Ott & Oh

By David Marasco

The first time I saw a picture of Sadaharu Oh at the plate I thought "He looks exactly like Mel Ott." What I was looking at was Oh's leg raised high in the air. As it turns out, I was wrong. Mel Ott's swing involved his raising his leg high in the air and taking a big step as he swung. Instead, Oh would raise his leg in the air as he waited for the pitch. His batting stance has been compared to a dog watering a fire hydrant. The initial similarity between the two is a false one, but these men do share a lot in common. The first thing that can be said about these men is that they could clout. Baseball loves home run hitters. Cecil Fielder summed up the situation quite succinctly recently when he claimed that "the Cadillacs are at the end of the bat." Yet two great home run kings have been taken lightly despite their achievements. They both had the word Giants written across their uniforms. They were Mel Ott and Sadaharu Oh.

In 1926 a seventeen-year-old kid from New Orleans got lost in New York City. He did the first thing that came to mind and went back to Penn Station. There he met the son of the New York Giants' clubhouse man. One teenager gave the other the bad news. Mel Ott was late for his try out and John McGraw was pissed. Mugsy didn't stay mad. After watching Ott take batting practice pitches over the wall McGraw knew he had a future Hall of Famer. McGraw also knew something else; if he sent the kid to the minors some scrub manager would try to "correct" Mel's funky high leg kick. Realizing that this could ruin Ott's career McGraw made a decision. For the rest of the year Ott would be on the roster, but would not see much play. He would sit next to John McGraw on the bench and learn baseball.

Sadaharu Oh did not have the look of a blue-chipper when he came up as a nineteen-year-old with the Tokyo Giants in 1959. He hit only .161 as a pitcher. He was overshadowed by Shigeo Nagashima who had joined the team in 1958, and led the league in homers and RBIs. Nagashima would go on to bat cleanup for twenty five years. But because of that weak-hitting pitcher he would win only one other home run title.

Mel Ott finished his career with a National League record 511 home runs. While members of the 500 club aren't exactly common these days, they were rarer still in Ott's time. The top three in history upon Mel's retirement? Babe Ruth at 714, Jimmie Foxx with 534 and Ott at 511. Ott held the top spot in the National League until Willie Mays passed him in May of 1966. Oh's total is simply mind boggling. He hit 868 career home runs. That's over 100 more than Aaron, 150 in front of Ruth and surpasses Mays by 200.

But not only were these men great sluggers, but they were also great hitters. Ott was a career .304 hitter who knew his strike zone. He and Ted Williams are the only major leaguers who have both 500 round-trippers and fewer than 1000 strikeouts. He topped 100 walks for a major league record 7 years in a row and a National League record 10 years. On top of finishing as the National League's home run king he also held the walk crown until passed by Joe Morgan. A quick look at his statistics allows us to read off his "black ink": 2 runs titles, 6 home run titles, 1 RBI crown, walks 6 times and while he never took a batting race, he led the league in on base percentage 4 times and slugging once. His career numbers? 19th in games at 2730, 30th in at bats with 9456, 9th runs at 1859, 31st in hits at 2876, 40th in doubles at 488, 14th in homers with 511, 14th in total bases at 5041, 10th in RBI at 1860, 6th in walks with 1708, 21st in on base with .414 and 24th in slugging at .533.

Oh, like Ott, was also a .300 hitter. He ended his career at .301. And like Ott he knew how to draw a walk. Yes, the Japanese seasons were slightly shorter at 130 games, but because of his walking abilities Oh never reached 500 at bats. Oh's situation is different from Barry Bonds without Matt Williams, he had Shigeo Nagashima batting behind him in the cleanup spot. This Ruth-Gehrig pair accounted for all but three MVP awards between 1961 and 1977. After three years Oh became a slugger, posting 38 homers in 1962. Then he went on an unholy tear, blasting out 40+ dingers, posting a .300+ average and knocking in 100 runners every year for the remainder of the 60's. Between 1963 and 1977 he would miss 40 homers only twice, 100 RBI twice and .300 three times. Remember again that the 40 homers and 100 RBI were posted in 130 game seasons. On the Japanese charts Oh places first in home runs and RBI, and third in hits.

The Giants of Ott's era were a mixed batch. When Mel broke in the McGraw Giants had just finished a dynasty where they finished in either first or second since 1917. The Giants would finish in fifth in 1926 and then would rebound and finish either second or third the next five years. In 1932 John McGraw retired to be replaced by the Giant's first baseman and the National League's last .400 hitter, Bill Terry. For the first half of Terry's tenure the Giants once again ascended to the roost of the National League. Between the batting feats of Ott and the pitching prowess of Carl Hubbell, the Giants took the National League three times in six years, never finishing lower than third. Then the wheels fell off of the machine and the Giants went into an extended slump. When they dipped to sixth in 1940 it was only their third losing season since 1915. In the 40's the best they could accomplish was a third place finish in 1942. No need to dwell on the hard times, instead remember the World Series victory in 1933 and the National League crowns in 1936 and 1937.

The Tokyo Giants are the New York Yankees on steroids. Powered by Oh and Nagashima, they won the Japan Series every year between 1965 and 1973. The nine year stranglehold on baseball has only one comparison, the nine year run put together by Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard and the Homestead Grays of the the late 30's-mid 40's. In fact, during the prime of Oh's career the Giants failed to win the Central League only four times. The Giants still play very good baseball, they won the Central League but lost the Japan Series last year.

Despite what they did at the plate, neither Ott nor Oh were treated very well off the field. Leo Durocher's famous line, "Nice guys finish last," was a directed at Mel Ott. Despite being the greatest power hitter in the history of Japan, Oh could not overcome his country's xenophobia. Oh was half-Chinese by birth, and hence was never wholly accepted by the Japanese. Several times he was refused entry to Japan after world tours due to problems with his passport status. The great Tokyo Giants teams that won the nine straight Japan Series purposely had no Amricans in order to prove the quality of the Japanese athlete. But it is interesting to note that many of Japan's greatest ball players don't conform to this twisted ideal. The Japanese Iron Man, Sachio Kinugasa, was of mixed heritage. His father was an African American member of Uncle Sam's occupation army. The all-time batting average king? American Leron Lee. Japan's only player to reach 3000 hits? Korean Isao Harimoto. The first 300 game winner? Russian born Victor Starfin.

This lack of respect carried over to their on-field achievements. The knock on Ott is that he took advantage of the short porch in the Polo Grounds. The wall in right was only 258 feet away. Of his 511 career homers, 323 of them were hit in the Polo Grounds, the most lopsided of any great slugger. But historian Tony Blengino makes an interesting point. Of Ott's final 144 homers, 111 of them were at home. So Ott for most of his career was helped slightly by his home park for most of his career, and it only had a large effect in his twilight years. What the Polo Grounds did is that it allowed Ott to extend his career several more years. Blengino notes that without the Polo Grounds Ott still probably still would have finished with over 400 dingers. The other dominant home run hitter in the National League at the time? Rogers Hornsby at 301.

With Oh there are many complaints against his 868 home runs. The walls in Japan are closer in than the ones in America. The pitching was at a lower calibre. But the same can be said of the great Josh Gibson, and his plaque hangs in Cooperstown. Josh's homer total can only be guessed at, the records are far from complete. Oh's numbers are in black and white. On top of that, let's return to the 130 game Japanese season. That is only 81% of the length of a 162 game season. Multiply Oh's numbers by 5/4 and watch 868 balloon to 1085 and 2170 to 2712. While purists may turn up their nose at Oh's numbers, it is hard to discount nearly 900 home runs.

Mel Ott spent the last years of his career as a player-manager. When John McGraw accepted the job in 1902 he started a chain that lasted until 1955. The four members of that chain were McGraw, Bill Terry, Mel Ott and Leo Durocher. On the ends we have two of the greatest managers to prowl the dugout, and in the middle we have a .400 hitter and a home run king. Sadly, Ott was the weak link in this managing chain. His teams never finished closer than 13 games back, and in 1943 slumped to 49 1/2 games behind the league leader. His only great moment as a manger came when he became the first one to be tossed in both ends of a double header.

From 1988 to 1992 Oh was the manager of the Tokyo Giants. But he only posted two Central League titles in his five years and was sacked. Shigeo Nagashima is once again with Tokyo, only this time as manager for the current Giants squad. This is his second time with the Giants. In 1975 he took charge of the squad and the Giants finished in dead last. In Japanese fashion he gave the fans a formal apology on the last day of the season. Oh is also on his second go-around as a manager. In 1995 he was given the job with the Fukoka Hawks. While he hasn't lead them to a league title, he has drawn many fans to the game. The Cadillacs are at the end of the bat. And as Cecil should know, this is true in both America and Japan.