The 1988 Japan Series was the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) championship series for the 1988 season. It was the 39th Japan Series and featured the Central League champion Chunichi Dragons against the Pacific League champion Seibu Lions. Chunichi won the Central League pennant by a comfortable 12 games to advance to the championship. However, the representative from the Pacific League was undecided up until 3 days before Game 1 of the Japan Series. Seibu fought neck-and-neck for first place with the Kintetsu Buffaloes over most of the season and finished their regular-season schedule with a 0.5-game advantage over Kintetsu, with Kintetsu having 4 games left to play. On the last day of the season (October 19), Kintetsu had to win both games of an away double-header against the last-place Lotte Orions to claim the PL pennant. Kintetsu won the first game by one run (by scoring one run in the top of the ninth inning), but Lotte forced a comeback tie in the second game, capping a dramatic finish to the season (known to Japanese baseball fans as 10.19) and giving Seibu the PL spot in the Japan Series for the fourth year in a row.

1988 Japan Series
Team (Wins) Manager(s) Season
Seibu Lions (4) Masaaki Mori 73–51–6, .589, GA: 0
Chunichi Dragons (1) Senichi Hoshino 79–46–5, .632, GA: 12
DatesOctober 22–27
MVPHiromichi Ishige (SEI)
FSAMasaru Uno (CHU)
Broadcast
TelevisionTHK (Game 1), CBC (Game 2), TBS (Games 3-4), NHK General TV (Game 4), TV Asahi (Game 5)
RadioNHK Radio 1, TBS (JRN), JOQR (NRN), NBS (NRN), Radio Nippon
← 1987 Japan Series 1989 →

Played at Nagoya Stadium and Seibu Dome, the Lions won the series four games to one, winning the final game on a walk-off base hit by catcher Tsutomu Ito. The 1988 contest was the third in Japan Series history to end on a walk-off (after 1950 and 1965). Seibu shortstop Hiromichi Ishige was named Most Valuable Player of the series. The series was played between October 22 and October 27 with home field advantage going to the Central League.

Summary edit

PL Seibu Lions (4) vs. CL Chunichi Dragons (1)

Game Date Score Location Time Attendance 
1 October 22 Seibu Lions – 5, Chunichi Dragons – 1 Nagoya Stadium 3:03 28,963[1] 
2 October 23 Seibu Lions – 3, Chunichi Dragons – 7 Nagoya Stadium 2:39 28,953[1] 
3 October 25 Chunichi Dragons – 3, Seibu Lions – 4 Seibu Dome 2:30 32,081[1] 
4 October 26 Chunichi Dragons – 0, Seibu Lions – 6 Seibu Dome 2:44 32,261[1] 
5 October 27 Chunichi Dragons – 6, Seibu Lions – 7 Seibu Dome 4:09 32,304[1]

Matchups edit

Game 1 edit

Saturday, October 22, 1988 at Nagoya Stadium, Nagoya, Gifu
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Seibu 0 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 5 9 0
Chunichi 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 7 1
WP: Hisanobu Watanabe (1–0)   LP: Kazuyuki Ono (0–1)   Sv: Osamu Higashio (1)
Home runs:
SEI: None
CHU: Kazuhiro Kiyohara (1), Hiromichi Ishige (1)

Game 2 edit

Sunday, October 23, 1988 at Nagoya Stadium, Nagoya, Gifu
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Seibu 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 3 8 0
Chunichi 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 4 X 7 9 0
WP: Genji Kaku (1–0)   LP: Tai-Yuan Kuo (0–1)
Home runs:
SEI: None
CHU: Yonetoshi Kawamata (1)

Game 3 edit

Tuesday, October 25, 1988 at Seibu Dome, Tokorozawa, Saitama
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Chunichi 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 3 4 2
Seibu 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 X 4 3 0
WP: Kimiyasu Kudoh (1–0)   LP: Masahiro Yamamoto (0–1)
Home runs:
CHU: Toshikatsu Hikono (1), Masaru Uno (1)
SEI: Hiromichi Ishige (2)

Game 4 edit

Wednesday, October 26, 1988 at Seibu Dome, Tokorozawa, Saitama
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Chunichi 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1
Seibu 0 0 2 1 2 0 1 0 X 6 8 0
WP: Ryoji Moriyama (1–0)   LP: Tadashi Sugimoto (0–1)
Home runs:
CHU: None
SEI: Koji Akiyama (1), Kazuhiro Kiyohara (2), Hatsuhiko Tsuji (1)

Game 5 edit

Thursday, October 27, 1988 at Seibu Dome, Tokorozawa, Saitama
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 R H E
Chunichi 1 1 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 6 8 0
Seibu 3 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 7 11 2
WP: Hirohisa Matsunuma (1-0)   LP: Genji Kaku (1–1)
Home runs:
CHU: Masaru Uno (2)
SEI: Kazuhiro Kiyohara (3), Hiromichi Ishige (3)

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e 1988年度日本シリーズ 試合結果 (in Japanese). Nippon Professional Baseball. Retrieved October 30, 2012.

External links edit