Yutaka Wada, Head Coach of Hanshin, “Dramatic Increase in Coach Fujimoto’s Workload”… “Chaperone of Manager Fujikawa” is Expected

Coach Fujimoto’s gray hairs are growing. ……

I thought it was now or never, and everything came in the form of my own request.”

Hanshin manager Kyuji Fujikawa, 45, won the league championship for the first time in two years but unexpectedly lost the Japan Series to Softbank for the fourth straight time. On November 10, the team officially announced the lineup for the next season, his second in the post, and the appointment of Yutaka Wada, 63, as head coach of the first-team team surprised fans.

Wada was a key player for Hanshin during his playing days, and after retiring he served as a coach, leading the team from 2012 to 2015 as the first team manager.

In 2015, his final year as manager, the team was in contention for the league championship until the last 10 games of the season when GM Katsuhiro Nakamura died suddenly at a hotel in Tokyo in the final stages of the season. The team fell back and lost the Climax Series (CS), and Mr. Wada took responsibility and stepped down.

During his tenure, his private life became a major uproar when a weekly magazine reported that he had an affair with a singer impersonating Seiko Matsuda, of whom he was a big fan. The power word ‘spice,’ which he uttered at his inaugural press conference, became famous on the Internet as a secret word for manager Wada,” said a baseball team official.

After stepping down as manager, Wada joined the front office as a senior advisor to the team’s owner, and served as manager of the second team from 2023.

The fact that he has kept his title with the team since his retirement shows the trust that the management has in him. He is particularly adept at coaching batting skills, and enthusiastically coached infielder Takumu Nakano (29), who played in every game last season but had a low batting average of .232, to a V-shaped recovery to .282 this season, contributing to the championship.

Fujikawa, who was almost never on the bench as a reliever or suppressor during his playing days, is a laissez-faire manager when it comes to fielders, so it is likely that he chose Nakano as his technical expert.

However, immediately after taking over as manager last year, Fujikawa went out of his way to clearly state that he would not be appointing a head coach. What are the reasons for this “change of policy” after only one year?

The first reason is that Atsushi Fujimoto, 48, who was put in charge of the fielding staff by Fujikawa, has been under a tremendous physical and mental strain. He had always been cheerful and good-natured during his working days, but during the season he often had gray hair and a grim expression on his face. He would often ask, ‘Are you sick?　Is he all right?’ Many of the team’s alumni were concerned.

The second reason was that the front office of the baseball team advised us to appoint a head coach as a measure of leverage to regain the No. 1 position in Japan. This season, for better or worse, Fujikawa’s authority was strong, and there were many instances of conflict between the manager and the coaches. Head coach Wada, who is known for his personality, also serves as a buffer on the bench,” said a team official.

A source close to the team’s front office also points out another point of view.

Fujikawa protects the players with a thorough policy of secrecy, controlling information from the media and refusing to have any contact with alumni. Even if he is dealing with a heavyweight in the front office, he will not change his policy. From next season onward, however, the front office team will be able to receive detailed reports from Wada on the team’s status and other matters. In other words, he has taken on the role of ‘chaperone’ for the director.

If the Hanshin batting lineup is strengthened by Wada’s skill, the team will be even closer to regaining the No. 1 position in Japan.