Yoshio Bizen

Yoshio Bizen (備前 喜夫)
also known as Yoshio Ogaki

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 7", Weight 140 lb.

• High School Onomichi Nishi High School

• Born October 9, 1933 in Onomichi, Hiroshima Japan
• Died September 9, 2015 in Hiroshima, Hiroshima Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Yoshio Bizen pitched for the Hiroshima Carp for 11 seasons. He was known for his sinker.

Bizen debuted in 1952. In his first game, March 21, he went the distance for a win, and he was the youngest player in NPB history to get a win on opening day. Bizen finished the season 7-17 with a 4.30 ERA, and he was 5th in losses in the Central League (between Hiroyoshi Takano and Teruo Owaki). Yoshio had a 13-20, 3.80 record in 1953, and he was 2nd in losses (6 behind Yoshiaki Inoue) and 8th in strikeouts (82, between Takao Fujimura and Tadayoshi Kajioka). He led the Central League with 282 hits allowed, 130 runs allowed and 105 earned runs allowed.

The right-hander went 10-10 with a 3.86 ERA in 1954. He was 13-18 with a 2.54 ERA in 1955, finishing 10th in the CL in ERA (between Shozo Watanabe and Takashi Eda) even though he led in runs allowed (106) and earned runs allowed (82), and he also ranked 10th in wins, 10th in strikeouts (101, between Toshitake Nakayama and Masahiko Oishi) and 3rd in losses (behind Masatoshi Gondo and Masaichi Kaneda). Yoshio made the CL All-Star team in 1956, and he pitched 2/3 of a shutout inning in the 1956 NPB All-Star Game 2. He was 13-22 with a 3.13 ERA that summer, and he tied Ryohei Hasegawa for 2nd in losses. He made 11 errors, setting the CL record for a pitcher.

In 1957, he pitched 51 games and went 20-13 with a 2.51 ERA for a Carp team that was just 54-75-1. He just missed the top 10 in the league in ERA, and he was 4th in wins (tied with Nakayama and Mitsuo Osaki), 8th in losses (tied with Osaki and Motoshi Fujita) and 9th in appearances (51, between Masaaki Koyama and Osaki). Bizen had a 9-10, 2.40 record in 1958 then went 17-20 with a 2.19 ERA in 1959, when he made his second and last All-Star squad. He relieved Murayama in the 9th inning of the second 1959 NPB All-Star Game, and he pitched 1/3 of a shutout inning. He was 5th in the league in ERA in perhaps his best season (between Yasushi Kodama and Yoshio Kitagawa), and he was 7th in wins.

Yoshio had an even lower (1.56 ERA) in 1960 but did not qualify for the ERA title; had he done so, he would have led the league, .19 ahead of Noboru Akiyama. Bizen went 7-8 that season. In 1961, he fell to 5-8, 2.65 then was just 1-3 with a 5.19 ERA and .318 opponent average in 1962, his final campaign. He was the pitching coach for the Carp from 1963 to 1974, and he became a scout for them. Bizen also managed their minors team from 1979 to 1981.

Bizen had a career record of 115-149, 2.96 while toiling for some poor Hiroshima clubs. As of 2025, he was 30th in NPB history in losses, 77th in innings (2,119 1/3, between Senichi Hoshino and Fujimura) and 92nd in complete games (78, tied with Michio Shigematsu, Koichiro Sasaki, Takenori Emoto and Daisuke Miura).

Sources

• Japan Baseball Daily by Gary Garland
• Wiki Japan