The former owner of the Yomiuri Giants, died Thursday at the age of 98, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun, proving to me he was not actually a vampire doomed to curse us for eternity.

Even before I began seriously writing about Japanese pro baseball in 1993. Because of his wit, charisma and turn of phrase, Watanabe was eminently quotable, and his latest bombast was often front-page news in Japan’s sports dailies.

In 1993, he used the Giants’ leverage as NPB’s most powerful organization to force free agency down the throats of other owners, see “R.I.P. Tsuneo Watanabe.” That was the same year I began writing the first of four editions of “Jim Allen’s Guide to Japanese Baseball,” an analytical guide.

Oddly enough, my employment as a baseball writer was indirectly thanks to Watanabe, but I’ll get to that later, after touching on a few other anecdotes about Nabetsune’s remarkable impact on NPB, most of which involved rule changes meant to benefit his team more than others that had unintended negative impact on Japanese pro baseball.

Watanabe was never all that astute at baseball, but he was expert at political machinations and promotion. When it came to selecting NPB’s commissioners, his was the only voice that really mattered.