Osamu Fukuma

Osamu Fukuma (福間 納)

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 5' 9", Weight 151 lb.

• High School Oda High School

• Born July 13, 1961 in Oda, Shimane Japan

BR Register page

Biographical Information

Osamu Fukuma pitched in Nippon Pro Baseball and for the Japanese national team.

Fukuma represented Japan in the 1977 Intercontinental Cup and 1978 Amateur World Series. In the latter event, he was 1-1 with a 3.38 ERA. The Lotte Orions drafted him in the first round of the 1978 NPB draft. Fukuma spent the first two year of his career in the NPB Farm Leagues due to left elbow injury, and only had 27 appearances combined with the big club. The Orions traded him to the Hanshin Tigers for Yoshio Fukazawa in 1981. Fukuma joined the Tigers' bullpen soon in 1981, when he recorded a solid 2.35 ERA in 35 appearances. He had a 3.15 ERA in 63 games in 1982. The Oda native had a career year in 1983. He pitched a league-leading 69 games, and won the ERA title with a 2.62 ERA as a reliever. Fukuma extended his solid pitching, getting a 3.62 ERA in 77 games in 1984. His 77 appearances set the Central League record, and was a game shy of beating Kazuhisa Inao's NPB record. The mark stood for 17 years before Tsuyoshi Kikuchihara topped it. His ERA slightly rose to 4.05 in 1985, but he still pitched 58 games. In the 1985 Nippon Series, he pitched a shutout inning in Game 2, but allowed 2 runs and got the loss in Game 4. He bounced back in Game 5, and struck out 2 in 4 shutout innings to collected his first win in the series, and won his only Nippon Series Title in 6 games. He got a vote in the 1985 Central League Most Valuable Player Award voting. Fukuma only had 6 appearance due to injury in 1986, but he came back and recorded a 4.79 ERA in 48 games in the next season. He improved to 3.34 ERA in 42 games in 1988. He only had 26 appearances combined in the next two seasons, and announced his retirement after the 1990 season. He was a coach for the Tigers from 1998 to 2001, and became the pitching coach for the Orix Buffaloes in 2011

Overall, Fukuma was 22-21 with a 3.67 ERA and pitched 647 innings in 451 appearances in 12 seasons in NPB.

Sources

• NPB site
• 1985 Nippon Series
• Wiki Japan
• Defunct IBAF site