The Biggest Baseball Scandal You've Never Heard Of

how's it this is akio masuda a pitcher who spent nine seasons in nippon professional baseball through the 1960s and 1970s he spent the majority of his career as a reliever never throwing more than six starts in a season that was until 1968. after his sixth season with the yomiuri giants japan's baseball powerhouse masuda left the team to join the nishitatsu lions from there he became a starting pitcher and was a machine for the lions producing two great seasons in 1968 and in 1969. however after just three starts in 1970 masuda never pitched again at the age of 32 masuda was out of baseball what happened if you stumbled upon a connecticut-based newspaper known as the day on may 26th 1970 you wouldn't know this answer masuda along with two other lions pitchers masaki ikinaga and yoshinobu yoda were banned from japanese baseball for life it was alleged that these three players accepted bribes and intentionally attempted to throw games one of these players ikinaga was the rookie of the year only five years prior to his banishment so three players have been banished from japanese baseball this seems like a big deal but judging from the size of this article it seems so insignificant i mean this article is shorter than another one on the same page one that talks about the selection of little league team mothers in waterford connecticut well i can assure you there's much more to this story from bribes to the mafia to involvement from police and the japanese government this is the black mist scandal [Applause] [Music] [Applause] to fully comprehend the impact of this scandal we have to understand the origins of baseball in japan and how it became the most popular sport in the country today baseball is the biggest sport in japan their high school baseball championship is akin to a college football bowl in the u.s their pro league nippon professional baseball is similar to mlb in terms of rules and structure and is widely regarded as the second best baseball league in the world the history of baseball in japan is long and vast however the black mist scandal could have easily unraveled the early workings of professional baseball in japan in 1934 japanese newspaper owner matutaro shoriki created a team of japan's best players the team was known as the greater japan tokyo baseball club this team initially played against american all-star teams featuring players like babe ruth lou gehrig and jimmy fox while this team wasn't japan's first pro team it was the first to generate the publicity that it did shariki's vision was to kickstart a pro baseball scene in japan by using the hype generated from these all-star level games in fact in one of these games legendary japanese pitcher ag sawamura allowed only one run against the us team a home run by lou gehrig though the japanese team still lost nonetheless in 1935 the team decided to tour through the entire us mainly facing minor league and independent teams the team returned to japan with a positive record resulting in a movement to establish a pro league in february 1936 the japan occupational baseball league was born the tokyo team was renamed into the tokyo kaio-jin or the tokyo giants which they actually named themselves during the us tour so americans could understand the team's name the giants along with six other teams were the founding members of the league the league rebranded as the japan baseball league in 1939 keeping that name until 1949. through this period a total of 11 teams played in the league with the most successful team being the tokyo giants who won nine championships the league itself was successful especially considering there was no 1945 season due to many of the world's largest nations being at war speaking of this war the league outlawed the use of english in 1940 due to rising hostility causing teams like the eagles and tigers to translate their names into the japanese language staying on the topic of this anti-foreign sentiment the original creator of the tokyo team matutaro shoriki survived an assassination attempt by right-wing nationalists for allowing foreigners in this case americans to play in jingu stadium a stadium that actually still exists today despite being left with a 16 inch long scar from the sword shuriki rose in prominence as in 1950 the jbl reorganized into nippon professional baseball with shoriki leading the movement as the unofficial first commissioner of the league eight of the 11 teams to ever play in the jbl moved on to npb a total of 15 teams played in the league's inaugural season by the end of the 1950s the league settled to 12 teams as the league continued to gain notoriety a huge milestone was reached in 1964 when nankai hawks reliever masanori murakami became the first japanese professional player to be signed by an mlb team in this case it was the san francisco giants however issues would arise the hawks let murakami go to the u.s in the role of an exchange student nankai hawks no a changed mind he started by playing for the giant single a team in fresno and he played so well that he was brought up to the major league team he made his big league debut on september 1st 1964. becoming the first japanese-born player to play in mlb he played really well so the giants refused to send him back to japan well mr franks had other ideas and so did bob shaw and a fellow named frank lindsay with a fantastic earned run average of 1.43 and masonry who had more problems with the language than with opposing batteries however after the season the hawks wanted him back murakami even sent a letter to the san francisco giant's owner prior to the 1965 season expressing how he felt it was time to return home to japan however in the end murakami played with the giants for one more season and he returned back to japan after the 1965 season in later years murakami expressed the thrill of playing in the us and the kindness of everyone around him while this messy situation led to the 1967 united states japanese player agreement resulting in japanese board players not being able to play an mlb for 30 more years murakami's performance in mlb legitimized npb a league that was established only 15 years prior now that we understand the place japanese baseball was in during the 1960s we need to establish something else we need to talk about gambling [Music] so whenever i say this i mean this the people in vegas are the most ridiculous humans on earth the two main daily fantasy sites draftkings and fandoms [Music] today sports gambling is a huge industry however gambling in general is illegal in japan casinos weren't even legal until 2018. apart from the casinos there are only a few exceptions to this law including lotteries and different types of track based racing like horse and auto racing so given that professional baseball was still in its early stages back in the 1960s it presented an interesting opportunity for illegal gamblers or more specifically the yakuza [Music] the yakuza or to oversimplify them as the japanese mafia hit their peak in the 1960s with more than 180 000 members over 10 times the number of members today with the rise of professional baseball in the 1960s it makes sense they would be interested in gambling in this new territory but they would end up going a step further by diving into match fixing in october 1969 the management of the nishi tattoo lions suspected that something fishy was going on while the lions were more than a decade past their previous championship the franchise possessed the second most championships in league history with three so whatever they suspected was going to seriously harm not just the team but the league as a whole the team suspected pitcher masayuki nagayasu was attempting to intentionally lose games nagayasu made his npb debut in 1964 with his peak coming in 1965. after the 1967 season his contract with the toeier flyers was not renewed which led him to join the lions at some point the yakuza offered him money to throw games and he took it eventually lion's management took notice and an investigation determined that nagayasu had intended to lose games for money he was released by the lions after the 1969 season the story could have ended here but lions outfielder carl bowles yes an american-born player who was now in his fourth season in japan after just one season in mlb leaked the nagayasu story to the press the two largest newspapers in the lion's home region fukuoka established their own investigations into the story these newspapers were the ho chi shinbun and the yomiuri shimbun instead of a quiet internal affair the organization was forced to publicly recognize what nagayasu did this eventually resulted in lions player manager futoshi nakanishi to resign from team duties despite no involvement after this revelation debates ensued between league officials on whether to hand nagayasu a lifetime ban in the meantime the scandal only got bigger on october 17th an issue of the shukan post questioned whether chunichi dragon star pitcher tsutomo tanaka played a role as well on october 21st with his lawyer tanaka visited the shukun post headquarters and demanded an apology which he never received the scandal went quiet for about a month until the three commissioners of the league permanently banned nagayasu on november 28th 1969 he became the first ever player to be banned from japanese professional baseball nagayasu would disappear from the public for the next few months the team president of the lions naotoshi kunihiro would resign as well going back to tsutomo tanaka he was informed in december that no one would take his contract so he was essentially blacklisted from the league this led to tanaka filing a defamation complaint with the tokyo district public prosecutor's office with a new year and decade approaching the league hoped this would be the end of it but the press was not done snooping around fast forward to february 13th 1970 yomiyuri giant's pitching coach and two-time central league mvp motoshi fujita was accused by the media of having ties to the yakuza fujita was the director of a company run by his brother-in-law the brother came into conflict with an executive at the company so he and fujita asked someone to persuade the executive to quit the company with a three hundred thousand yen severance package which is about nine thousand dollars today but the person they hired made threats to the executive the incident was reported to the police and on february 12th 1970 fujita and his brother-in-law found that the person they hired was a member of a gang the next day fujita held a press conference and explained the situation he was placed on house arrest for a month and this would be the extent of his punishment this resulted in the headline giants you too keep in mind the giants were and still are the most prestigious franchise in japanese baseball while the circumstances of this situation were left off the baseball field it continued the investigation into the relationship between professional baseball and organized crime by march 1970 the scandal had reached national attention as the national diet got involved which is essentially japan's congress however they needed someone to interview preferably masayuki nagayasu however nagayasu had not been seen since his banishment in late november the members talked about involving the government's national safety commission as there were rumors that nagayasu was being held on house arrest by the yakuza [Music] but not too long after nagayasu would be found he was actually living in sapporo a city on the other side of the country far away from where he was playing with the nishitatsu lions the shukan post was the media outlet that found him and they would ask for an interview nagayasu confessed he had been paid 5.5 million yen by the nishitatsu lions as hush money which equates to about 177 000 today this confession was broadcasted on television on april 1st in the interview nagayasu said he wasn't the ringleader and was approached by a teammate to take part in the operation he had only been told three times to deliberately lose a game two were unsuccessful with a successful attempt earning him only two hundred thousand yen which is about sixty four hundred dollars today after the initial report in late 1969 nagayasu was invited to the house of lions team owner muneo kusune nagayasu was told he would be taken care of for the rest of his life if he laid low after his banishment however nagayasu had much more to say [Applause] [Music] on april 5th he met with police investigators the following day the nagai times reported that nagayasu named our old friend tsutomo tanaka as a person of interest then the night times published an interview with lions pitchers akio masuda and masaki ikanaga they would both deny any involvement sensing the pr fiasco at hand the lions organization called on nagayasu to denounce what he said he refused in fact on april 10th the day before opening day nagayasu held a press conference at the house of representatives second legislative assembly hall initially he was hesitant to mention anyone eventually nagayasu would name seven players akio masuda yoshinobu yoda masaki ikanaga kazuhide funada mitsuo motoi kimiyasu murakami and tsutomo tanaka the only non-lions player was tanaka who played for the chunichi dragons nagayasu said that he was invited by yoda to take part after yoda had met with a person only known as fujinawa and it all started from there of course the lions organization proclaimed innocence the six players were called in by the lions front office for questioning but they all refused to appear pacific league president yu okano flew to see the nishitetsu team president yuzo aoki as well as team manager tetsuo fujomoto these three decided to form their own internal investigation which led to ocano concluding the team was innocent but the media criticized the investigation saying it was too passive in the middle of all this chaos it was found that the fujinawa character was a merchant hirotaka fujinawa who ran a milk business in kobe he ended up denying nagayasu's claims that fuji nawa had met with lions team management in the past fast forward to late april lions owner muneo kusune finally admitted to paying nagayasu the hush money after he was questioned by the tokyo district public prosecutor's office now before we move forward there's another aspect to this story that hasn't been established yet let's go back in time before nagayasu was banned from baseball on september 25th 1969 four gang members and four auto racers were arrested in november three more racers were arrested fast forward back to april the police became aware of ties between baseball players and auto race fixing after another racer was arrested then on april 22nd an auto racer who was arrested under suspicion of violating racing law confessed that an active baseball player and two mystery men were seen together at a racetrack [Music] this resulted in an investigation of sutomo tanaka former taiyo wales pitcher isao takayama and the milk merchant hirotaka fujinawa so what does this all mean well this scandal wasn't limited to just one sport this was getting really bad [Music] fuji nawa eventually confessed that he attempted to bribe nishitatsu lions players on ten different occasions but he only succeeded twice resulting in huge debt at the beginning of may the six lions players nagayasu named were interviewed but all six players denied the allegations however only a couple of days later on may 6th the commissioners committee suspended yoda and masuda on suspicion of wrongdoing the next day nishitetsu announced that ikinaga funada motoi and murakami would not participate with the team for the entire month of may and it didn't take long for someone to crack but it was none of these players eventually tsutomo tanaka admitted his involvement in baseball and auto race fixing meaning the shukan post did not constitute defamation against tanaka he also admitted that he had asked masaki ikanaga to participate for 1 million yen at the direction of fujinawa which ikinaga initially denied but eventually confirmed not too long after on may 12th yoshinobu yoda admitted involvement saying he approached mitsuo motoi and kimi yasu murakami but they refused to take part motoi and murakami both received money but returned it very quickly while kazuhide funada never received any money on that same day nishitetsu lion's owner muneo kusune resigned as president of nishitatsu headquarters and as owner of the team however we would soon find out that the scandal wasn't limited to these teams there were more names coming out of the woodwork back in the beginning of may the yomi yuri shimbun reported that dragon's pitcher kentaro ogawa and former dragon's infielder takao katuragi had been involved in auto race fixing like tanaka and ikanaga ogawa was one of the best pitchers in the league ogawa turned himself in and was arrested on may 6th he received an indefinite suspension a couple weeks later takao katsuragi was arrested for suspicion of involvement in auto race fixing and he was suspended for three months on may 9th the asahi shimbun reported two players on the toei flyers were also part of the scandal pitchers mitsugu tanaka and toshiyaki moriyasu they said that nagayasu invited them to talk with fujinawa in september 1969. they refused and didn't receive any money but they still hung out with nagayasu and fujinawa after the request had been made throughout this entire ordeal the commissioner's committee was figuring out how to deal with this immense problem on may 25th it all came to fruition the three members of the commissioners committee held a press conference and announced disciplinary action on six of the seven players named by nagayasu ikenaga yoda and masuda were all banned for life it was believed that yoda and masuda actually attempted to fix games while ikanaga who never attempted to fix games failed to return the 1 million yen he received from fujinawa however yoda and masuda both believed banishing ikanaga was a mistake as taking away one of the league's brightest young stars when he didn't even attempt to rig games was a huge loss for the baseball world but the punishment for all three pitchers remained however they were far from the only ones murakami and funada were suspended for the remainder of the 1970 season while ogawa former sawamura award winner was banned for life as for mitsugu tanaka and toshiyaki moriyasu mortayasu was banned for life after admitting he accepted 000 yen from nagayasu to throw a game as for tanaka and mitsuo motoi they were given severe warnings on july 30th chairman of the commissioner committee toshiyoshi miwazawa said that while the black mist in baseball had been contained for the moment there was reason to believe that this would not be the end and well he was right july 1st osaka kintetsu buffalo's outfielder masahiro doi was arrested on suspicion of gambling and was later suspended for one month september 8th yakult adams infielder takeshay kuata is arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud an auto race he was suspended for three months and never played baseball again after he became a free agent november 30th one of the league's best pitchers hanshin tiger starter yutaka inatsu is given a warning for interacting with a baseball gambling addict fun fact inatsu joined the milwaukee brewers during spring training in 1985 but he was cut before the season started january 11th 1971 nankai hawk's pitcher kiyohiro mira is given a warning for failing to report an interaction by kimo hiro sato to take a loss sato never faced punishment as he retired after the 1969 season january 29th taiyo wales coach takashi suzuki and pitcher katsuji sakai are suspended until may 1st for alleged involvement with a gang february 15th lote orion's pitcher fumio narita is suspended for one month for allegedly interacting with a baseball gambling gang so as you can see a wide variety of players faced punishment for their actions the total number of players 21 8 of the 12 teams in the league had at least one player implicated in this scandal however if tsutomo tanaka was to be believed he testified that at least 70 players were approached or took part in the scandal although this was never really verified the team who lost the most players was the nishi tattoo lions as they lost 3 players to permanent bands and two players to one year suspensions the lions who had already been dwindling towards the bottom of the pacific league fell to last place for the first time in team history and stayed there until 1972. after the 1972 season as the result of plummeting popularity the team was sold to the fukuoka baseball corporation and were renamed into the taiheio club lions after a couple more name changes today the team is known as the saitama cebu lions as for the auto racing aspect of this scandal authorities became aware of at least 30 racers being involved in race fixing throughout the duration of the scandal since there were about 120 racers that raced at the two main race tracks at the time this meant that one in four racers were involved in the scandal although not everyone who was accused ended up playing a part in the scandal in october 1970 auto racer tokyo hirose one of the best racers in japan was arrested on suspicion of race fixing he spent the next five years in court battles as he said he was wrongly accused instead of racing in his prime he was forced to deal with these accusations in october 1975 five years after his initial arrest he was finally acquitted by an appeals court and was able to return to racing although not every story has to be doom and gloom taking a page out of my stark raving sports book if it wasn't for this scandal pitcher osamu higashiyo would not have flourished into the star pitcher he eventually became in 1968 higashiyo was the first overall pick by the nishitatsu lions however in his first pro season in 1969 he lost confidence due to his poor performances he even thought about becoming a hitter however because of the pitcher shortage the lions faced as the result of multiple bands and suspensions higashiya was forced to stay in the rotation it didn't take long for him to find success in fact as the result of a very successful 20-year career he was inducted into the japanese baseball hall of fame in 2010 and this all happened because of the banishments of three of his teammates with the most notable of these players being pitcher masaki ikinaga and let me tell you ike naga's story did not end with his ban at the time ikinaga was 23 years old and was in his sixth season of his pro career when he was banned in his rookie season at just the age of 18 ikinaga was dominating hitters there's a reason akio masuda and yoshinobu yoda were upset on learning about their teammates demise the game of baseball was losing a very special talent keep in mind while ikanaga did accept 1 million yen he never used it and never attempted to intentionally lose a game tsutomo tanaka the player who gave ikinaga the money said that he knew ikanaga would never accept but he was told to give ikanaga the money anyway also tanaka who seemed to orchestrate many deals across the league was never officially banned by the league like ikinaga but he was basically blacklisted from ever playing again still that's pretty unfair and plenty of people thought the same thing after his banishment ikinaga ran a bar in fukuoka city and fans would stop by and write encouraging comments on bathroom walls over time relatives former teammates and others launched a campaign to have ikinaga's banishment lifted after the lions were sold in 1972 new team president naga yoshi nakamura and yakult adam's owner naomi matsuzono proposed lifting ikanaga's ban at an owner's meeting but nothing came of it the next mention of lifting ikinaga's ban didn't come for another 25 years in 1997 a petition was submitted to commissioner ichiro yoshikuni to reinstate ikinaga just a quick note remember how there used to be three commissioners in npb well after the scandal the league moved to a single commissioner model anyway hiromori kawashima the man who succeeded yoshikuni as commissioner in 1998 rejected this petition later the ikinaga restoration association was formed and they planned to file a complaint with the human rights committee of the japan federation of bar associations basically saying that continuing the punishment would be a human rights issue however ikonaga was reluctant to this sentiment although a new opportunity in 2001 would arise but not in the way you may think in 2001 the newly established professional baseball masters league was in its inaugural season this league seemed to be an off-season league dedicated to former players reliving their old glory days well ikanaga was approached by the fukuoka team to be a pitcher he accepted and for the first time in 31 years ikanaga was on a pitching mound and it didn't take long for more good news to come ikinaga's way four years later in 2005 amendments were made to the misconduct and punishment section of the npb baseball agreement with this new set of rules players who had been banned permanently for 15 years would be allowed to return to the baseball world upon the player's request and upon the commissioner's judgment of the player's character development after the new rules came into effect ikanaga applied for reinstatement and was reinstated on april 25th 2005. after 35 years and at the age of 58 ikanaga was reinstated into professional baseball [Music] it's a shame that ikanaga never got to live the hall of fame career he was destined to have but he's turned that negative into a positive as he's still involved in japanese baseball today [Music] in japan the black mist scandal is talked about in the same vein as the black sock scandal in the sense that the baseball cultures in both countries reference these scandals whenever a new one pops up during the chaos of the astros scandal we wondered how it would shape up against the black sox scandal in 2015 when three yomiuri giants players were banned indefinitely for gambling on professional and high school games articles of the scandal said it wasn't comparable to the black mist scandal but when you take a step back you have to wonder why do we care let's think about it the black mist scandal is the biggest scandal in japanese baseball history but it's actually not the only black mist scandal in japan's history in the 1960s there was a scandal that involved prime minister isaku sato in which it was said that bribery surrounded politics like a black mist hence the term black mist scandal but if you asked a person off the street in japan to say what the black mist scandal was they would likely reference the baseball scandal why do we care about the sports scandals more than the political scandals that could actually affect our well-being well isaac meyer of the history of japan podcast i think puts it best and i'm going to paraphrase as best as possible we turn to sports as an escape from everyday life we form attachments to players teams and the sport itself when some sort of cheating scandal comes to fruition it opens you back up to the real world the pureness of the game is ruined we expect politicians to be dirty but not our sports teams at least not to the extent of politicians i couldn't imagine what it was like to be an astros fan during that whole ordeal watching your team win their first championship only to find out it was tainted i couldn't imagine how that felt as a fan this is only an example of one team imagine finding out players from the majority of teams in a league treat the country's most popular sport as nothing more than a selfish opportunity at the expense of others hard work and loyalty this is why these sports scandals are ingrained in people's minds despite how long ago they might have been like a movie or tv show we are invested in the journeys of these players and teams and when the real world shines its ugly head something is taken away from the game but like masaki ikonaga all we can do is learn to live with the circumstances and try to turn the situation into a positive [Music] [Music] before i end this video i want to shout out the history of japan podcast from isaac meyer i learned of the existence of the black mist scandal in late 2020 and without myers podcast episode on the scandal kickstarting my research into the topic i might not be releasing this video so check out his podcast if you're interested in other facets of japanese history also if you're interested in japanese baseball but don't speak the language like myself check out these youtube channels dedicated to japanese baseball also if you haven't seen the star craving sports video on japanese baseball go check that out as well alright i hope you guys enjoyed the video leave a like if you did and subscribe for more content just like this thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: SportStorm

Views: 24,777

Keywords: sports scandal, baseball scandal, npb, japan baseball, Japan, japanese baseball, japanese baseball scandal, black mist scandal, biggest scandal ever, japans biggest baseball scandal ever, sportstorm, scandal, baseball, sports cheating, sports cheaters, baseball cheaters

Id: 5-ljNPw115E

Length: 37min 35sec (2255 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/brewserweight]

I feel like this is a pro wrestling angle with Tajiri’s green mist…

[u/LimeSugar]

1919 White Sox: hold my beer