The Men Who Created the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association | 2025 Baseball Book Award Winner
In an era when the term "labor-management relations" did not even exist in the baseball world, players had virtually no rights other than to retire.
It was Kiyoshi Nakahata, a popular player for the Giants, who secretly moved and worked hard to form a labor union in such an era.
As a key player for the league's flagship team, he was guaranteed a secure future after retirement if he just kept quiet and got along with the club. After all, even the legendary ON, who boasted immense popularity and influence, did not move to establish a players' association when the momentum grew during their active years, dismissing it as "premature." Forming a union was that sensitive—a move that would step on the toes of management.
However, Nakahata could not accept the "unequal" contracts between players and clubs, and driven by a sense of justice that said, "That's just not right!", he stood up to form the union.
Without Kiyoshi Nakahata's "great first step," the later FA and posting systems would not have existed.
We must not forget the existence of the fifth chairman, Atsuya Furuta, who fought against the plans drawn up by those in power to reduce the number of clubs and move to a one-league system, and who carried out the first strike in history.
The battle with the owners even reached the courtroom, and the following passage, reflected upon by the presiding judge at the time, is thrilling for those who supported the players' association.
"While Chairman Furuta was truly diligent and running around taking responsibility for the Kintetsu players, the commissioner was running away without facing the issues. As a former Chief Prosecutor of the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office, he should have known labor law, but his attitude was so arrogant that the two were in stark contrast."
The person being harshly criticized by the judge here is the then-commissioner, Yasuchika Negoro. Although Negoro was a man of the legal profession, he sent calculated "misinformation" to the owners of the 12 clubs to incite the crushing of the strike. However, like a corrupt official being brought to justice by Mito Komon, Negoro's scheme failed, and the players' association won public opinion over to their side and carried out the strike.
Although the merger of Kintetsu and Orix could not be prevented, as you know, they succeeded in maintaining two leagues and 12 clubs.
I would also like to touch upon Hiromitsu Ochiai.
He supported the first chairman, Nakahata, a member of the "Showa 28 Group," but later withdrew from the players' association. However, he still took advantage of his FA rights. Many people probably view that stance critically. I was one of them.
But Ochiai had been secretly supporting the activities of the players' association even after that.
The strike took place in 2004, the year Ochiai was appointed manager of the Chunichi Dragons, and at that time, Chunichi was leading the league and was on the verge of its first league championship in five years. Even so, Ochiai entrusted these words to Hirokazu Ibata, who was attending meetings with Furuta and others as a player representative:
"Don't worry about our championship anymore; go as far as you can. We can win the championship another time. Don't you back down from this job."
Reading this statement gave me chills.
Ochiai must have had his own reasons for withdrawing from the players' association. I even started to think things like that.
"The Men Who Created the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association" was also a story of the chivalry of men who fought for the future of professional baseball.
I certify this as the most interesting baseball book of 2025.
The Men Who Created the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association
