1968 Nippon Professional Baseball season

1968 NPB season
League	Nippon Professional Baseball
Sport	Baseball
Central League Pennant
League champions	Yomiuri Giants
Runners-up	Hanshin Tigers
Season MVP	Shigeo Nagashima (YOM)
Pacific League Pennant
League champions	Hankyu Braves
Runners-up	Nankai Hawks
Season MVP	Tetsuya Yoneda (HAN)
Japan Series
Champions	Yomiuri Giants
Runners-up	Hankyu Braves
Finals MVP	Shigeru Takada (YOM)
NPB seasons
	← 1967 1969 →

Last updated April 29, 2019

The 1968 Nippon Professional Baseball season was the 19th season of operation of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).

Nippon Professional Baseball or NPB is the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called Puro Yakyū (プロ野球), meaning Professional Baseball. Outside Japan, it is often just referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league can be traced back to the formation of the "Greater Japan Tokyo Baseball Club" in Tokyo, founded 1934 and the original circuit for the sport in the Empire two years later - Japanese Baseball League (1936-1949), and surprisingly even continued to play through the dark years of total warfare with Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and intervening in the Chinese Civil War in 1937 with the wider Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), and into the greater World War II (1939-1945).

Regular season

Standings

Central League regular season standings
Team	G	W	L	T	Pct.	GB
Yomiuri Giants	134	77	53	4	.592	—
Hanshin Tigers	133	72	58	3	.554	5.0
Hiroshima Toyo Carp	134	68	62	4	.523	9.0
Sankei Atoms	134	64	66	4	.492	13.0
Taiyo Whales	133	59	71	3	.454	18.0
Chunichi Dragons	134	50	80	4	.385	27.0

Pacific League regular season standings
Team	G	W	L	T	Pct.	GB
Hankyu Braves	134	80	50	4	.615	—
Nankai Hawks	136	79	51	6	.608	1.0
Tokyo Orions	139	67	63	9	.515	13.0
Kintetsu Buffaloes	135	57	73	5	.438	23.0
Nishitetsu Lions	133	56	74	3	.431	24.0
Toei Flyers	135	51	79	5	.392	29.0

League leaders

Central League

Batting leaders
Stat	Player	Team	Total
Batting average	Sadaharu Oh	Yomiuri	.326
Home runs	Sadaharu Oh	Yomiuri	49
Runs batted in	Shigeo Nagashima	Yomiuri	125
Runs	Sadaharu Oh	Yomiuri	107
Hits	Shigeo Nagashima	Yomiuri	157
Stolen bases	Takeshi Koba	Hiroshima	39

Pitching leaders
Stat	Player	Team	Total
Wins	Yutaka Enatsu	Hanshin	25
Losses	Kentaro Ogawa	Chunichi	20
Earned run average	Yoshiro Sotokoba	Hiroshima	1.94
Strikeouts	Yutaka Enatsu	Hanshin	401
Innings pitched	Yutaka Enatsu	Hanshin	329

Pacific League

Batting leaders
Stat	Player	Team	Total
Batting average	Isao Harimoto	Toei	.336
Home runs	Katsuya Nomura	Nankai	38
Runs batted in	George Altman	Tokyo	100
Runs	George Altman	Tokyo	84
Hits	George Altman	Tokyo	170
Stolen bases	Toshinori Yasui	Kintetsu	54

Pitching leaders
Stat	Player	Team	Total
Wins	Mutsuo Minagawa	Nankai	31
Losses	Toshiaki Moriyasu	Toei	23
Earned run average	Mutsuo Minagawa	Nankai	1.61
Strikeouts	Keishi Suzuki	Kintetsu	305
Innings pitched	Keishi Suzuki	Kintetsu	359

Awards

Most Valuable Player
- Shigeo Nagashima, Yomiuri Giants (CL)
- Tetsuya Yoneda, Hankyu Braves (PL)
Tetsuya Yoneda is a Japanese former professional baseball pitcher who spent most of his career with the Hankyu Braves in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball. He was so tough that he was known as Gasoline Tank and also Human Tank. Yoneda was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000.
Rookie of the Year
- Shigeru Takada, Yomiuri Giants (CL)
- No PL recipient
Shigeru Takada is a former general manager of the Yokohama DeNA BayStars, and former manager of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters and the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball. He was previously an outfielder for the Yomiuri Giants and won the 1968 Central League Rookie of the Year award.
Eiji Sawamura Award
- Yutaka Enatsu, Hanshin Tigers (CL)

The Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award is an honor given annually in baseball to two outstanding players in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), one each for the Central League and Pacific League.

Shigeo Nagashima is a Japanese former professional baseball player and manager.

The Yomiuri Giants are a professional baseball team based in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. The team competes in the Central League in Nippon Professional Baseball. They play their home games in the Tokyo Dome, opened in 1988. The team's owner is the Yomiuri Group, a media conglomerate which includes two newspapers and a television network.

Central League Best Nine Award winners
Position	Player	Team
Pitcher	Yutaka Enatsu	Hanshin
Catcher	Masahiko Mori	Yomiuri
First baseman	Sadaharu Oh	Yomiuri
Second baseman	Shozo Doi	Yomiuri
Third baseman	Shigeo Nagashima	Yomiuri
Shortstop	Yukinobu Kuroe	Yomiuri
Outfielder	Dave Roberts	Sankei
	Kazuhiro Yamauchi	Yomiuri
	Shinichi Eto	Chunichi

Pacific League Best Nine Award winners
Position	Player	Team
Pitcher	Mutsuo Minagawa	Nankai
Catcher	Katsuya Nomura	Nankai
First baseman	Kihachi Enomoto	Tokyo
Second baseman	Don Blasingame	Nankai
Third baseman	Yasunori Kunisada	Nankai
Shortstop	Toshizo Sakamoto	Hankyu
Outfielder	George Altman	Tokyo
	Masahiro Doi	Kintetsu
	Isao Harimoto	Toei

References

Johnson, Daniel E. (July 2006). Japanese Baseball: A Statistical Handbook. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-2841-0.

International Standard Book Number Unique numeric book identifier

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.

This article relating to a baseball season is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This article relating to baseball in Japan is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

v t e Nippon Professional Baseball Seasons
1930s–1940s (Japanese Baseball League)	1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 (1945) 1946 1947 1948 1949
1950s–1960s	1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969
1970s–1980s	1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
1990s–2000s	1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
2010s–2020s	2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Japan Series Climax Series