Sadayuki Tokutake

Sadayuki Tokutake (徳武 定祐)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 185 lb.

• School Waseda University
• High School Waseda Jitsugyo High School

• Born June 9, 1938 in Sannohe-gun, Aomori Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Sadayuki Tokutake played in Nippon Pro Baseball for 10 years.

Tokutake was signed by the Kokutetsu Swallows in 1961 with a 6 million yen signing bonus, and he was named their starting third baseman as a rookie. He played all 130 games in his rookie year, and his batting line was .255/.323/.361 with 22 doubles. He was the third rookie to play all games in his first year, following Shinya Sasaki and Shigeo Nagashima. Tokutake also ranked 7th in the Central League in runs (between Satoshi Hirayama and Akiteru Kono), 5th in RBI (between Michael Solomko and Toru Mori) and 6th in doubles (tied with Katsuya Morinaga and Hidenori Kanemitsu). Tokutake then hit .244/.325/.371 with 14 homers in 1962, tying Solomko for 8th in homers and tying Tatsuo Okitsu for 9th in RBI.

The Aomori native had his career year in 1963, hitting .300/.374/.441 with 14 homers and a career-high 26 doubles. He was 6th in batting (between Eiji Fujii and Yasumitsu Toyoda), 4th in hits (tied with Takeshi Koba) and 7th in doubles (tied with Toyoda and Shinichi Eto). He was also selected into the 1963 NPB All-Star Games, and he was 0-for-1 while drawing a walk against Shoichi Ono in Game 3. Tokutake crushed a career-high 15 homers in 1964, and his batting line was .263/.319/.387. He was 7th in hits, between Nagashima and Morimichi Takagi. He then hit .270/.341/.355 in 1965, and his batting line was .249/.319/.406 in 1966. He tied Ken Aspromonte and Akihito Kondo for 10th in doubles with 20 in 1966.

When Norifumi Kido joined the team in 1967, Tokutake's spot was taken and his 821 consecutive games played record ended. That was the 4th longest record at that time, behind Tokuji Iida's 1,246, Fumio Fujimura's 1,014 and Hideshi Miyake's 882. He only played 83 games with a .259/.335/.380 batting line in 1967, then the Swallows traded him to the Chunichi Dragons for Yasuhiko Kawamura. Tokutake hit .238/.324/.370 in 1968, but he only had 43 at-bats combined in the next two seasons and he announced his retirement in 1970.

Tokutake then coached the Dragons from 1972 to 1976 and for the Lotte Orions from 1977 to 1978 and from 1980 to 1983. He managed their minor league team from 1984 to 1988, and worked as their bench coach from 1990 to 1991. When manager Masaichi Kaneda was suspend in 1990 due to having a fight with umpire, Tokutake replaced him and led the Orions having a 5-14 record. He was the bench coach for the Dragons from 1991 to 1995, and he managed them for 37 games after Takagi was fired in 1995. That led him to getting the baseball card shown above, as part of the 1995 NPB All-Star Game set, as the Chunichi manager earned a coaching spot in the Game due to their 1994 performance. Since he was canned two days prior to the game, in favor of Ikuo Shimano, he did not wind up coaching despite having a baseball card in the set.

Overall, Tokutake hit .259/.331/.382 with 903 hits and 91 homers in 10 seasons in the NPB.

Sources

• NPB site
• Wiki Japan
• 1963 NPB All Star Game