Shinji Hata
Shinji Hata (秦 真司)
- Bats Left, Throws Right
- Height 5' 10", Weight 176 lb.
- School Hosei University
- High School Naruto High School
- Born July 29, 1962 in Naruto, Tokushima Japan
Biographical Information[edit]
Shinji Hata was an Olympic player and a one-time All-Star in Nippon Pro Baseball.
Hata was on the Japanese team that won the 1984 Olympics; baseball was not a medal event that year, so he did not get a gold medal. [1] He was picked by the Yakult Swallows in the second round of the 1985 NPB draft, after they took fellow 1984 Olympian Katsumi Hirosawa in the first round. [2]
He made his pro debut in 1985, getting his first hit off Masaaki Saito and his first homer off Hirofumi Sekine. [3] He hit only .182/.217/.364 in 46 plate appearances over 41 games that season, backing up Yukio Yaegashi (he was actually the 4th-string catcher). In 1986, he was third-string behind Yaegashi and Shinya Ashizawa and batted .238/.315/.381 in 74 plate appearances over 59 games. As the #2 catcher behind Yaegashi in 1987, he slumped to .206/.229/.397 in 70 PA and 33 G.
The Tokushima native succeeded Yaegashi as the starting catcher in 1988 and put together a batting line of .251/.308/.376 with 7 homers. He hit even better in 1989 (.290/.343/.437). He led Yakult's regulars in batting average, though Larry Parrish and Takahiro Ikeyama had better slugging percentages. With the arrival of future Hall-of-Famer Atsuya Furuta (an Olympian four years after Hata) in 1990, though, Hata had to move to the outfield. He hit .292/.358/.520 in 279 plate appearances that summer, in a part-time role. Only Ikeyama had a higher slugging percentage for the Swallows.
Becoming a starting outfielder in 1991, he produced at a .292/.345/.491 clip with 16 homers in 383 at-bats. He was third on the team in homers, after Ikeyama and Hirosawa. Making the 1991 NPB All-Star Games, his lone All-Star stint, he was 0 for 1 for the Central League in a 1-0 Game 1 win over the Pacific League All-Stars. He took over for Akinobu Mayumi and was retired by Satoru Komiyama. In Game 2, a 3-3 tie, he started in right and hit 6th. After being retired by Katsuyoshi Murata, he was replaced by Hirosawa. [4]
Hata hit 15 home runs in 1992, batting .251/.342/.439. He was second in the CL with 8 times hit by pitch, 3 behind Furuta. He hit .261/.346/.435 in the 1992 Japan Series; down 3 games to 2 to the Seibu Lions, he hit a 10th-inning homer off Tetsuya Shiozaki to win game 6, but Yakult dropped game 7 to fall short. It was still their first CL title as the Swallows. [5]
In 1993, he faded to .239/.303/.370 at the plate, with 7 home runs. He still played every game in the 1993 Japan Series as Yakult won their first title and he hit .273/.273/.318 as they got their revenge on Seibu. [6] During 1994, Hata hit .242/.300/.427 as their #4 outfielder behind Tetsuya Iida, Jerald Clark and Yukio Arai. He tied for third in the CL with 4 triples, behind Tsuyoshi Shinjo and Shuji Nishiyama. He was their third-most-used outfielder when they took another pennant in 1995, behind Iida and Mitsuru Manaka. He batted .286/.326/.452 with 9 homers in 252 at-bats. He was very good when Yakult beat the Orix BlueWave in the 1995 Japan Series, going 5 for 10 with a walk, splitting outfield time with Manaka and Atsunori Inaba as Iida was the only set outfielder.
The veteran batted .241/.348/.397 in 1996. By 1997, he was rarely playing the field (7 games; Dwayne Hosey, Iida and Inaba were the starters and Manaka the primary outfield backup). He was pinch-hitting frequently still, getting 73 plate appearances in 71 games and showing he could still do well at the plate (.270/.361/.429). He was 3 for 6 with a walk in the 1997 Japan Series as Yakult topped Seibu. After a rough 1998 (.167/.196/.271, 0 HR in 52 PA and 49 G), though, he was let go by the Swallows after 14 seasons. [7]
Hata caught on with the Nippon Ham Fighters for 1999 but only went 2 for 16 with 3 walks and a double. He was released and this time the Chiba Lotte Marines signed him. He hit .267/.290/.333 in 31 plate appearances for them in 2000 to end his playing career. He had batted .262/.324/.428 with 97 homers, 301 runs and 341 RBI in 3,078 plate appearances over 1,182 games in NPB. He showed surprising speed for a one-time catcher, swiping 31 bases in 43 tries.
Hata then went into coaching with Chiba Lotte's minor league team in 2001. He was a baseball commentator from 2002-2004 then coached for Chunichi in 2005 and 2006. After another year as a commentator, he was hired as the inaugural manager of the Gunma Diamond Pegasus in the independent Baseball Challenge League in 2008. He guided them to a title in 2009 and remained the reins through 2011. He coached for the Yomiuri Giants from 2011-2017, some of that time in the minors. He then went back into broadcasting. [8]
Sources[edit]
- ↑ Defunct Japanbaseballdaily.com site by Gary Garland
- ↑ Japanese Wikipedia entry
- ↑ Japanese Wikipedia
- ↑ Japanese Baseball Database by Michael Eng
- ↑ Remembering Japanese Baseball by Robert Fitts, pg. 191
- ↑ All Japan Series stats are from the old Japanbaseballdaily.com site
- ↑ Japanbaseballdaily
- ↑ Japanese Wikipedia entry
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