Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame catcher and renowned manager Katsuya Nomura died of ischemic heart failure early Tuesday morning, according to the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, the last club he managed. He was 84.
Nomura was one of NPB's greatest slugging catchers, amassing 657 home runs, 1,988 RBIs and 2,901 hits in 3,017 games over 26 seasons spent mostly with the Hawks, currently known as the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
In 1965, he became the first NPB batter to win the Triple Crown in the postwar era.