Michio Nishizawa

Michio Nishizawa is one of those guys I keep coming back to when I think about how much Japanese baseball has changed — born in 1921, standing a full 182 centimeters in an era when that would have made you look like an absolute giant on the diamond, a Nihon University man who carved his way through wartime and postwar Japan and still ended up in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He went from a tall fastball pitcher before the war to a slugging first baseman after it, became the first "Mr. Dragons," and won the Central League's first Best Nine at first base, and that Hall of Fame plaque tells you everything you need to know: somebody who watched him play decided his name had to survive. He died at 56, which is way too young, and there's something quietly moving about the fact that a guy who never had social media, never had a highlight reel, is still here in a database today. The dusty Showa-era ballpark version of this man deserves a respectful nod.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Michio Nishizawa (September 1, 1921 – December 18, 1977) was a Japanese professional baseball player born in Tokyo. Standing 182 cm tall, he studied at Nihon University before embarking on his baseball career. He was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, cementing his legacy as one of the significant figures of his era in the sport.

Name (English)

Michio Nishizawa

Name (Japanese)

西沢道夫

Reading

にしざわ みちお

Born

September 1, 1921 – December 18, 1977

Origin

Tokyo, Japan

Height

182 cm

Occupation

Baseball player

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Rooster

University

Nihon University

Awards & achievements

• Baseball Hall of Fame (year unknown)

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A5%BF%E6%B2%A2%E9%81%93%E5%A4%AB
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6837927

Tags

• From Tokyo
• Baseball player

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.