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February 20, 1936 – June 3, 2025 was a Japanese professional professional baseball player and manager. Nicknamed "Mr. Pro Baseball" of Japan and "Mr. Giants", Nagashima first began playing baseball in elementary school, before playing at his high school in Chiba Prefecture before playing as a third baseman for Rikkyo University. After winning the batting title for two straight years in the Tokyo Big6 Baseball League, he made his professional debut in 1958 with the Yomiuri Giants after signing with them months prior. In his rookie season, he led the league in home runs and runs batted in, with 29 and 92 respectively, and ultimately received rookie of the year honors. Nagashima and Sadaharu Oh would later become a dual force in being the best hitters in the game, in which Nagashima won the season MVP award five times. After retiring in 1974, he became the manager of the Giants from 1975 to 1980, and again from 1993 to 2001; during this time, he won the Japan Series twice.
Nagashima is regarded as a beloved national figure of postwar Japan, on par with Hibari Misora and Yujiro Ishihara. His bright personality endeared him to the Japanese people, extending beyond the Giants and professional baseball.
By his senior year, scouts from every professional team wanted to sign Nagashima, and the Nankai Hawks and Hiroshima Carp were particularly active in recruiting Nagashima. However, he instead signed with the Giants in 1958 for 18,000,000 yen, the highest salary for a baseball player at the time.
Nagashima played perhaps his most well-known game on June 25, 1959, when the Japanese emperor Hirohito attended a baseball game for the first time. Nagashima hit the game-winning home run off Minoru Murayama, and rookie Sadaharu Oh also had a home run in the game. The Yomiuri Giants cleanup consisting of Oh batting third, and Nagashima batting fourth, were nicknamed the "ON Hou" (translated to: "Oh-Nagashima Cannon") as Nagashima continued his hitting prowess, and Oh emerged as the best hitter in the league. The Giants won the league championship nine years in a row from 1965 to 1973, and Oh and Nagashima dominated the batting titles during this period. Nagashima won the season MVP award five times, and the Best Nine Award every single year of his career (a total 17 times). As a result of his dominant performances with the Giants, he was nicknamed "Mr. Pro Baseball" of Japan and "Mr. Giants".
After winning his sixth batting title in 1971, Nagashima suddenly fell into a hitting slump and no longer posted the batting statistics he had previous achieved in his younger years. The team wanted Nagashima to take over as manager after Tetsuharu Kawakami, who had led the team for 14 years, and Nagashima doubled as a player and a coach in his final seasons. In 1974, the Chunichi Dragons won the league championship, breaking the nine-year streak held by the Giants, and Nagashima played his final game on October 14 against the Dragons, grounding out to short for a double-play in his last at-bat. The game was followed by an elaborate retirement ceremony.
The Giants lost the pennant to the Yakult Swallows in 1978, and in the off-season of the same year, Nagashima and the Giants were involved in a huge controversy concerning the drafting of pitcher Suguru Egawa. The Giants ended in fifth place in 1979 with a 58–62 record. Criticism towards Nagashima increased, the team's owners decided to fire Nagashima during the 1980 season. Nagashima's immense popularity caused controversy among the fans after his firing, and the Yomiuri Shimbun experienced a significant decrease in publications after Nagashima's firing, with some people angered at its "misreporting" of the situation.
Nagashima returned to the Yomiuri Giants for the 1993 season, when Tsuneo Watanabe became the new owner of the team in 1996 (Watanabe had a long-lasting affiliation with Nagashima). In the 1992 draft, he won the lottery to sign Hideki Matsui, who would become the new star of the Giants during Nagashima's second run as manager. The Giants won the Central League Pennant in 1994, 1996, and 2000, winning the Japan Series in 1994 and 2000, and he managed the team until 2001. For the 2000 Japan Series, Nagashima was managing against his former teammate, Sadaharu Oh, who was the manager for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks.
In 2002, it was announced that he would lead the Japanese Olympic baseball team. The team (consisting entirely of players from the Japanese professional leagues) beat China, Taiwan, and Korea to win the Asia tournament in November 2003, but Nagashima suffered a stroke in March 2004, and was unable to travel to the Athens Olympics. The team ended up with a bronze medal in the Olympics after losing to Australia.
His jersey number (3) is now a retired number for the Yomiuri Giants. Hiragana Times, "'Mr. Baseball' – The Legendary Uniform #3", Volume #294, April 2011, pp. 26–29.
On May 5, 2013, Nagashima was awarded the People's Honour Award, alongside Hideki Matsui whom he had picked in the 1992 draft. In 2021, he received the Order of Culture for the first time as a former professional baseball player. Nagashima was one of the torchbearers at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
On September 7, 2022, Nagashima was hospitalized after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He died from pneumonia in Tokyo, on June 3, 2025, at the age of 89. He received a private funeral in Tokyo on June 7.
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