Jirō Noguchi

(January 6, 1920 – May 21, 2007) In 1942, Noguchi appeared in 66 games, throwing a total of innings.

In 1943, Akira Noguchi returned to pro baseball (this time as an infielder/catcher), joining Jirō on the team. (Two other Noguchi brothers briefly played in the JBL: Noboru [b. 1922, d. 1945] with the Hanshin Baseball Club, and Wataru [b. 1926], who played for Kinki Nihon.) Noguchi went 25–12 with a 1.45 ERA in 1943, also hitting .253. Despite finishing with a .513 winning percentage in 1943, Nishitetsu was dissolved after the season. By this time, Noguchi had been drafted by the military to serve in World War II.

Hankyu When the league returned after the war in 1946, Jirō and Akira joined the Hankyu Club, which a year later became the Hankyu Braves. (Altogether, Jirō and Akira played five years as teammates in the JBL.) In 1946, Jirō Noguchi had a 31-game hitting streak, a record which stood until 1971 (when it was broken by Tokuji Nagaike). Noguchi hit .298 overall, finishing ninth in the league in batting average. He was 13-14 for Hankyu with a 2.67 ERA, good for fifth in the league.

In 1947, Noguchi had his sixth 20-win season at 24–17 with a 2.26 ERA. In 1948, Noguchi was 14–16 with a 2.94 ERA and hit .261; he also stole 18 bases in 22 attempts. That year he set a record with 13 complete games that featured no bases on balls.

In 1950, the JBL reorganized into Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB); Noguchi stayed with Hankyu, playing into the 1953 season. His final notable year as a pitcher was 1950 when he went 15–9, finishing sixth in the Pacific League division in ERA with a 3.16 mark; he also hit .259.

Retirement and legacy Noguchi retired after the 1953 season, later working as a minor league manager for the Kintetsu Buffaloes, and as a coach for the Hankyu Braves and Mainichi Orions.

For his career, Noguchi went 237–139 with a career 1.96 ERA, walking 647 and striking out 1,395 in innings. He hit .248 with 9 career home runs and 368 runs batted in. He is second all-time in Japanese baseball in career ERA (behind Hideo Fujimoto) and still ranks very high in a number of career pitching records, including victories, complete games, shutouts, walkless complete games, and innings pitched. Baseball guru Jim Albright ranks Noguchi as number 12 on his list of the greatest players in Japanese baseball history.

Noguchi was elected by the Selection Committee for Players to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989. He died in Takarazuka, Hyōgo, on May 21, 2007, at age 87.