Tomoya Satozaki Reveals: Lotte Is the Only NPB Team With Zero Players Married to a TV Announcer

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The story

Former Lotte catcher Tomoya Satozaki appeared on Fuji TV’s “Pokapoka” on the 13th and revealed that the Chiba Lotte Marines are the only one of Japan’s 12 pro baseball teams with zero players who have married a female TV announcer. The comment was his comeback to swimmer Kosuke Hagino’s jab that “baseball guys get all the luck with women.” On 5ch, posters pointed out that Hanshin shows a similar pattern, while others pushed back by naming players like Saburo and Shun Yamaguchi who married other kinds of celebrities instead of announcers — and some questioned the whole premise that marrying a TV announcer is even a valid yardstick for popularity.

Fri, Nov 13, 4:24 PM

Former Lotte catcher Tomoya Satozaki (50) appeared as a guest on Fuji TV’s “Pokapoka” (weekdays at 11:47 AM) on the 13th, where he revealed details about the marriage track record of Lotte players.

Kosuke Hagino, who won gold in the men’s 400m individual medley at the 2016 Rio Olympics, remarked that “soccer and baseball guys have it unfairly easy with women.” Satozaki shot back, pushing his own face right up to the camera: “You think I’m popular with women?! You think everyone’s popular just because they play baseball?!”

Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here

What people said

6AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:31
Sounds like Saburo's wife is an eccentric one
47AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:47
Re: #6
You mean comedian Taihei Saburo?
9AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:32
Well, it's Chiba, after all
26AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:38
Re: #9
Chiba's got plenty of good-looking guys and gals though
10AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:33
Sounds like you're just the unpopular one
16AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:34
Re: #10
That's literally what I'm saying about myself
14AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:34
Doesn't Hanshin also have almost no players married to celebrities or TV announcers?
21AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:36
Re: #14
Apparently Kansai stations tell their female announcers not to marry Hanshin players
the fans are supposedly way too intense
54AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:51
Re: #14
Yeah, can't think of any~ Way back, the team's cleanup hitter at the time supposedly married singer Chiyoko Shimakura, and Tabuchi married Janet Hatta, but that's about all that comes to mind
Has anyone actually married an announcer?
101AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:41
Re: #14
Hanshin fans have screws and springs flying loose in their heads, but the players themselves are solid, steady guys.

When Kakefu got arrested for drunk driving in 1987, team owner Kuma said:

"A railway company employee getting caught drunk driving is a disgraceful act."
"Kakefu is a defective product."
"As long as I'm alive, Kakefu will never, ever become the Tigers' manager."


Newspapers love to preach that "the press should be society's watchdog,"
yet when it's their own people's scandal, they go soft as butter.
15AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:34
Fujiwara seems like he'd be popular with the ladies
45AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:46
Re: #15
Fujiwara isn't married yet, but he's had a girlfriend since high school
55AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:51
Wasn't it back in his Seibu days that Wakui was dating that 'dark horse' girlfriend? (穴 = slang for an unexpectedly good catch)
92AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:34
Re: #55
He married model Moe Oshikiri while he was with Lotte
Tsuyoshi Nishioka married Naoko Tokuzawa (later divorced)
If you drop the "must be a TV announcer" rule, you could say they do fine with models
61AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:56
I think Lotte's stadium location is bad — well, same with Seibu, too far from central Tokyo
Hard for reporters to make the trip out often, right?
121AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:53
Re: #61
If anything it's pretty close lol
By that logic what happens to the Kansai, Kyushu, or Hokkaido teams?
65AnonymousNov 13, 2026 16:58
Re: #21
Nope
it's because Shimoyanagi screwed up
118AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:52
Re: #65
What about before Shimoyanagi?
72AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:06
Nippon Ham's got a guy who married a member of Momoiro Clover Z, though
75AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:09
Re: #72
They got divorced, and he got cut by Chunichi this year after being traded there
82AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:20
Yamaguchi married someone who was well-known even within AKB, so in the team-hierarchy rankings he's pretty high up
104AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:43
Re: #82
The AKB girl found herself a good one in Yamaguchi too
He hadn't quite broken out results-wise yet when they got married though
91AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:33
TV announcers are just regular company employees anyway
96AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:35
Re: #91
A bona fide, "pedigreed" celebrity is still a rare catch though
95AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:35
Wanting to marry a TV announcer feels so old-school Showa (the pre-1989 era, used here to mean outdated)
97AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:36
Re: #95
Apparently once a Lotte player finally marries a TV announcer, the Showa era will truly be over for them lol
According to Satozaki lol
98AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:39
Back in the day there was a Lotte player who earned about as much from a TV commercial as from his salary
That commercial became a huge hit
and the company behind it shot straight up to become an industry giant

Almost 20 years later,
that player's daughter became a member of AKB48
100AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:41
Re: #98
The pay was that good, huh, Kuramochi-san
105AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:44
Saying you're unpopular just because you can't marry a TV announcer is way too Showa-era lol
123AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:54
Re: #105
Apparently once a Lotte player finally marries a TV announcer, the Showa era will truly be over for them lol
According to Satozaki lol
111AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:45
Re: #1
Saburo — Michiyo Nakajima

Yamaguchi — Aika Tada of AKB48/HKT48

Boom, case closed!
122AnonymousNov 13, 2026 17:53
Re: #111
No point flexing with names nobody's ever heard of

Background and Key Points of Debate

Marrying a TV announcer has long been treated as a kind of customary symbol of success for pro baseball players, with marriage reports involving Giants and Hanshin players repeatedly making headlines over the years. What split opinion in the thread was how seriously to take Satozaki’s remark: some pushed back by citing players like Saburo and Shun Yamaguchi who married celebrities outside the announcer world, arguing this doesn’t mean Lotte players are unpopular, while others pointed to circumstantial factors like the team’s home being in Chiba, far from central Tokyo. Worth keeping in mind: “not married to a TV announcer” and “unpopular” are two different things that shouldn’t be conflated, and Satozaki’s comment itself was just a lighthearted comeback to Hagino — not the result of any rigorous survey of marriage counts across all 12 teams.

※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Hochi+) thread “Tomoya Satozaki: “Lotte Is Even Less Popular,” “Lotte Is the Only One…” — Reveals Zero Marriages to TV Announcers Across All 12 Teams.”

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