By Jim Allen,
Manager Akinobu Okada, a key player on the Tigers' 1985 Japan Series championship team, returned for his second stint as the team's manager this season, and 38 years after contributing to Hanshin's sole Japan title, led them to its second.
"The last time we were No. 1 in Japan, I was just 27," the 65-year-old skipper said. "It's been a long time."
The Tigers trailed in the series, the first between teams from western Japan's Kansai region since the Tigers lost to the Osaka-based Nankai Hawks in 1964, 2-1 before breaking a ninth-inning tie with a Yusuke Oyama walk-off single in Wednesday's Game 4 to even the best-of-seven series at iconic Koshien Stadium.
On Thursday, the Tigers looked doomed but came back on a beautiful swing by rookie Shota Morishita, one of two players whose seventh-inning errors had given Orix an insurance run. His two-run triple put the Tigers in front and sent them into Game 6 with a chance to end 38 years of suffering.
Takumu Nakano, the other player to make an error on that crucial seventh-inning double blunder, said Saturday that the team's mission to end the title draught for Hanshin's faithful placed no appreciable burden of pressure on the players.
"For the fans, of course, that 38-year wait is a thing, but we players are conscious of it," Nakano said. "We sense their hopes. The fans are the ones who create an atmosphere in which it is so easy for us to play. I don't feel any extraordinary pressure because of it, and my goal has been just to approach these games as if they were any others. I haven't really felt any extra pressure."
The lack of pressure is also a testament to Okada, who has excelled at dealing good-naturedly with a huge local media presence that often thrives on identifying and vilifying scapegoats.
The Tigers suffered a Game 6 setback at the hands of Orix ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but they hit pay dirt in Game 7 when Sheldon Neuse earned himself a place in team history by breaking up a scoreless game with a three-run homer in the fourth and driving in another run in a three-run fifth.
After Okada and company won as players in 1985, the Tigers did not get back to the Japan Series until 2003, when they lost in seven games to the Daiei Hawks.
Okada, who had been a member of the Tigers' power-hitting lineup that included Masayuki Kakefu, Akinobu Mayumi and Hall of Fame first baseman Randy Bass, took over the club as manager in 2004 and led Hanshin to the Japan Series the next year, where they were swept by Bobby Valentine's Lotte Marines.
Although the Tigers were otherwise successful in Okada's tenure, the skipper quit abruptly after consecutive playoff exits in 2007 and 2008.
In 2014, the Tigers advanced to the Japan Series through the playoffs but were defeated by the SoftBank Hawks. Despite respectable results in the following years, it would take the Tigers another nine years and a return by Okada for their next shot at regaining entry to the promised land.
"When I learned he (Okada) would be the next manager, I didn't know what to think," Nakano said. "I'd heard him in the media and thought he might be a little scary, but in fact, he's incredibly easy to play for."
Related coverage:
Baseball: Neuse, Aoyagi lead Tigers to 1st Japan championship in 38 years
Baseball: Long-awaited win marks Yoshinobu Yamamoto's finest hour
Baseball: Yamamoto, Buffaloes send Japan Series to Game 7
