(born November 25, 1957) is a retired professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

player and

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

for the

Hanshin Tigers The Hanshin Tigers (Japanese: 阪神タイガース ''Hanshin Taigāsu'') are a Nippon Professional Baseball team playing in the Central League. The team is based in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and is owned by Hanshin Electric Railway ...

Nippon Professional Baseball or NPB is the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , 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 ...

. Okada played, mostly as a second baseman, for the

from to , winning the Central League Rookie of the Year in 1980. In 1993, he was traded to the

Orix BlueWave , styled as ORIX, is a Japanese diversified financial services group headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, and Osaka, Japan. ORIX offers leasing, lending, rentals, life insurance, real estate financing and development, venture capital, investment an ...

. He played there until . He managed the

from 2004 to 2008. He took charge again as manager of Hanshin ahead of the 2023 NPB season. In November 2008, he entered into a contract with the Daily Sports Company as a commentator. In 2009, he appeared on

Asahi Broadcasting Corporation is a certified broadcasting holding company headquartered in Osaka, Japan. Until March 31, 2018, it was a unified radio and television broadcaster serving in the Kansai region. On April 1, 2018, its radio and television broadcasting divisions ...

(ABC,

AM radio AM broadcasting is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions. It was the first method developed for making audio radio transmissions, and is still used worldwide, primarily for medium wave (also known as "AM band") transm ...

Terrestrial TV Terrestrial television or over-the-air television (OTA) is a type of television broadcasting in which the signal transmission occurs via radio waves from the terrestrial (Earth-based) transmitter of a TV station to a TV receiver having an anten ...

), Sky A Sports Plus (

SKY PerfecTV! is a direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service that provides satellite television, audio programming and interactive television services to households in Japan, owned by parent company SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation The SKY Perfect JSAT Group is ...

satellite TV Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna commo ...

) and other broadcasting stations in the Kansai region. Okada returned to the field in 2010, managing the

Orix Buffaloes The are a Nippon Professional Baseball team formed as a result of the 2004 Nippon Professional Baseball realignment by the merger of the Orix BlueWave of Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes of Osaka, Osaka Prefectur ...

from 2010 to 2012.

External links

* 1957 births Living people Baseball people from Osaka Japanese baseball players Nippon Professional Baseball infielders Hanshin Tigers players Orix BlueWave players Nippon Professional Baseball Rookie of the Year Award winners Managers of baseball teams in Japan Hanshin Tigers managers Orix Buffaloes managers {{japan-baseball-manager-stub