Haruyasu Nakajima

Haruyasu Nakajima (中島 治康)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 9", Weight 160 lb.
• School Waseda University
• High School Matsumoto Commercial High School

• Born June 28, 1910 in Matsumoto, Nagano Japan
• Died April 21, 1987

BR register page

Biographical Information

Haruyasu Nakajima is a member of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

Nakajima helped his school win the Koshien Tournament in 1928. He then played for Fujikura Densen in the industrial leagues. When the Japanese Professional Baseball League was formed in 1936, Haruyasu was a member of the Tokyo Giants. A 1B-RF, he hit .290/.313/.484 in the spring season and .257/.325/.386 in the fall campaign. On July 15, he went deep off Tadashi Wakabayashi for the first homer in what would become a storied history for the Giants.

The Nagano native hit .285/.363/.430 while leading the league in home runs in the spring of 1937, and he was 6th in batting (between Shosei Go and Koichi Yamashita) and 7th in RBI (30). He extended his solid performance as his batting line was .295/.331/.446 with a league-leading 37 RBI in 40 games in the fall campaign, and he ranked 2nd in homers (3, 1 behind Yoshio Takahashi) and 7th in batting (between Isamu Fujii and Yoshio Tanaka. Nakajima batted .345/.395/.428 in the spring of '38 and .361/.477/.626 with 10 homers and 38 RBI in 38 games in the fall. In the spring season, he led the league in average and hits, and he tied Shigeta Kobayashi for 3rd in RBI (25). In the fall, he led in slugging, average, hits, RBI and home runs and was named MVP. He won the first Triple Crown in league history. His .626 slugging percentage was the highest in NPB before World War II.

Nakajima batted .278/.322/.419 in 1939 and led the league with 22 doubles. He was 9th in batting (between Miyoshi Nakagawa and Kano Omoda), 3rd in hits (110, between Kazuo Kito and Shigeru Chiba), 4th in homers (6, tied with Shoji Kato and Adelano Rivera) and 7th in triples (8, tied with Toshio Tamakoshi). In 1940, he hit .264/.319/.383 and paced the circuit with 67 RBI. He was 8th in batting (between Katsumi Shiraishi and Jiro Noguchi), 4th in hits (106), 2nd in doubles (2 behind Yasuya Hondo) and 8th in homers (tied with Kobayashi and Wataru Nonin). He made the Best Nine outfield, the only time that award was given out in the first decade of his career.

Haruyasu's batting line in 1941 was .255/.324/.343, and he was 3rd in batting (between Shigeru Mizuhara and Shiraishi), 2nd in hits (87, 18 behind Tetsuharu Kawakami), 3rd in doubles (13, tied with Toshiaki Okamura) and 2nd in RBI (39, 18 behind Kawakami). At age 31/32 in 1942, he hit .261/.317/.364 and led the league in hits (111), RBI (60) and total bases (155). He was 3rd in batting (between Yoshiyuki Iwamoto and Den Yamada) and 2nd in homers (7, tied with Iwamoto). In 1943, he became the Giants' player-manager, replacing Sadayoshi Fujimoto at the helm. He led them to the pennant while struggling at the plate (.199/.264/.276 in his dual role). He missed 1944 and 1945.

Nakajima returned to the field in 1946 and batted .272/.316/.350. The next year, the veteran fell to .197/.242/.248. He improved to .243/.268/.388 in 1948, a shadow of his former self still. He was just 7 for 40 with a double, homer and 3 walks in 1949. Finally switching teams, he moved on to the Taiyo Whales in 1950 and hit .319/.333/.574 in 15 games. He wrapped up with a strong .357/.394/.561 batting line in 28 games in 1951 as a player-manager. He was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1963.

Overall, Nakajima had batted .270/.324/.393 with 889 hits, 44 triples, 57 homers and 103 steals in 871 games in a pitcher's era. As a manager, he was 169-127-6. He was 69th in triples as of 2025, tied with Akio Saionji, Hideshi Miyake, Akitoshi Kodama, Takao Katsuragi and Norifumi Kido.

Sources

• Wiki Japan
• Stats at japanesebaseball.com