Best known for hitting 868 home runs over his 22 year playing career (1959-80), Sadaharu Oh finished with a .301 batting average (14th on the all-time Japan list), 2786 hits (third), 422 doubles (second), 2504 walks (first) and 2170 RBIs (first).

Additionally, he earned two triple crowns for batting, won thirteen straight home run titles, hit a Japan record 55 home runs in a single season, and was named league MVP five times. But by his second year as a player Oh was thinking about quitting the game.

He'd been a solid pitcher in high school, but when he signed with the Giants, they wanted him to hit. But in his first two pro seasons, his batting average dropped to around .200 and he wasn't hitting many home runs. After consulting with his batting coach, Oh developed his unique one-legged flamingo stance. Soon after, Oh was hitting with consistency and strength.

It was perhaps that relationship with his coach that led Oh to build a special teaching room in his new house. Near the end of his career, the home run king hoped to advise struggling hitters, passing along all he had learned to the next generation. In his autobiography, The Zen of Baseball, Oh awkwardly notes that in the years since he built the house, no one had visited his teaching room.

In 1984, however, he brought the teaching room to his students, becoming manager of the Yomiuri Giants. But with incredibly high expectations (it was Giants founder Matsutaro Shoriki's deathbed wish that the Giants win every game), Oh couldn't help disappointing Yomiuri executives and Giants fans.

In his first two seasons at the helm, the Giants finished third. The next year, Yomiuri finished with more wins than any other team in the league, but because of tie games, the Hiroshima Carp won the pennant with a marginally higher win-loss percentage. Finally, in 1987 the Giants won the pennant but were trampled by the Seibu Lions four games to one in the Japan Series.

But waiting four years had worn thin the patience of the average Giants fan. Before the end of the 1988 season, with the Giants again playing like mortals, Yomiuri fans began yelling, "Kantoku yammeroo [resign Oh]!" Apparently the Giants were thinking the same thing as Oh was ordered to step down at the end of the year.

In five seasons as Yomiuri skipper, Oh compiled a respectable 347-264 win-loss record. In 1995, he accepted a five-year contract to manage the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks, but his teams have consistently finished in the second division, with a three year record of 171 wins and 217 losses.

Viewing himself as half-Chinese, half-Japanese, Oh has never quite fit in. Shy and wooden, he's left it to lesser players to take the limelight. Oh has quietly gone about his business playing and managing, and he's well known for offering his time for charitable events, to coaching kids, and signing thousands of autographs.

Yet in his book, which he wrote before managing the Giants, he stated that he's proud of his records, and he hopes they will stand forever. That probably explains the most controversial incident in his seven years as manager.

In 1985, Hanshin Tigers Randy Bass was making a run for the single season home run record. With three games left to play, Bass had fifty-four home runs, one short of Oh's record.

Those three games, however, were against the Giants. With Oh managing, his pitchers walked Bass nearly every time he came up to bat. Some defend Oh, arguing there's no proof he ordered his pitchers to walk Bass; but that ignores the fact that Oh failed to order his pitchers to throw strikes. More than the damage it does to Oh's reputation, his record 55 home runs no longer retains the same luster it had before the incident.