was a professional baseball player for the Osaka Tigers (later Hanshin Tigers) in

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 ...

. His number ''11'' is retired with the Tigers. A pitcher with Hanshin from 1959 to 1972, he recorded a career 2.09 ERA and 192 career complete games to go with 222 wins. Hall of Famer.

Early life

He was born on October 12, 1936 in Kita-ku, Kobe, Hyōgo. He played baseball at Sumitomo Technological High School. He was on to

Kansai University , abbreviated as or , is a private non-sectarian and coeducational university with its main campus in Suita, Osaka, Japan and two sub-campuses in Sakai and Takatsuki, Osaka. Founded as Kansai Law School in 1886, It has been recognized as one o ...

School of Commerce in 1950. He won the championship on All Japan Universities baseball championship in his sophomore at Kansai University. became a member of the Osaka Hanshin Tigers in 1959.

Career

As a rookie in 1959, Murayama pitched in 54 games, recording 19 complete games in 26 starts. He was 18-10 that season with a microscopic 1.19 ERA to lead the league and also win the first

Eiji Sawamura Award The , commonly known as the Sawamura Award, is an honor bestowed upon the top starting pitcher in Nippon Professional Baseball each year. The award was originally established by Japanese magazine "Nekkyū" in 1947 to honor the career of Eiji Sawa ...

of his career. It also ended

Masaichi Kaneda was a Japanese professional baseball pitcher of Zainichi Korean origin, one of the best-known pitchers in Japanese baseball history, and is the only Japanese pitcher to have won 400 games. He was inducted in the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in ...

's run of three consecutive Sawamura Awards won. Murayama would match Kaneda's total of three Sawamura Awards over the course of his career, winning it outright in 1965 and sharing the award in 1966 with Tsuneo Horiuchi, the first time in the award's history that it had co-winners. The Sawamura would not have co-winners again until 2003, when Hanshin's

Kei Igawa is a former Japanese left-handed pitcher. He played for the Hanshin Tigers and Orix Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB). He led all pitchers in the Central League for strikeouts in ...

and Kazumi Saitoh of Daiei shared the award. During his career as a player, his team, the Osaka Hanshin Tigers won the Central League Championship two times, 1962 and 1964. Although he was a player for the team, he became manager for the Osaka Hanshin Tigers from 1970 to 1972. He retired after 1972 season. His Number 11 was retired by the Osaka Hanshin Tigers. He had been a commentator for baseball for a long time. Again, he became manager for the Osaka Hanshin Tigers in 1988 and 1989. People have said that he was " Mr. Tigers" since his retirement. He was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993, then just five years later, he died due to rectal cancer at the age of only 61.

Individual records

Career *Wins : 222 *Losses : 147 *Strikeouts : 2274 *ERA : 2.09

Titles

*MVP : 1 time (1962) *Most wins : 2 times (1965, 1966) *Best ERA : 3 times (1959, 1962, 1970) *Most strikeouts : 2 times (1965, 1966) *Best winning percentage : 1 time (1970) *Sawamura Award : 3 times (1959, 1965, 1966) *Best Nine Award : 3 times (1962, 1965, 1966)

Books

*The apart from Back Number 11, Kobunsha, 1973

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Murayama, Minoru 1936 births 1998 deaths Baseball people from Kobe Sportspeople from Amagasaki Kansai University alumni Japanese baseball players Osaka Tigers players Hanshin Tigers players Nippon Professional Baseball MVP Award winners Managers of baseball teams in Japan Hanshin Tigers managers Baseball player-managers Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame inductees