Kenichi Yazawa

Kenichi Yazawa (谷沢 健一)

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 5' 10", Weight 165 lb.

• School Waseda University
• High School Narashino High School

• Born September 22, 1947 in Kashiwa, Chiba Japan

BR Register page

Biographical Information

Kenichi Yazawa starred for the Chunichi Dragons during a 17-season playing career, making nine All-Star teams.

In the 1964 Olympics, Yazawa was a torch bearer. He won the Tokyo Big Six University League batting title in the spring of 1967. He was on the Japanese national team that won the 1967 Asian Championship and 1969 Asian Championship. He ended up hitting .360 with 18 homers in his college career, and he won six Best Nine awards. He and Takashi Arakawa was called "the O-N gun of Waseda". Chunichi drafted him in the first round of the 1969 NPB draft. In his pro debut on April 12, he singled off Kazumi Takahashi. He hit .251/.311/.396 in 1970. He led the Central League with six triples and won the NPB Rookie of the Year award. Yazawa made his first All-Star team, and he went 2-for-5 in the 1970 NPB All-Star Game; both hits were in Game 2.

Yazawa improved to .260/.313/.416 with 16 homers in 1971, and he attended the 1971 NPB All-Star Game; he was 0-for-5 in 3 games. He then hit .290/.382/.449 with 63 walks and 15 homers in 1972, again an All-Star and he was hitless again in 2 at-bats in the 1972 NPB All-Star Game. He finished 7th in average (between Isao Shibata and Art Lopez), 9th in doubles (tied with Dave Roberts) and 5th in hits (tied with Sadaharu Oh). In 1973, Kenichi batted .295/.376/.419 and took home his fourth All-Star honor. He edged John Sipin for third in the CL in average behind Oh and Tsutomu Wakamatsu, and he also ranked 6th in hits (between Shibata and Morimichi Takagi) and 3rd in doubles (26, behind Wakamatsu and Taira Fujita).

Failing to make the All-Star team for the first time, Yazawa was still productive in 1974 at .290/.346/.498 with 31 doubles and 22 home runs. He was 10th in the CL in average (between Shinichi Eto and Hiroaki Inoue), 7th in homers (between Roger Repoz and Makoto Matsubara), 6th in hits (between Bob Taylor and Koji Yamamoto) and led in doubles. He hit .304/.304/.609 in the 1974 Japan Series, with two game three home runs. He drove in 7 runs in six games but Chunichi fell to the Lotte Orions. Yazawa hit .294/.359/.445 with 17 long balls in 1975, finishing 6th in average, (between Sipin and Repoz), 8th in RBI (tied with Sachio Kinugasa), 8th in doubles (tied with Gail Hopkins, Takagi and Inoue) and 4th in hit (tied with Takagi).

The Waseda alumnus raised his game another notch in 1976, putting up a .355/.400/.498 line. On the season's last day, he went 3 for 4 to edge Isao Harimoto by .0001 for the batting title, .3548 to .3547. He also led in doubles (36), and he was 2nd in hits (6 behind Harimoto). Yazawa made his first Best Nine, joining Harimoto and Wakamatsu in the outfield. He was also selected into the [[1976 NPB All-Star Game, and he was 2-for-4. He fell to .312/.381/.473 with 29 doubles in 1977, and he failed to make the top 10 in average, .004 behind #10 Charlie Manuel. He was 3rd in doubles, behind Jitsuo Mizutani and Wakamatsu Yazawa hit .283/.323/.391 in 70 games in 1978 and severed his Achilles tendon. He missed almost all of 1979, going 2 for 12 with a walk. He applied sake on his foot, and it miraculously helped him completely recover from the injury.

Healthy once more in 1980, Yazawa had perhaps his best year, hitting .369/.435/.628 with 27 home runs and 80 RBI. He made his fifth All-Star team, and he was 1-for-2 in the 1980 NPB All-Star Game. Yazawa won NPB Comeback Player of the Year, and he led in average (18 points ahead of Wakamatsu). He also ranked 2nd in hits (12 behind Yoshihiko Takahashi), 4th in doubles (between Jim Lyttle and Yamamoto), 7th in RBI (between Katsuo Osugi and Roy White) and 7th in homers (between White and Lyttle). Yazawa made the Best Nine, this time at first base, ending an incredible run of 18 in a row by Sadaharu Oh, who was then in his final season. It would be 27 years before another player, Norichika Aoki, from a last-place team won the CL batting title.

Yazawa hit .318/.368/.561 with a 28 circuit clouts in 1981 and made the All-Star team; he was 1-for-5. He finished 9th in average (between Lyttle and Yasushi Tao), 5th in homers (between Tomio Tashiro and Art Gardner), 10th in doubles (tied with Mizutani and Gardner), 7th in RBI (between Toshiro and Osugi) and 4th in hits (tied with Kazunori Shinozuka). He then faded to .280/.345/.461 with 21 home runs and 85 RBI in 1982, but he again won the Best Nine at first base (Fujita had taken it in 1981). He again starred in a losing cause in a Japan Series, batting .364/.462/.545 with 5 runs in 6 games in the 1982 Japan Series, won by the Seibu Lions. It would be Yazawa's last chance at a Japan Series title.

In 1983, the Kashiwa native hit .315/.388/.513 with 33 doubles, 21 home runs and 87 RBI. He won his third doubles title (tied with Daisuke Yamashita) and finished 5th in average (between Yamamoto and Yutaka Takagi), 3rd in hits (between Akinobu Mayumi and Tatsunori Hara) and 7th in RBI (between Tashiro and Kinusaga). He won Best Nine once more and his 8th All-Star team. In 1984, he improved to .329/.405/.574 with 84 runs and a career-high 34 homers and 99 RBI. He was second in average (between Kazunori Shinozuka and Kinugasa), 4th in homers (between Warren Cromartie and Yamamoto), 3rd in runs (between Tao and Kinugasa) and 2nd in RBI (3 behind Kinugasa). Yazawa made his 9th All-Star team, and he crushed against Yutaro Imai in 1984 NPB All-Star Game2. He also tied teammate Tao for the most hits (166) and led in total bases (290). He was picked for his fifth and final Best Nine.

Yazawa fell to .289/.363/.406 with 11 home runs at age 37 in 1985 then .273/.326/.509 with 13 homers in 220 AB as a part-timer in 1986. On October 23, 1985, he joined the meikyukai with his 2,000th hit, the 22nd NPB player to reach that figure. Yazawa later was a baseball commentator on Fuji TV, a coach for the Seibu Lions (1994-1995) and an industrial league manager.

Overall, Yazawa produced at a .302/.368/.481 rate in 1,931 NPB games, with 348 doubles, 2,062 hits, 273 home runs, 969 RBI and 682 walks. Through 2024, he was 41st in Japanese history in hits (between Fujita and Eto, who just missed overlapping him with Chunichi), 50th in doubles (between Shuichi Murata and M.Takagi), 60th in homers (between Yasuaki Taiho and Hiroyuki Yamazaki), 56th in RBI (tied with Tokuji Iida and Atsushi Nagaike), 77th in walks (tied with Toru Sugiura) and 21st in average (between Kazuhiro Wada and Tomonori Maeda). He was 1st in Dragons history in RBI, second in hits, 4th in homers and first in extra-base hits.

Source

• Japanbaseballdaily.com by Gary Garland
• Wiki Japan