How Yomiuri Picks Its Managers - The Homegrown-Only Custom, the 2015 Request to Active Player Yoshinobu Takahashi to Manage, and the Failed Approach to Senichi Hoshino in 2005

The Answer - Every Manager Since 1943 Played for Yomiuri

The Homegrown-Only Custom - A Habit, Not a Written Rule

The club's earliest years were different. The first manager, Daisuke Miyake, and Asanuma, the manager at the club's formation, are said never to have directed a pennant race, and Sadayoshi Fujimoto, who first took charge in 1936, is said not to have been a professional player. From Haruyasu Nakajima in 1943 onward, Hideo Fujimoto, Osamu Mihara, Shigeru Mizuhara, Tetsuharu Kawakami, Shigeo Nagashima, Motoshi Fujita, Sadaharu Oh, Tatsunori Hara, Tsuneo Horiuchi, Yoshinobu Takahashi and Shinnosuke Abe all played for Yomiuri. How Nagashima's first term ended in 1980 is covered in The 1980 Dismissal of Shigeo Nagashima.

The custom is not written into any club rule, yet from 1943 through the 2024 appointment it was never broken, and the press has called it "pure-blood policy." Examples of foreign managers are left to Foreign Managers in NPB.

2015, Takahashi Yoshinobu - An Active Player Chosen on the Day of His Predecessor's Exit

On October 19, 2015, manager Tatsunori Hara held a press conference to announce his departure. Owner Kojiro Shiraishi said there that the new manager would need to bring "a fresh start and a new wind," and at the introductory press conference a week later he revealed that "I made the final judgment that same day that Takahashi was the only one who fit those conditions." That season Takahashi, a player-coach, appeared in 77 games, batting .278 with 5 home runs and 21 RBI. His career totals were 1,819 games, a .291 average and 321 home runs.

On the afternoon of October 23, Takahashi met Tsuneo Watanabe, the club's director and supreme adviser, and Shiraishi, and told them he would accept the offer. The two men were also chairman and president of the parent company, the Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings. The club announced the same day that Takahashi had accepted, and stated that he would retire as a player at the end of 2015.

At the October 26 introductory press conference, the club called Takahashi "the 14th manager of the Yomiuri Giants." Shiraishi said, "I am convinced that Takahashi is the young leader who can lift a team that is, if anything, on a downward curve. The front office and the newspaper will back him with everything we have." Takahashi said he had felt "I could still play," but added, "For the club to ask me, an active player, to manage shows it has made a serious commitment. I made my decision with the same resolve. I have no experience as a coach yet, but I don't think I can move forward without strong resolve." Shigeo Nagashima, the honorary manager for life, Tatsunori Hara, Sadaharu Oh and others told him to "go ahead and do it," and Hideki Matsui encouraged him: "It's a great thing. If there's anything I can do, I'll help, so just give it your best." Nagashima sent a message saying that Takahashi had "set himself aside and made an admirable decision for the team."

He kept his playing number, 24. Appointed at 40, he was in the same age range as Tetsuharu Kawakami (40) and Shigeo Nagashima (39), and in 2016 he was the youngest manager among the 12 clubs. His teams finished 2nd in 2016 (71-69-3), 4th in 2017 (72-68-3) and 3rd in 2018 (67-71-5), and in 2019 Tatsunori Hara returned for a third term. Contract lengths and exits before term are covered in How Long Are NPB Managers' Contracts?

2005, the Approach to Hoshino Senichi - An Outsider Proposed Amid Losing and Falling Ratings

Yomiuri finished 3rd in the league in 2004, but the average audience rating of its TV broadcasts fell to 12.2% (Video Research, Kanto region), the lowest on record. The 2005 season opened with four straight losses, and by late April the club was in last place. Manager Tsuneo Horiuchi was in the second year of a three-year contract. Takuo Takihana, the owner at the time, recalls: "One factor was the team's poor play, and the other was the slump in ratings. We had to break out of that situation. The next manager needed to be someone with that kind of energy."

In mid-July 2005, at a dinner between club chairman Tsuneo Watanabe and Seiichiro Ujiie, chairman of the board of Nippon Television and an adviser to the club, Senichi Hoshino's name came up: "What about Hoshino?" Hoshino had stepped down as Hanshin manager at the end of 2003 and stayed on with Hanshin as a senior director attached to the owner. The idea emerged while even a foreign manager was under consideration, and the Sports Hochi notes that no outsider from another club had ever managed Yomiuri. Hoshino's career as a manager is covered in Senichi Hoshino the Fighting General.

Takihana said, "What Watanabe and Ujiie had in mind was winning the pennant and raising ratings and attendance," and said that none of the three of them, Watanabe, Ujiie and himself, had been thinking about a pure-blood policy. Takihana met Hoshino five times over roughly a month.

2005, Opposition and Withdrawal - Alumni Statements and Threatening Letters

On August 11, 2005, some media reported that Hoshino was the leading candidate for the job, and the talks became public. Alumni such as Tatsuro Hirooka and Masaichi Kaneda issued statements of opposition in evening tabloids and elsewhere. Hirooka told Shukan Jitsuwa (September 15, 2005 issue): "Ignoring alumni like that and handing it to an outsider is, for a company, the same as going bankrupt. It is a real disgrace." Masaaki Mori asked in Shukan Post (September 9 issue) whether a manager was now expected to bring popularity and buzz rather than the ability to win, and said that unless the front office studied harder, it would make no difference who the manager was. Hiromi Makihara wrote in Asahi Geino (September 8 issue) that he wanted a manager chosen from homegrown alumni, and Isao Harimoto said in Sports Nippon (September 12) that building the organization around homegrown managers was best.

Fans posted objections on Hoshino's website, and threatening letters arrived. On September 1, at a hotel in Tokyo, Hoshino told Takihana that the manager question was difficult, that even threatening letters were coming, and that he wanted to declare at the right moment that he would not go to Yomiuri, and so he withdrew. On September 10 he held a press conference in Osaka, announced that he would stay with Hanshin, and said, "Many fans are telling me to stay. In my own way, I have to give an answer." The night before, he had told a Hochi reporter by phone, "It was a nice dream while it lasted..." Tatsunori Hara returned as the next manager.

His withdrawal cannot be put down to alumni opposition alone. What Hoshino himself cited were the threatening letters and the fans asking him to stay, and on September 10 he announced that he would remain with Hanshin as senior director. Even so, Number Web writes that the episode made the view that "the manager should be homegrown" explicit among alumni and fans.

Assessment - A Custom Without a Rule Narrows the Pool of Managers

Yomiuri's "homegrown only" is a custom, not a written rule. A rule can be debated and revised, but a custom whose author is unclear has no procedure for changing it. Restricting candidates to the club's own alumni narrows the pool of managerial talent accordingly. That is the difference from clubs that have entrusted the job to foreign managers.

The 2015 appointment put the club's own needs, a "fresh start," first. It settled on the next manager the very day of Hara's departure announcement and asked an active star with little coaching experience to manage, and Takahashi retired to take the job. The results over three years were 2nd, 4th and 3rd, and Hara came back in 2019. Having limited candidates to alumni, the club also rushed the decision and did not take the step of letting someone gain experience as a coach before handing over the team. The question is not Takahashi's ability but the way the club makes its personnel decisions.

In 2005, the club executives' judgment, focused on winning and ratings, collided head-on with the alumni's value of homegrown managers, and the alumni prevailed. Every manager appointed from 2006 to 2024, Hara, Takahashi, Hara and Abe, was a homegrown star. Since even the executives' plan did not go through, changing the custom would require the club to state as policy where it chooses its managers from.

How to Read This Article and Its Limits

The facts in this article come from two Yomiuri Giants announcements, NPB's year-by-year team records and Takahashi's player records, two Sports Hochi articles carrying the accounts of Takuo Takihana and others, and a Number Web article that gives the outlets and issue dates of the alumni's remarks. The original magazine pages with those remarks were not checked. The backgrounds of Daisuke Miyake, Asanuma and Sadayoshi Fujimoto rest on secondary sources, so they are written as "said to be."

How Takahashi's term ended in 2018 is not covered, because no primary source was checked. Hoshino's reasons for declining are limited to his own words and press reports, and the article offers no character sketches of Watanabe or Ujiie and no assessment of any manager's tactics or ability. What it questions is the club's policy on whom it chooses managers from.