Takayuki Nishida

Takayuki Nishida (西田 孝之)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 8", Weight 158 lbs.

• High School Minami Uwa High School

• Born August 2, 1940 in Minami Uwa-gun, Ehime Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Takayuki Nishida played in the Nippon Pro Baseball for 11 years and once led the league in steals.

Nishida was signed by the Daimai Orions in 1962, but he only played 29 games with the big club in his rookie year. He shared the starting center fielder spot with Takao Yato and Kunihiro Ishita in 1963, and he had a .226/.264/.300 batting line in 128 games. Nishida batted .269/.322/.371 in 1964, so he won the competition for the starting spot in 1965; he recorded a .242/.285/.363 with a career-high 9 homers.

The Ehime native led the Pacific League in hit-by-pitches (10) in 1966, but his batting line declined to .231/.321/.278. He slumped to .212/.279/.297 in 1967, and led the league in steals with 32. After Nishida, only Ukyo Shuto led the PL in steals without meeting the qualified plate appearances for a batting title. Nishida's starting spot was taken by Iwao Ikebe because of his poor batting, and he never had more then 200 PA in a season the rest of his career. Nevertheless, he was still an important 4th outfielder and pinch-runner for the Orions, and he hit .281/.319/.393 in 110 games in 1968.

Nishida only had 94 at-bats with a terrible .223/.284/.287 batting line in 1969, and it even worsened to .178/.275/.422 in 1970. In the 1970 Nippon Series, Nishida appeared as a pinch-runner in 2 games, and the Orions were beaten by the Yomiuri Giants in 5 games. He had a .209/.295/.322 batting line in 1971, then announced his retirement after only playing 45 games in the 1972 season. After retiring, he was the fielding and base running coach for the Nippon Ham Fighters from 1982 to 1983.

Overall, Nishida had hit .235/.294/.329 with 138 steals and 421 hits in 11 seasons in NPB.

Related Sites

• NPB site
• Wiki Japan