Takeshi Yamakawa

Takeshi Yamakawa (山川 猛)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 193 lb.

• School Komazawa University
• High School Toyo University Himeji High School

• Born February 24, 1955 in Himeji, Hyogo Japan

BR Register page

Biographical Information

Takeshi Yamakawa played in Nippon Pro Baseball in the 1980s.

Yamakawa played for Nishikawa Bussan in the industrial leagues after college. The Seibu Lions took him in the third round of the 1978 NPB draft. He won an Eastern League home run crown in 1980. That year, he also made it to the big club and went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts as Seibu's fourth-string catcher. He hit .212/.222/.365 in 20 games as a third-stringer in 1981 then did not play for the Lions in 1982. He was then traded to the Hanshin Tigers for Masakazu Seike, a young infielder who had also been unable to crack in as a NPB regular.

Yamakawa went 0 for 8 with five whiffs for the Tigers in 1983. In 1984, though, he got into 114 games and hit .193/.260/.349 with 10 home runs, getting more playing time than any other Hanshin catcher. It was his lone season as a starter as Katsuhiko Kido got the job in 1985; Takeshi hit .213/.304/.413 in 81 plate appearances as a backup. In the 1985 Japan Series, he did not play a game as the Tigers won their first Japan Series title. He saw very little playing time after that, going 2 for 10 with a walk in 1986, 6 for 31 with a double and two homers in 1987 and 0 for 2 in 1988.

Overall, Yamakawa had hit .193/.244/.353 with 17 home runs in 436 NPB at-bats over 257 games, his power being his best asset as a hitter. He had 9 errors. He later worked in Hanshin's front office.

Sources

• Gary Garland's Japan Baseball Daily
• Michael Eng database