Yomiuri manager Shinnosuke Abe was arrested on suspicion of assault on May 25, 2026, and resigned the next day. On June 15 prosecutors decided not to indict him, and on October 11 the club was reported to have asked him to return. This article sets out the quick first response and the unexplained return request from news reports and club statements.
In June 2020, the Yomiuri Giants announced the PCR positives of Hayato Sakamoto and Takumi Oshiro as "slightly positive," a non-medical term, and the expert who had used it explained five days later. In July 2022, 81 people tested positive in 12 days and six games against Chunichi and DeNA were postponed. A look at how the club and the rules explained both.
Since 1943, every Yomiuri manager has been a former Yomiuri player. The 2005 approach to an outsider, Senichi Hoshino, collapsed amid opposition from club alumni and threatening letters. In 2015 the club settled on its star Yoshinobu Takahashi, still an active player, as manager the same day Tatsunori Hara announced his exit, and Takahashi retired to take the job. This article traces the custom and the two decisions through club statements and first-hand accounts.
In November 2011, Yomiuri GM Hidetoshi Kiyotake held a press conference exposing owner Tsuneo Watanabe interference in coaching staff decisions.
On October 21, 1980, Yomiuri announced the "resignation" of manager Shigeo Nagashima after a third-place finish. The decision was made not by the club owner but by Yomiuri Shimbun president Mitsuo Mutai, breaking a public promise to keep him.
On March 14, 2016, NPB disclosed that since 2012 many Yomiuri first-team players had exchanged cash in the pregame huddle: the shouter collected ¥5,000 per player after a win and paid ¥1,000 to each after a loss. No penalty followed.
In 2012, reports revealed Yomiuri manager Tatsunori Hara had paid 100 million yen to an organized crime associate over a personal scandal.
Tsuneo Watanabe, chairman of the Yomiuri Group, wielded unprecedented power over NPB through media dominance and political maneuvering.
The NPB Commissioner should be baseball's highest authority, but in reality serves merely as a rubber stamp for the owners' meeting.