Background
He lost his father at the age of three years, and his mother and brother raised him in poverty.
野村 克也
He lost his father at the age of three years, and his mother and brother raised him in poverty.
With 657 home runs and 1988 Reserve Bank of India, Nomura ranks number two on the career NPB lists in both categories, behind Sadaharu Oh. Nomura was elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989. He never made it to the national baseball tournaments in high school, but he was given a chance to play for the Nankai Hawks as a trainee without salary.
Playing career
During a career that spanned four decades from 1954 to 1980, Nomura hit 657 home runs and led the Pacific League in homers eight straight seasons.
(However, it should be taken into consideration that his home park, Osaka Stadium, measured only 276 feet down the lines until 1972, and 300 feet from 1972 onward, and 380 feet to straightaway center—tiny dimensions by Major League Baseball standards) He finished his career with 2901 hits. He was a player-manager between 1970 and 1977.
He played for 26 years, the longest NPB playing career until Kimiyasu Kudoh pitched in his 27th season in 2008. Managing career
One of his important contribution was raising Atsuya Furuta to be a great catcher.
This is the only such case in the NPB after Nomura did so with the Hawks.
After stepping down as the Yakult skipper, Nomura managed the Hanshin Tigers from 1999 to 2001 but resigned after Hanshin finished at the bottom of the Central League for three straight seasons. Additionally, Nomura"s wife, Sachiyo, was in legal trouble in 2001 due to charges of tax evasion, which also contributed to his decision to relinquish his position. Nomura was hired to manage an industrial league team, Shidax Baseball Club, in 2003.
He led the team through the 2005 season.
Nomura returned to the NPB as a manager for the 2006 season with the Rakuten Golden Eagles. In so doing, he became the oldest manager in the history of NPB. He led the Eagles to their then-best-ever record of second place the regular season.
He retired at the end of the 2009 season and was replaced by American and former Hiroshima manager, Marty Brown. Prior to taking on the job of managing the Hanshin Tigers, Nomura also appeared on the Japanese cooking show Iron Chef as a guest judge in a handful of episodes, including one of Masaharu Morimoto"s first episodes in the King Crab battle.
In 2013, he played a funny character named "Boyaite-Bakkari-Manitoba" in commercial message of Japanese soccer lottery.