The Short Answer - A Suspension With No End Date Lasted Nine Days, and Yomiuri Registered Him the Next Day
On August 20, 2021, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters sent Sho Nakata to the Yomiuri Giants in a trade for nothing. The deal was made under Article 105 of the Professional Baseball Agreement, and no player came back in return. On the same day, the suspension Nippon-Ham had imposed on August 11 was lifted. The suspension had been issued "for the time being" and set no end date.
Nakata used violence against a teammate on August 4, so the trade came 16 days later. Nine days passed between the suspension and its lifting.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| August 4 | Uses violence against a teammate behind the bench before the game; ordered off the ballpark during the game and confined to his home |
| August 11 | Nippon-Ham announces a suspension "for the time being" |
| August 16 | Manager Hideki Kuriyama says it would be "difficult on this team"; that night he calls manager Tatsunori Hara |
| August 20 | Trade agreed with no players in return; suspension lifted (nine days after it began) |
| August 21 | Yomiuri registers him; he appears as a pinch hitter (the day after the lifting) |
| August 22 | Starts batting fifth at first base and hits a two-run home run (two days after the lifting) |
A suspension imposed without an end date was ended by a trade agreement with Yomiuri. In effect, the decision on when the punishment would stop was made by the club that acquired him. Giving a player another chance is any club's prerogative, but whether to put him in a first-team game within the same month was Yomiuri's call, and Yomiuri chose to register him the next day and start him two days later.
The Incident and Nippon-Ham's Punishment - A Suspension With No Set End
On August 4, 2021, before an exhibition game against DeNA in Hakodate, the 32-year-old Nakata used violence against a teammate behind the bench. He had started the game batting cleanup and hit a go-ahead RBI double in the first inning, but he was replaced from the second inning on defense, ordered to leave the ballpark during the game, and confined to his home.
Nippon-Ham announced its punishment on August 11. The club said the teammate involved had asked that the matter not be made into a big issue and that Nakata deeply regretted it, but it still found that he had violated Article 17 (exemplary conduct) of the Uniform Players Contract and fell under Article 60 (1) of the Professional Baseball Agreement. The penalty barred him "for the time being" from every first-team and minor-league game, and NPB posted the suspension the same day. The club's statement said that "violence is never acceptable in any society" and described Nakata as "the face of the club," someone who should set an example for every player.
At a news conference that day, Koji Kawamura, the club president and acting owner, explained that the teammate bore no fault, that Nakata had lost his temper on impulse and lashed out, that the violence was not severe enough to affect the teammate's play, and that the two had originally been on good terms. Nakata was allowed to work out on his own at club facilities but was barred from team practice and from wearing the uniform. He did not attend the news conference.
On August 16, manager Hideki Kuriyama spoke about the matter for the first time, ruled out a return to the first team that year, and said it would be "difficult on this team." Earlier that year, on April 7 against SoftBank, Nakata had broken his bat in the dugout after striking out, drawing sharp words from Kuriyama.
The Move to Yomiuri - Kuriyama's Phone Call and a Trade With No Players in Return
According to Sports Hochi, on the night of August 16 Kuriyama called Yomiuri manager Tatsunori Hara directly for advice, and Hara worked it out with Yomiuri's club executives, which led to the acquisition. The paper's headline relaying Hara's feelings carried the words "he should be given another chance."
On August 20, both clubs announced that they had agreed on a trade. The normal trade deadline is July 31, but because of the break for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, NPB and the 12 clubs had agreed to extend it to August 31.
That morning Nakata held a news conference at Yomiuri's club office. He appeared with his blond hair dyed black and his beard shaved off. He opened by saying, "I truly regret that I caused so much trouble for everyone this time," spoke of his remorse at having betrayed the fans, and apologized: "I am sorry." He was given uniform number 10, and in the afternoon he joined the first team's practice.
The Reaction - A Poll Split Almost Evenly and Calls for Accountability
Three points drew the most argument: that it was a trade for nothing, with no players in return; that Nippon-Ham's suspension ended after nine days and Nakata went straight into first-team games for Yomiuri; and that no apology news conference led by Nippon-Ham was ever held.
In an emergency poll on Twitter run by Sports Nippon, 31.8 % voted in favor and 31.3 % against, an almost even split (a Twitter poll by a single outlet). The news site iza! reported that his immediate return to the field had stirred strong opinions on both sides, and also reported that no club flag was displayed at his introductory news conference. On September 8, Tokyo Sports Web ran an article questioning Nippon-Ham's accountability.
Nippon-Ham's statement said "for the time being," and the iza! headline phrase "an 'indefinite suspension from games' of just nine days" was the press's own wording.
How Yomiuri punished its own players for misconduct is covered in our article on the 2015 gambling scandal.
Two Years and Three Months at Yomiuri - Leaving in a Way That Brought No Compensation
In 2021 Nakata played 34 games for Yomiuri, batting .154 with three home runs and seven RBIs. On September 11, when he was hitting .150 over 16 games since the trade, he was sent down and coached in the minors by lifetime honorary manager Shigeo Nagashima and minor-league manager Shinnosuke Abe. He returned on September 21 but was sent down again on October 1. On October 12 he was called back up again. In the Climax Series he appeared twice as a pinch hitter, and on November 12 he made the final out of the Final Stage elimination game on a swinging strikeout. At contract renewal he took a 56 % pay cut (¥190 million), beyond the normal limit on reductions, to an estimated salary of ¥150 million.
In 2022 he played 109 games, batting .269 with 24 home runs and 68 RBIs. He did not reach the qualifying number of plate appearances, but his RBI total ranked second on the team. On August 11 he became the club's 91st cleanup hitter, on August 23 he reached 1,000 career RBIs as the 47th player in NPB history to do so, and on November 14 he won the Golden Glove at first base. That offseason he signed a three-year contract at an estimated ¥300 million a year, with an opt-out clause that allowed the contract to be reviewed or terminated partway through.
In 2023 he played 92 games, batting .255 with 15 home runs and 37 RBIs. On August 6 he hit his 300th career home run, the 45th player in NPB history to do so, but while he was out in May with a strained right hamstring, rookie Makoto Kadowaki settled in at third base and Kazuma Okamoto moved to first. New manager Shinnosuke Abe laid out an infield plan for the following year with Okamoto at first, Hayato Sakamoto at third and Kadowaki at shortstop. Nakata did not file to exercise his international free-agent rights by the November 14 deadline, and on November 15 he used his opt-out to terminate the contract, becoming a free agent by release. According to Sports Hochi headline, the club had sought a trade but respected his strong wish to be released. A move made by exercising free-agent rights can, depending on the player's ranking, require the new club to give the old one player or cash compensation (see the Yomiuri Giants' free-agent problem for how this works), but a move after release requires neither. Yomiuri let him go in a way that brought it no compensation, two years and three months after acquiring him.
On December 6 Nakata signed with the Chunichi Dragons (a two-year contract at an estimated ¥300 million or so a year, uniform number 6), and in 2024 he played 62 games, batting .217 with four home runs and 21 RBIs. On August 15, 2025 he announced he would retire at the end of that season, his farewell game came on September 19 against Yakult, and on October 10 he was listed as a voluntarily retired player. Taken in the first round of the 2007 high school draft out of Osaka Toin, he long served as the cleanup hitter for Nippon-Ham, and over 17 NPB seasons he totaled 1,784 games, 1,579 hits, 309 home runs and 1,087 RBIs with a .248 batting average.
How to Read This and Its Limits
The teammate involved has not been named, and this article does not deal with that question. What can be said about the violence itself goes only as far as Nippon-Ham's explanation at its news conference.
Hara's words are quoted only as they appeared in Sports Hochi headline. This article has not confirmed what explanation, if any, Yomiuri gave in its trade announcement. "For nothing" means that no players came back in return; whether any money changed hands is not known. Nor is it known what internal deliberations at Nippon-Ham led to the trade.