Leron Lee, who once hit so poorly he lost the starting right field job with the Cardinals, recovered to become the career batting leader in Japan.
Twenty-three years after he played his last game in Japan and 40 years since he opened the season as the Cardinals’ starting right fielder, Lee still holds the Japanese career batting average record (.320) for players with a minimum of 4,000 at-bats.
A recent Society for American Baseball Research listserv entry referred to a Web site, japanbaseballdaily.com, that has a database of Japan baseball records.
The statistics help round out the story of how Lee revived his career after stumbling with the Cardinals.
Lee, a left-handed-hitting outfielder, was the first-round choice of the Cardinals in the 1966 draft. He began his professional career in 1967 with the Cardinals’ Class A Modesto team, managed by Sparky Anderson. After a terrible start, Lee finished the season with a .297 batting average and 22 home runs.
In a story in the April 18, 1970, edition of The Sporting News, Lee told how Anderson never lost confidence in him.
“Sparky kept me in the lineup and pitched extra batting pratice to me himself,” Lee said.
Lee progressed through the Cardinals’ system. After he hit .303 with 30 doubles, 17 home runs, 96 RBI and 14 steals in 137 games for manager Warren Spahn’s Tulsa Oilers in 1969, Lee went to spring training in 1970 with a chance to make the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster.
He took advantage of the opportunity, hitting .308 with a team-best 12 RBI in spring training. Joe Medwick, the Hall of Fame outfielder and Cardinals minor-league batting instructor, told The Sporting News Lee hit the ball so hard “he made it wave.”
“Lee has been learning how to pick his pitches,” said Cardinals batting coach Dick Sisler. “He hasn’t been swinging at too many bad pitches. And he’s standing back, waiting for the pitch instead of jumping at it.”
When the Cardinals opened the 1970 season on April 8 at Montreal, Lee started in right field and went 1-for-5 with a run scored in St. Louis’ 7-2 victory. Boxscore
Lee was the starting right fielder in the Cardinals’ first 21 games that season (Lou Brock was in left; Jose Cardenal in center). Lee hit .272 in that stretch.
Lee appeared in more games (76) in right field than any other Cardinal in 1970, but he eventually split time with Carl Taylor and Joe Hague as his hitting declined. In 121 games, Lee batted .227 with 6 homers, 23 RBI and a .290 on-base percentage.
In 1971, St. Louis moved Cardenal to right field and went with Matty Alou and then Jose Cruz in center. Lee was relegated to pinch hitting. With his batting average at .171, Lee and pitcher Fred Norman were traded to the Padres on June 11 for pitcher Al Santorini.
Lee’s career statistics as a Cardinal: .222 batting average, .291 on-base percentage, 7 homers and 25 RBI. At age 23, he was a bust.
Lee played for the Padres, Indians and Dodgers before getting released by Los Angeles on Nov. 2, 1976.
At that time, most Americans who had played in Japan were past their primes. Lee, 28, was an exception. He signed with the Lotte Orions of Japan’s Pacific League. From the start, he was a star.
Lee batted .317 for Lotte in 1977 and led Japan’s Pacific League in home runs (34) and RBI (109). He played 11 years with Lotte. He led the Pacific League in batting (.358) in 1980 and twice led the league in total bases (286 in 1977 and 310 in 1980). In addition to being Japan’s all-time batting average leader, Lee ranks 11th in career slugging percentage (.542).
A year-by-year look at Lee’s career with the Lotte Orions:
1977: .317 batting average, 34 homers, 109 RBI
1978: .317 batting average, 30 homers, 88 RBI
1979: .333 batting average, 28 homers, 95 RBI
1980: .358 batting average, 33 homers, 90 RBI
1981: .302 batting average, 19 homers, 71 RBI
1982: .326 batting average, 15 homers, 60 RBI
1983: .317 batting average, 25 homers, 82 RBI
1984: .309 batting average, 31 homers, 88 RBI
1985: .328 batting average, 28 homers, 94 RBI
1986: .331 batting average, 31 homers, 94 RBI
1987: .272 batting average, 9 homers, 41 RBI
In the book “Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game” (2005, SIU Press) by Robert K. Fitts, Lee said the spring training regiment of the Orions helped him.
“I did a lot of (batting practice) when I was in the States _ a couple of hundred balls a day. But in Japan we were hitting 500 to 700 balls a day,” Lee said. “… Over the years, all the practice turned out to be a blessing. It made me a more consistent hitter because my swing was fixed. As the years went by, I realized that kind of spring training was exactly what I should have been doing here in the States.”
