Manabu Fujita

Manabu Fujita (藤田 学)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 190 lb.

• High School Minami Uwa High School

• Born May 9, 1955 in Minami Uwa-gun, Ehime Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Manabu Fujita pitched 11 seasons for the Nankai Hawks. His son Takashi Fujita was with the Japanese national team.

Fujita was the first-round pick of the Nankai Hawks in 1973 NPB draft. He went 11-3 with a 1.98 ERA in 1976 with only 25 walks in 149 2/3 IP. He was named Pacific League Rookie of the Year. Fujitawas second in the league in ERA, behind only Choji Murata). In 1977, he had a 16-13, 3.28 season, and he was 4th in complete games (18, between Naoki Takahashi and Osamu Higashio), 5th in wins (tied with Hisashi Yamada) and 6th in losses (7 behind Higashio). Fujita made his first PL All-Star team, and he pitched a shutout inning in 1977 NPB All-Star Game 1. He then relieved Kazumi Takahashi in Game 3, but he surrendered a game-winning sacrifice fly to Tsutomu Wakamatsu, and he got the loss.

The Ehime native went 16-11 with a 2.87 ERA and just 42 walks in 231 2/3 IP in 1978. He was 4th in ERA (behind Keishi Suzuki, Yutaro Imai and Yamada), 4th in wins (between Yamada and Murata) and 3rd in complete games (20, tied with Yamada). Fujita was also selected into the 1978 NPB All-Star Game, and he allowed a 2-run shot to Adrian Garrett in Game 1; he pitched a shutout inning in Game 3. He fell to 2-5, 8.67 with a .345 opponent average and 10 homers in 27 IP in 1979 due to right foot injury and was 3-4 with a save, 5.53 ERA and .321 average allowed in 1980.

Fujita had one last good season in 1981 at 13-11 with a 3.67 ERA. He attended the 1981 NPB All-Star Game, and he pitched 2 shutout innings as the starter of Game 1. He then relieved Masayuki Matsunuma in the 8th inning of Game 3, but he allowed 2 runs in 2/3 of an inning. Fujita tied Yamada, Tokunari Nishina and Noriaki Okabe for 7th in wins. He struggled after that - 6,8, 5.23, .329 in 1982, 2-6, 6.26, .316 in 1983, 2-0, 5.87 in 1984, 1-4, 6.28, .326 in 1985 and one run in one inning in 1986. He later coached for Nankai (1987-1992), the Daiei Hawks (1996-2001), the Orix BlueWave (2002-2003) and Softbank Hawks (2007-2008). He was a baseball commentator on TV as well for a period, and he became the minor league pitching coach for the CTBC Brothers in 2019.

The former Rookie of the Year ended up his career with a 72-65, 3.88 record and one save in 213 games in Nippon Pro Baseball. He walked 268 in 1,186 1/3 innings.

Sources

• Japanbaseballdaily.com
• Japanese Wikipedia Entry