KYODO NEWS - Jul 2, 2017 - 17:23 | Sports, All

Toshiharu Ueda, who as manager led the Hankyu Braves (now Orix Buffaloes) to three consecutive Japan Series titles in the 1970s, died in the early hours of Saturday morning aged 80, his former club the Nippon Ham Fighters announced Sunday.

Ueda died at a hospital in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, where he had been battling pneumonia.

Ueda began his professional playing career after joining the Hiroshima Carp in 1959 but never shined, retiring after three seasons before working as a coach from 1962 with Hiroshima and then Hankyu.

"The owner told me at that time (of my release) that they had signed me as a player because they saw a future coach in me," Ueda said in a 2014 interview with Kyodo News.

He became Hankyu manager in 1974 before steering the team to three Japan Series championships from 1975 to 1977. The path to his first Japan Series title in 1975 saw Ueda beat his former mentor, Kintetsu Buffaloes manager Yukio Nishimoto, in the Pacific League playoffs before defeating his old team, the Carp -- managed by his former teammate Takeshi Koba -- in the Series.

His ace pitcher during those years, Hisashi Yamada, said Ueda would be transformed by a game of baseball.

"He was normally a warm person, but he would become severe and heated when it came to baseball," said Yamada, a submarine right-hander who also made his way to Japan's Hall of Fame.

Ueda resigned as manager over an incident in Game 7 of the Japan Series in 1978 in which he took the blame for a protest involving a home run which delayed the contest between Hankyu and the Yakult Swallows for 79 minutes.

Ueda pulled his team off the field in protest, forcing the PL to adopt a rule that declared any such future action an automatic forfeit.

His second stint with Hankyu/Orix lasted 10 years from 1981. Ueda then skippered Nippon Ham for five years from 1995.

"I wasn't going to manage again, but the owner called and said I was the only one and I just couldn't turn him down," Ueda said.

He won five league championships altogether in his 20-year career as a manager. Ueda compiled a record of 1,322 wins against 1,136 losses and 116 ties with the Hankyu/Orix and Nippon Ham.

He was inducted into the Japanese Hall of Fame in 2003.