Shosei Go

Shosei Go (呉 昌征) (Human Locomotive)

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 5' 6", Weight 140 lbs.

• High School Kagi Norin High School

• Born June 23, 1916 in Kaohsiung City Empire of Japan
• Died June 7, 1987 in Tokyo Prefecture Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Shosei Go played in Nippon Pro Baseball for 20 years, setting several records.

Go was signed by the Tokyo Giants in 1937, and played leadoff in the first game in the Giants' history. Go hit .289/.441/.397 and led the Japanese Professional Baseball League with 6 triples in the spring of 1937 (the first season of Japan's first pro baseball league), and ranked 5th in batting average (.049 behind Kenjiro Matsuki). He recorded a .327/.373/.436 batting line in the fall of 1937, but then struggled as his batting line fell to .210/.423/.259 in the next season. Go slumped to .163/.250/.209 in 1939, then only hit .197/.304/.290 and .223/.366/.294 respectively in the next two seasons.

Go broke out in 1942. He hit .286/.411/.384 with 40 steals, leading the JPBL in games, runs, triples, batting average and on-base percentage. He was the only player to win the batting title with a below-.300 BA in NPB history, and also ranked 2nd in steals (4 behind Michinori Tsubouchi). The Kaohsiung native extended his solid performance, as he hit .300/.457/.387 with 54 swipes in 1943, and led the JPBL in appearances, runs, hits, total bases, walks, batting average, OBP and SLG. He was the first player in NPB history to won the batting title in two consecutive years, and ranked 2nd in steals (2 behind Den Yamada). He also won his only NPB Most Valuable Player Award.

Since the War was expected to break out, Go quit the Giants and escaped to Osaka in order to avoid military service. His original plan was coming back to his hometown Taiwan, but the Osaka Tigers found him and persuaded him to play for them. Go hit .297/.435/.365 with a league-leading 19 steals (tied with his compatriot Shinkyo Go) in 1944. The NPB then shut down due to World War II for two years. Go even grew taro in Koshien Stadium because he was an agricultural school student.

When pro baseball started again in 1946, since the Tigers lost many pitchers in the War, they used Go as a two-way player. Go was 14-6 with a 3.03 ERA as a pitcher, and hit .291/.379/.361 with 25 steals as a batter. He also completed the first no-hitter after the War, and became the only player in NPB history to win a batting title and pitch a no-hitter. He was 7th in steals (14 behind Toshio Kawanishi), 2nd in runs (11 behind Naofumi Yasui), 8th in wins (16 behind Giichiro Shiraki) and 9th in ERA (0.92 behind Hideo Fujimoto). Go batted .267/.361/.348 with 40 steals in 1947, led the league in runs and was ranked 2nd in swipes (13 behind Kawanishi). He set the NPB record when he hit 129 singles in a season （broken by Shigeru Chiba) with a .277/.365/.315 batting line and 35 steals in 1948, but he slumped to .223/.341/.266 in 1949.

When the JPBL split into two leagues in 1950, Go followed his manager Tadashi Wakabayashi and jumped to the Mainichi Orions of the Pacific League. The Kaohsiung native bounced back and hit .324/.396/.507 with 29 steals, ranked 5th in batting average (.015 behind Hiroshi Oshita), 6th in runs (19 behind Kaoru Betto) and 7th in steals (49 behind Chusuke Kizuka). He reached 300 steals on May 25, becoming the first player in NPB history to reach this benchmark. In the first Nippon Series ever - the 1950 Nippon Series, Go went 4-for-22 and blasted the first home run in Nippon Series (off Takashi Eda in Game 2). The Orions beat the Shochiku Robins in 6 games.

Go was still a productive batter in 1951, as he hit .302/.367/.381 with 18 steals. He was 7th in BA (.081 behind Oshita), 6th in hits (15 behind Kizuka) and 7th in runs (38 behind Kazuo Kageyama). He was selected into the first NPB All-Star Game in the two-league era - the 1951 NPB All-Star Games; he appeared in Game 2 but went 0-for-1. The Kaohsiung native slumped to .258/.377/.333 in 1952, then hit .272/.379/.316 in 1953. He attended the 1953 NPB All-Star Game, but went 0-for-4 in 3 games. His batting line declined to .243/.355/.348 in 1954. The 1955 season was Go's last productive season, he batted .329/.403/.359 as a pinch-hitter because Kazuhiro Yamauchi took his starting spot. Go only hit .159/.250/.183 in the next season, and he had a .293/.420/.366 batting line in 43 games in 1957. He then announced his retirement after the 1957 season, when he became the first player to played 20 season in NPB. Go was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995, then joined the Taiwan Baseball Hall of Fame in 2017.

Overall, Go had hit .272/.379/.351 with 381 steals in 20 seasons in NPB. He was 15-7 with a 3.48 ERA and pitched 199 innings as a pitcher.

Sources

• NPB site
• 1951 NPB All-Star Game
• Wiki Japan
• Taiwan Baseball Wiki