hit here . . . start with 20 (a year) . . . at least. He was a great all-star. He’d have been a Hall of Famer.”

Don Baylor: “Oh could have played anywhere at any time. If he played in Yankee Stadium, being the left handed pull hitter he is, I have no doubt he’d hit 40 home runs a year.”

Frank Howard: “You can kiss my ass if he wouldn’t have hit 30 or 35 home runs a year and hit anywhere from .280 to .320 and drive in up to 120 runs a year. The point being, he rates with the all-time stars of the game.”

Frank Robinson: “I’m sure he would have hit in the 30’s (of homers per year) and probably in the low 40’s. . . . Thirty home runs a year add up to over 600 home runs, and he’d do that if he played the same number of years here that he played there.”

Don Drysdale: “He would have hit for average and power here. In a park tailored to his swing, there’s no telling how many he would have hit. . . . He was always ready for anything we threw him. We were all impressed.”

^^^^ interesting. I've never seen those quotes, I still feel his record is bogus though. Why let foreigners compete if you really don't want them to excel.

Hall of Famer Stever Carlton:

"I had been fooling with a pitch, but in Japan, after Sadaharu Oh hit two home runs off me, I figured, what the heck. I threw Oh, a lefthanded hitter, the slider. When he backed away and the ball was a strike, I knew I had something."

"The slider helped Carlton win a record four Cy young Awards and 329 games, ninth on the alltime victory list. His 4,136 strikeouts are the most by any lefthander. "

Oh would have been a fine player in MLB. Statistical analysis indicates he likely would have hit around 400 HRs and hit about .300 or so, with outstanding OBP. He probably would have made the HoF.

Baseball players open up these private museums as tax write-offs, with their family members as beneficiaries. That's why active players like Hideki Matsui and Ichiro Suzuki have already opened them.

Oh was a great manager too. He lead the first Japanese team to the WBC title. Oh could play and Japan too can play a mean game of baseball. But I agree with the single season record. Bass, Tuffy should have given a fair shot at breaking the record. It´s too bad it happened. The problem with Oh was that he was too soft. He didn´t have the balls to demand the pitchers throw strikes to Tuffy and Bass because the orders came from above and he didn´t want to break the wa.

Oh is on my list of the all time 1b in NPB together with Bass. Leron Lee DH. With Ichiro in right.