Kazuto Tsuruoka

Kazuto Tsuruoka
鶴岡一人
Kazuto Tsuruoka; 鶴岡一人
	Infielder / Manager
	Born: July 27, 1916; Kure, Hiroshima, Japan
	Died: March 7, 2000 (aged 83); Japan
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
JBL debut
	March 28, 1939, for the Nankai Club
Last NPB appearance
	October 12, 1952, for the Nankai Hawks
JBL/NPB statistics
Batting average	.295
Home runs	61
Hits	790
RBIs	467
Stolen bases	143
Teams
	As player Nankai Club/Kinki Great Ring/Nankai Hawks (1939, 1946–1952); As manager Great Ring/Nankai Hawks (1949–1968);
Career highlights and awards
	3× Nippon Professional Baseball Most Valuable Player Award (1946, 1948, 1951); Home Run leader (1939); RBI leader (1946);
Member of the Japanese
Baseball Hall of Fame
Induction	1965
Election Method	Selection Committee for the Players

Kazuto Tsuruoka (鶴岡一人, Tsuruoka Kazuto, Jule 27, 1916 – March 7, 2000), also known as Kazuto Yamamoto, is a former professional baseball infielder and manager in the Japan Baseball League (JBL) and Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).

Tsuroka played for the same franchise in 1939, and from 1946 to 1952, which during his career changed names from the Nankai Club to Kinki Great Ring, and ultimately to the Nankai Hawks. (Tsuroka did not play professional baseball from 1940 to 1945.) In 1939 he won the JBL home run title with 10. Returning to the JBL after World War II, in 1946 he won the JBL Most Valuable Player Award, repeating the feat in 1948. His team won the JBL championship both those years.

In 1949, he was named player-manager of the Hawks. His playing career ended after the 1952 season, but he stayed on as the team's manager through the 1968 season, guiding the team to Japan Series championships in 1959 and 1964. His managerial record overall was 1773–1140, for a winning percentage of .609.

Tsuroka was elected by the Selection Committee for the Players to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1965.[1]

Awards
Preceded by N.A. Tadashi Wakabayashi	Japanese Baseball League MVP 1946 1948	Succeeded by Tadashi Wakabayashi Fumio Fujimura

References

"Hall of Famers List | The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum". english.baseball-museum.or.jp. Retrieved 2020-04-14.

External links

Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference (Minors)

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[1] "Hall of Famers List | The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum". english.baseball-museum.or.jp. Retrieved 2020-04-14.