Baby-faced Higashio took over for the Lions under rather bizarre circumstances. Masaaki Mori, the previous Lions manager who led the Lions to eight pennants in his nine years at the helm (compiling an extraordinary 673-438 record), quit (or was fired) midway through the 1994 Japan Series.

Against Mori's record, it's no surprise that Higashio fails to measure up. In his first two years as manager, he led the team to two third-place finishes and a two-year 129-121 record. In fact, the Lions had their first losing season in sixteen years under his watch. Still, Higashio led Seibu to a pennant in 1997 with a 76-56 record.

In that year's Japan Series, the Lions skipper faced Yakult's Katsuya Nomura who had been a catcher with Seibu in the late 1970s. The two former teammates possessed widely different strategies, with Nomura devoted to statistics and Higashio playing hunches.

While the Swallows general directed five nearly flawless games, Higashio made several critical errors, including putting catcher/first baseman Taisei Takagi in left field (where he had never played before) in order to get his bat into the line-up. In game three, the Lions manager sent aging star Hisanobu Watanabe in to relieve, but the hurler quickly surrendered the go-ahead run and the game.

Higashio also made headlines in 1997 shortly after Dragons first baseman Yasuaki Taiho assaulted American umpire Mike DiMuro. The Lions manager pledged that he would never again argue calls with umpires. Less than a month later, Higashio received a three-game suspension and a 100,000 yen fine for hitting and kicking an umpire.

It's not the first time Higashio got in trouble. As the Lions star pitcher, he was once suspended for half a season and heavily fined for gambling at mahjong with members of the Japanese Mafia. Despite such sanctions, he had a respectable twenty-year pitching career (1969-88), winning 251 games (but losing 247), with a lifetime 3.50 ERA and 1,684 strikeouts. In 1983 and '87 he won the Pacific League MVP award.