- Katsuya Nomura
nihongo|Katsuya Nomura|野村 克也|Nomura Katsuya|extra=born
June 29 ,1935 in Amino, Takeno District (Present: Kyotango),Kyoto prefecture ,Japan is a baseball player and manager who has played or managed in Japan since the 1950s.Career
During a career that spanned from 1954 to 1980, he hit 657 home runs in his career and led the
Pacific League in homers eight straight seasons. He closed out 2901 hits in his career. He set the best records in pure Japanese players, butSadaharu Oh (Taiwanese of Japanese descent) was over his home run record andIsao Harimoto (Korean in Japan) was over his hit record. In 1965, he won the league's first Triple Crown. He was a playing manager between 1970 and 1977. He was retired in 1980. He was inducted intoJapanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989.As a leading manager, Nomura managed in three
Japan Series between 1990 to 2002. He lost his job managing theHanshin Tigers because of his wife Sachiyo's tax evasion, and then lost a position leading theNankai Hawks due to her interference with the club.Nomura was hired to manage the
Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles for the 2006 season. He is originally a person with a sharp tongue and often causes considerable controversies. Before the season even began, he got into hot water for callingAtsuya Furuta ,Kazuhisa Ishii andShingo Takatsu "homo" and for calling on the Pacific League to forbid announcement of starting pitchers before game time and the elimination of external sources for managerial use for information during the game. He also bannedfacial hair and brown hair dye (even though Rakuten's owner dyed his hair brown).In 2006, he became the oldest manager in the history of
Nippon Professional Baseball . In Eagles, his attitude is a little different from the past. Currently, he praises Japanese young pitcherMasahiro Tanaka .External links
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