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The story
The Yomiuri Giants finished the regular season in second place in the Central League under acting manager Hideki Hashigami, who took over from former manager Shinnosuke Abe. According to a FRIDAY report, Hashigami is likely to step down next season, with word also circulating that Yoshinobu Takahashi has canceled a long offseason trip. On 5ch, discussion centered on the Giants’ unwritten rule that only “homegrown” players can become manager, with names like Hideki Matsui, Masumi Kuwata, and Masaki Saito floated as candidates one after another — and comparisons drawn to the Chunichi Dragons’ new manager, Kimiyasu Kudo.
Is the “unwritten rule” still alive this time around?
Acting manager Hideki Hashigami (60), who took over the Giants mid-season from former manager Shinnosuke Abe (47), finished the regular season in second place.
“There were some scattered criticisms of his in-game decisions once the season reached its final stretch, but he deserves credit for how he managed a lineup that lacked the punch of the Tigers’. Quite a few players and alumni feel ‘maybe it’d be fine to leave things to Hashigami next season too’” (a team alumnus).
Source: friday.kodansha.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Yeah, that's nice.
Very "tradition" of them.
He probably doesn't want to.
Dark horse.
Actually, he's totally up for it.
He said on Uehara's YouTube channel, of all places, that he wants to do it again.
Do you even know what 'homegrown' means?
No good — he went to the majors.
Any player who's 'eaten another team's rice' can't manage the Giants.
Maybe there'd have been a one-shot chance if Kuwata had stuck around in the front office.
But he's not homegrown to begin with anyway.
They weren't even pushing hard for the pennant this season.
He was only ever the 'acting' manager, nothing more.
Giants: Hara, who got swept 4-0 in the Japan Series two years running lol.
Apparently he made a promise to Shigeo (Nagashima) about it.
Even Hiro-oka has said it'd be ideal if Matsui took the job, so I doubt anyone in the organization would oppose him.
Did Kudo slip away from them?
Still, I wonder if he's actually reflected on last time and studied up properly.
He's always come across as kind of laid-back, even back in his playing days lol.
Listening to Makihara's commentary, he actually seems like he'd be fun as a manager.
But his commentary is so rock-solid that it's basically his true calling at this point lol.
When Hara resigned over the gambling scandal, Saito was a coach at the time, but they forced Takahashi into retirement and made him manager instead.
It wouldn't have been strange for Saito to get the job then — did he turn it down himself, or did the front office decide he wasn't the right fit?
Probably even 30-40 years from now, on our deathbeds,
we'll still be saying 'the bench vibe was better under Hashigami' as we head to the other side.
Because outsiders cause too many scandals and 'rat out' the team after leaving?
That's old-media thinking for you.
Because he's tied to the Tigers.
I've seen articles saying it's because he's a TV personality now.
He hasn't even coached.
Can you even read properly?
Tatsunori Hara is the symbol of a Giants team that never changes.
Unable to develop homegrown talent,
the team's fate rests on outside signings and foreign imports.
The Giants have nothing but a slow decline ahead.
A team that can never push through organizational reform.
Whether it's Hara or Yoshinobu, there's no future.
But Kudo could only win because it was SoftBank.
He only won the league 3 times in 7 years anyway.
Background and Key Points
The Giants’ managerial hiring has long been said to follow an unwritten rule favoring “homegrown” alumni, and in the thread, every time names like Masumi Kuwata (who has major-league experience) or Suguru Egawa (often discussed in connection with the Tigers) came up, posters repeated the same objection: “he’s not homegrown.” Yoshinobu Takahashi became manager immediately after retiring as a player, and some commenters wondered whether lessons from that stint have actually been absorbed this time. That said, this report is based on observations from a FRIDAY article and has not been officially confirmed by the team, so it should be read with that caveat. Other names floated as candidates, such as Masaki Saito and Hiroki Makihara, are both currently working as TV commentators — they were simply names that came up in the discussion, not confirmed candidates.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geisoku+) thread “[Baseball] Giants’ New Manager Search Heats Up: Acting Manager Hashigami Likely Out, Yoshinobu Takahashi Reportedly Canceled Long Offseason Trip [Ailuropoda melanoleuca★].”
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