Hideo Fujimoto

From BR Bullpen

Hideo Fujimoto
HideoFujimoto.jpg

Hideo Fujimoto (藤本 英雄) changed last name to Nakagami in 1943

BR register page

Biographical Information[edit]

Hideo Fujimoto holds the Japanese records for lowest career ERA (1.90) and seasonal ERA (0.73).

A Korean native, he moved to Japan when he was eight years old. In college he was 34-9 and he joined the Yomiuri Giants in 1942. He started his career in excellent form, winning his first 10 decisions and posting a 0.81 ERA, allowing just 64 hits in 111 innings. He would have led the Japanese Professional Baseball League in ERA but did not have innings to qualify. He continued to dominate in his second season, going 34-11 with his record-setting 0.73 ERA and threw 9 shutouts in one 12-game span, setting a record with six straight shutouts. He went 61 and 2/3 innings between runs, covering all of August and almost half of September. Fujimoto also completed a no-hitter on May 22 against the Nagoya club. He went 100 innings between earned runs. Overall he threw a Japanese-record 19 shutouts that season. He led the league in wins, complete games (39), innings (432 2/3) and strikeouts (253) in one of the greatest seasons ever by a pitcher in Japan. He allowed just 212 hits.

In 1944 Fujimoto became a player-manager and went 10-8 with a 1.59 ERA and led the league with 153 strikeouts and 5 shutouts. He missed the ERA title by .03 behind Tadashi Wakabayashi and pitched the entire game in 17 of the Giants' 35 contests in the war-shortened season. Fujimoto was 3rd in wins behind Wakabayashi and Kozo Naito. He was the youngest manager in NPB history. When baseball returned to Japan in 1946, Hideo was 21-6 with a 2.11 ERA and led the league in shutouts (19 in 31 games) and ERA. He ranked 5th in wins, 7th in complete games (21) and 8th in strikeouts (83, between Hiroshi Nakao and Sadao Kondo). In four seasons, he had won two ERA titles, missed another by a tiny margin and would have won another had he qualified inning-wise. Though the team had been 15-9-1 with Fujimoto at the helm, he was relieved of managerial duties on June 10.

Fujimoto had his worst year yet in 1947, going 17-15 with a 1.83 ERA for the Chunichi Dragons; he was still third in the league in ERA and missed the title there by .09. In '48 he was moved to the outfield when he returned to Yomiuri but injured his foot and returned to pitching. He was 8-5 with a 1.72 ERA that season and again would have led the league had he been among the qualifiers in innings. 1949 saw Fujimoto turn in a fine two-way season. He hit .284/.371/.431 and went 24-7 on the mound with a 1.94 ERA. As usual, he won the ERA title when he qualified. It was his third ERA title in five seasons as a qualifier, never having missed by more than .09. Fujimoto also ranked 2nd in wins (tied with Tsuguhiro Hattori and Yoshio Tenbo), 3rd in strikeouts (137, between Victor Starffin and Hiroshi Katayama) and 2nd in complete games (29, 6 behind Starffin). He became the third pitcher ever to win the Sawamura Award and made the Best Nine (which had not been around for most of his prime)

Hideo hit .285/.366/.442 and hit 7 homers in 1950, a record for pitchers in the Central League (overall he hit .249/.319/.327 during his career). He went 26-14 with a 2.44 ERA. On June 28, he pitched the first perfect game in Japanese baseball history, against the Nishi-Nippon Pirates. He was not originally supposed to be the starter, but Fukuzo Tada ate too many crabs and had gastritis so Fujimoto replaced him. He led the new Central League with 33 complete games, and he finished second in ERA (.41 behind Nobuo Oshima), second with six shutouts (two behind Takehiko Bessho), 3rd in victories (between Shigeru Sugishita and Hiroyoshi Takano) and 5th in strikeouts (156, between Bessho and Akira Takahashi). He would never lead the league again in any statistic.

Fujimoto fall to 15-7 with a 3.13 ERA in 1951, clearly his worst finish to date. He was 10th in ERA (between Tsuneo Mitomi and Keiji Komada), 9th in wins (tied with Oshima) and 8th in Ks (between Kiyoshi Matsuda and Komada). At age 32, he had finally finished lower than third in ERA. He was selected into the 1951 NPB All-Star Game, but he allowed a game-winning solo shot to Tokuji Iida and got the loss in Game 3. He started against the Nankai Hawks in the 1951 Nippon Series Game 1, and he completed a shutout while allowing 10 hits. Fujimoto then completed Game 5 with only a 2-run shot against Kazuharu Murakami, and he won his first title.

In 1952, Fujimoto went 16-6 with a 2.36 ERA and was 7th in ERA (between Sugishita and Takao Fujimura), 8th in wins (tied with Juzo Sanada), 10th in completed games (14, tied with Sanada) and 9th in strikeouts (88, between Takano and Sanada). In 1953, he was 17-6 with a 2.08 mark and he had his third 2nd-place finish in ERA (.22 behind Takumi Otomo). He had now had three first places, three second places and one third plus two other seasons in which he would have been first had he qualified. Fujimoto also ranked 7th in wins and 7th in complete games (13, tied with Sugishita and Masatoshi Gondo). He attended the 1953 NPB All-Star Game, but he surrendered 3 runs in Game 3 and got the loss. He declined drastically after that. At age 35, he was 1-2 with a 5.85 ERA. He appeared in one game in 1955, allowing just one hit in 5 innings and no runs and picked up his 200th win, this one out of the bullpen. After he retired, he coached for the Giants and managed in the Japanese minors, then managed in the industrial leagues. He later worked as the LA correspondent for the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. He was elected to Japan's Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976.

Overall Fujimoto had gone 200-87 with a 1.90 ERA, struck out 1,177 and pitched 2,628 1/3 innings in 13 seasons in NPB. As of 2025, he is 24th in wins (between Masaji Hiramatsu and Ryohei Hasegawa), 11th with 227 complete games (between Osamu Higashio and Hasegawa), 8th in shutouts (63, between Wakabayashi and Tetsuya Yoneda), 43th in innings (between Nobuyuki Hoshino and Koichiro Sasaki) and 1st in ERA (.06 ahead of Jiro Noguchi).

Sources[edit]

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