SABR’s Asian Baseball Committee is excited to host former Korean Women’s National Baseball Team pitcher Hyeonjeong Shim for a Zoom chat on November 21, 2025, at 9pm EST. The program will begin with a short presentation and a live interview hosted by Zac Petrillo, followed by a Q&A session with viewers. You must sign up below to attend.
Hyeonjeong Shim is a former pitcher for the Korea Women’s National Baseball Team (2022) and has appeared on YouTube’s Pro Neighborhood Baseball (PDB) as well as in multiple media interviews. She is currently a Public Relations Intern at the Korea Anti-Doping Agency and a student at Kyung Hee University, majoring in Physical Education and Cultural Entertainment. She was also a member of the winning team at the 2023 KSPO Olympic Academy.
Hyeonjeong Shim will talk about her journey/experience in women’s baseball in Korea, some background/history of women in baseball, her experiences on the national team, how she interfaces with the KBO, and what she is working on today/plans to do in the future.
Asian Baseball Committee Meeting
When: Nov 21, 2025 09:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
On October 15, 1975, the Hiroshima Toyo Carp arrived in Tokyo to play the Yomiuri Giants needing a win to clinch the Central League pennant. In the Carp’s 25-year history, they had never finished above third place.
Carp first baseman Gail Hopkins remembers:
There was obviously a lot of pressure on us, and the guys were starting to feel it. Wally Yonamine’s team, the Chunichi Dragons, had been even with us in the standings but we went up a game on them. We were at the point where we controlled our own destiny. If we won, we would win the pennant. If we didn’t win, then we had to play the next day and we’d still have to win that game and it would also depend on what happened with Chunichi, which was off in another place playing while we were playing in Tokyo.
The stands were packed. The stadium was full with 50,000 fans. That stadium was always full even though the Giants were 27 games behind us. They drew 3.05 million people that year. About 15,000 to 20,000 people came to the game from Hiroshima They had these rice spoons from Miyajima, which is an island right near Hiroshima. When something went well for us, our fans would smack these spoons together. So, there was this incessant clicking of the spoons going on during the game.
Pitching for us was Yoshiro Sotokoba and he was really throwing the ball very well. The pitcher they had throwing against us was a left-hander named Hisao Niura and he was a big guy, about six feet, and he threw pretty hard. He had pretty good stuff and he was pitching very well that night, so we didn’t have a whole lot of chances.
Yoshiro Sotokoba
We scored the first run in the fifth inning. Our catcher, Hiroyuki Michihara, came to bat and he hit a ground ball down the third baseline. Davey Johnson was playing third base for the Giants, and he had to move toward the line. When he went to make the play, the ball hit off his glove and he obscured the baseline from the umpire. The umpire called the ball fair, and it was, but there was a big argument between the Giants manager Shigeo Nagashima and the umpire. Nagashima said it was a foul ball and put on a show. It was his first year as a manager and he was terrible. I mean he was truly terrible as a manager. But anyway, the ball was fair, and then our catcher was sacrificed to second. Then Tsuyoshi Oshita hit the ball off the wall and their left fielder could get there in time and Michihara scored to make it 1-0.
When the game started, we had a lot of fans supposing us, but most of the people there, at least half of the people or more, were Giants fans and were cheering for the Giants. As the game went along, it was getting more and more exciting and the fans were clearly engaged. There was also a change in the way the fans were cheering. We seemed to gain support.
In the sixth inning, the Giants had two runners on with one out and Sadaharu Oh coming up, so we walked Oh to load the bases. The next batter was a right-handed big outfielder named Toshimitsu Suetsugu. He was a formidable player. He hit a ground ball to Oshita at second base who turned it to shortstop Toshiyuki Mimura and Mimura threw it to me to turn the double play to get out of the inning. That was the biggest risk for us in the game. Had we not made that play at least one or two runs might have scored.
Tsuyoshi Oshita
In the ninth inning, things were really pretty tight. The guys on the bench were getting kind of anxious. We had made a pitching change in the eighth inning and brought in Motoyasu Kaneshiro. He had won 20 games the year before, but he got into a car wreck and he didn’t play for a while, so Joe Lutz converted him from a starter into a relief pitcher. He was kind of a submarine pitcher—he wasn’t way down underneath but he was below sidearm, and he threw the ball pretty hard. Well, he led off the ninth inning and checked his swing on a pitch and hit a blooper into right center that dropped for a single. The next batter was Oshita, and Oshita put down one of the best bunts I’ve ever seen. Oshita could run fairly well, and he laid a bunt down the first baseline just like you’re supposed to do. The ball was about three feet off the line and by the time the pitcher and the first baseman got to the ball, Oshita was by them and it was a base hit.
So, with one out and runners on first and second in the ninth inning, they changed pitchers. They brought in this left-hander Kazumi Takahashi. He was their leading left-hand relief pitcher. Mimura came up and Takahashi struck out Mimura on really good pitch.
When I came up, my goal was to try to hit the ball hard somewhere and drive a run in. I wasn’t thinking about anything else. My style of hitting in 1975 was different than I did in the States. In the States, I had a wide stance and basically hit the ball where it was pitched. In Japan, I tried to pull everything. The first pitch he threw was a breaking ball away for a ball. For the second pitch, I was guessing fastball and if I didn’t get it, I would take it. He threw a breaking ball, so I took it for the first strike. Then he threw a fastball, and I checked my swing and it hit my bat for a foul. That really irritated me because it put me in the hole with the pitch count. At this point, my goal was just to put the ball in play. He came back and threw another breaking ball in the dirt.
The Carp fans were clapping the rice spoons together and those things made a lot of noise! Then, Takahashi threw another breaking ball in the dirt [making it a full count]. Now, I knew that he had to throw a strike because if he didn’t, he was going to have to face Koji Yamamoto with the bases loaded. If I wanted a pitch to hit hard, it would be just like his next pitch, inside and around thigh high. And that was it. As they say, “Sayonara Aka-chan!” Of course, that was the ball game right there. When it’s 1-0, the worst hitter on their club could tie the game [with one swing] but now they had to come back and score three.
I, of course, was elated when I hit the ball out. I wasn’t thinking about that because at that point my goal was to make solid contact and just to drive in a run, but he put the ball right there in my wheelhouse. I didn’t over swing and it went all the way to the back of the stadium. It made the tension level in the dugout relax because we had pretty good bullpen and Kaneshiro was really doing well so we were in good shape.
Gail Hopkins celebrates after hitting the 3-run homer
The clubhouses were different [in Japan] from what we have here. We have big clubhouses, where you can get sandwiches and you’ve got all your personal stuff. There, the clubhouses weren’t big. They weren’t sophisticated. They didn’t have a place where you could sit down and have beer when the game was over. The visiting teams would even get dressed in their hotels! So, we didn’t have a big celebration after we clinched, like they do here with champagne or beer. We just went back home to Hiroshima on the train the next day and then we had a big parade.
SABR’s Asian Baseball Committee is excited to host Leron Lee for a zoom chat on October 4, 2025, at 8pm EST. The program will begin with a live interview hosted by Rob Fitts to be followed by Q&A session with viewers. You must sign up below to attend.
Leron Lee played eight season in the Major Leagues with The St Louis Cardinals (1969-71), San Diego Padres (1971-73), Cleveland Indians (1974-75), and Los Angeles Dodgers (1975-76), before going to Japan in 1977. There, he played 12 seasons (1977-1987) with the Lotte Orions. During this time, he was named to four All-Star teams and four Best Nine teams. He led the Pacific League in home runs and RBI in 1977, and won the batting crown in 1980. He retired with 1579 NPB hits and 283 home runs. His .320 lifetime NPB batting average is the highest in NPB history.
Asian Baseball Committee meeting
When: Oct 6, 2025 08:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
NHK World-Japan’s Deeper Look host Del Irani visited the Yakyu-Baseball exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown to examine the history of Japan- U.S. relations through baseball.
In this two-part series, Irani interviews SABR’s Asian Research Committee Chair Robert Fitts about the the long history of Japan-U.S. baseball interaction, baseball diplomacy, and the cultural importance of Japanese playing in Major League Baseball.
On Thursday, July 10, 2025 SABR’s Asian Baseball Research Committee hosted its first Zoom event. Our guests were former Yakult Swallows closer and Texas Ranger Tony Barnette and author Aaron Fischman. Tony and Aaron spoke about their Casey- Award-nominated book, A Baseball Gaijin, as well as Tony’e experiences in Japanese baseball.
This fascinating event can now be view in its entirety on SABR’s YouTube channel.
In October 2003, I had the pleasure of interviewing former Carp manager Takeshi Koba before an oldtimers’ game at Tokyo Dome. Koba played for the Carp from 1958 to 1969 but is more famous for managing Hiroshima during their famous Akaheru (Red Helmet) era. From 1975 to 1985 Koba led the Carp to ten winning seasons and three Japan Series championships. He was elected to the Japan hall of fame in 1999.
How does one become a manger in Japanese baseball? You ask the owner. There are many younger managers nowadays who have no coaching experience and of course no managing experience and yet they are able to become managers. I think that it’s different from the system in the United States. In Japan if you play and you become famous then you can become a manager.
In my first year as a manager, I was able to win the league championship. But you never know how many years you can actually be a manager. If you don’t get results, the fans aren’t happy, and the team nudges you to quit. So, what do you do? You have to play ball, you have to make sure that people who come to watch enjoy themselves, and also you have to win. So, you have to make sure that the players get together as one and work towards winning. My job as the manager was to make sure that the team was together on that. And when you eventually get fired, my goal was to not have regrets.
When you take over a team and you have no good pitchers and the defense is bad and you really have to start from scratch then it takes quite a long time to build a winning team, but usually there are only certain sections or certain players who need improvement. It was my job as a manager to reach out to those players and together with the coaches to nurture them in certain directions or in certain ways. Every year I would have to figure out who those players were and pick them out. There are only nine positions in baseball and not including the pitcher, eight positions. I always said that I wanted six or seven position players to be there until the end of the game.
When I became the manager, we had on our team Koji Yamamoto and Sachio Kinugasa. These were special players. They were recognized by all of the other ballplayers as stars, and they were why we were able to win the 1975 championship. They became role models for the younger players throughout the year. All I needed to say to the young players was, “If you want to catch up to Yamamoto and Kinugasa, if you want to exceed these two, you have to practice harder.” That’s all that was required.
I was also really very lucky with my two foreign players. Gail Hopkins and Richie Scheinblum could hit and play defense. They were all-round players. I could count on them from the beginning of the game to the end of the game. So, it made managing very easy. When U.S. players come to Japan, there are coming here after really working very hard in the American Minor and Major Leagues. As a manager I asked Jim Lefebvre to scout some players for us. I asked him for players who could adjust to the style here in Japan. Lefebvre said that it really depended on the wife. If the wife can be interested in coming to Japan, if the wife agrees and enjoys the experience then that’s very important. So, I asked for such players.
When I was a manager, I think that I did everything I wanted to do and I put my whole self into it. I gave it my best. There are many people who say that I am a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—that I have a dual personality because outside of the field I’m very quiet and I don’t say much and don’t complain but once I’m on the field my eyes change, and I become very severe. There are some players who say that I hit them! I never hit anybody, but I put my all into it, and I made sure that the players understood that I’m putting my all into it because that’s an important part of creating a winning team.
I always told my players from the very beginning of the season that if they had complaints or there was something about the team or the way I was managing that they didn’t like that they could talk to me at any time. And if I could, I would solve that problem to the best of my abilities. Throughout the season, I thought if I could do that it would be best. I didn’t want to be at the end of the season with a player not doing his best and not performing well for the team. I wanted to avoid that kind of situation as it made everyone dissatisfied.
As a manager, I talked with my coaches, I talked with my staff, and I told them throughout the year that I was confident that I would do my best for the team but if during practice you find something that we need to do more or if another team was doing something that was better then tell me about it. I was proud of what I was doing but I might not have been doing it the best way so if there was something else that’s better, I wanted them to tell me about it. One thing that I think I succeeded in doing well was to create good switch hitters. For example, there were pitchers who the scouts brought to the team but we decided that they weren’t very good as pitchers so we decided to use them as outfielders. If they had the necessary legs and powerful bodies, I would tell them, “Why don’t you work hard and try to become a switch hitter?” Many of my athletes succeed in becoming very good switch hitters. With a group of good switch hitters we were able to create a good team. I think that is why we were able to compete for the league championship for many years.
When I was playing with a company team, one day I had injured my right finger and I came to the field in street clothes, carrying my right arm, obviously in pain. My manger was very angry with me. He said, “Go back in and put your uniform on!” After I put my uniform on again, he told me to stand in the batter’s box and he threw balls right at me. I was scared so I put my bat in front of me with my left hand because my right was injured. Somehow the ball was hitting the bat that I held with my left hand and my manger yelled, “See you can do it! If you work for one week, you can develop your left arm so you can hit with your left arm.” As you can see, my body is not very big. He said, “If you take time off, your body is going to be less developed so you can’t take any time off. You have to always be in there and keep playing.” That was an important lesson.
1975-76 Calbee Baseball Card of Takeshi Koba
[Editor’s note: In 1963, Koba’s sixth year of professional ball, Koba was in contention for the Central League batting title when he was hit in the face with a pitch and hospitalized.]
The injury definitely influence how I played afterwards, maybe it was just a matter of several millimeters but I was no longer able to hit the ball on the meat of the bat so my contact became weaker and therefore I didn’t have as many hits. My average went from .339 to .219 the next year. So, I asked myself how else can I contribute to the game? And I thought, I can use my legs. So, I started stealing bases and I led the league in stolen bases the following year. That’s what I told my athletes, “Ask yourself, how you can contribute to the game.”
When I was a manager, I always went to see the instructional league in Florida and we sent our young players there to participate. After the regular season here, I would go over and watch these young American players train and they would be working very hard. Most of them were from A or AA and were hoping to make it up to the AAA or Major League level. I took my young players with me because I wanted them to see what kind of severe reality, what kinds of conditions, the U.S. Minor Leaguers were playing in. U.S. players were given only $12 or $13 per day to participate in this. And if they didn’t perform well, they were put back down into the lower-level teams. I wanted the Carp players to understand this. I think that because the Carp players were actually able to see it for themselves, they were stimulated to improve more.
I was the manager of both Hiroshima and Yokohama. I was the manager of Hiroshima for eleven years. Managers of the other teams would say, “Hey, why are you practicing so hard?” Even when we were on the road before away games, I would always make sure that there were opportunities to practice just as hard. I think that the major difference between American and Japanese baseball, is that in America there is a Rookie League, A, AA, AAA, a whole system where the athletes who come up from the bottom can improve and move up to the next level. But in Japan, there is only the major club and the farm team. So, there are always about ten people, or more, in the farm who don’t quite have the bodies yet, don’t have the techniques yet to play in the major league. If you are always playing in the games you can gain the experience you need but if you aren’t in the games, you have to practice that much harder so that when it’s your turn to play in the games you can play well. If you don’t practice very hard, you can not surpass the other players and get into the major league. The other teams said, “Oh you practice so hard, you must always be tired.” But the tradition of hard practices still continues on the Hiroshima team today. I think because we had such hard practices the younger athletes grew and developed and matured.
SABR Asian Baseball Research Committee Blog 