Zainichi Korean baseball player (born 1940)
Baseball player
Isao Harimoto
(
張本 ?
,
Harimoto Isao
, born June 19, 1940)
is a Korean former
Nippon Professional Baseball
player and holder of the record for most hits in the Japanese professional leagues. An ethnic Korean, his birth name is
Jang Hun
(
Korean
:
張勳
;
Hanja
:
張勳
).
[1]
Harimoto has spent his life as a resident of Japan and adopted a Japanese name, but remains a Korean citizen,
[2]
thus making him a
Zainichi Korean
. He was inducted into the
Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame
in 1990 and now works as a television baseball analyst.
Personal background
[
edit
]
Harimoto's family relocated to
Japan
from
Korea
for better economic opportunities shortly before he was born, while the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule, and settled in Hiroshima. Burns suffered in an accident at the age of four severely injured his right hand, with the middle three fingers scarred and largely useless, frozen into a curled position. This forced him to become a left-handed thrower and hitter, and to use a custom glove that fit over his damaged hand while still allowing him to catch the ball. The scarred fingers were bent in such a way that a baseball bat could be slid between them. Harimoto speaks of practicing swinging the bat as a child with only his right hand, trying to strengthen the injured limb to make it useful.
[2]
Harimoto would survive the release of an atomic bomb over Hiroshima on
August 6, 1945
, and has been identified as the only survivor of the bombing to play professional baseball in Japan. He survived without injuries because the family home was located in the shadow of a mountain and shielded from the blast, but lost a sister who was in the blast zone.
[2]
Later in life, he would become a member of the Japanese
Hibakusha
Movement, a project dedicated to outlawing global nuclear weaponry, and gaining compensation for victims of their use.
Baseball career
[
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]
Harimoto began his professional career with the
Toei Flyers
in 1959, when he was selected as
rookie of the year
.
[3]
He was a dangerous hitter who combined both power and speed. His 3,085 career hits is the Nippon Professional Baseball record. Among Japanese-born players,
Ichiro Suzuki
passed Harimoto's hit total in 2009 based on his combined career in Japan and the American major leagues. Harimoto remains the only player to accumulate more than 3000 in Japan, a mark he reached with a
home run
on May 28, 1980, while playing for the
Lotte Orions
.
[2]
After reaching this milestone, Harimoto was awarded the South Korean Order of Sport Merit
Maengho
Medal (國民勳章 猛虎章;
Maengho
, literally Fierce Tiger), a prize for excellence in sports.
[3]
With 504 career home runs, Harimoto ranks seventh on the list of all-time leaders in Japan. After joining the
Yomiuri Giants
in 1976, he hit behind
Sadaharu Oh
in the lineup and was on deck when Oh hit his 756th home run to pass Hank Aaron's mark in America. Harimoto's 319 stolen bases gives him an unusual combination of 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, and 300 stolen bases, a set of milestones reached only by
Willie Mays
[4]
and
Alex Rodriguez
[5]
in the American major leagues.
Post-player career
[
edit
]
Since his retirement, Harimoto has mainly worked for
Tokyo Broadcasting System
(TBS) as a baseball commentator. He appears on a news program named
Sunday Morning
and comments on baseball and other sports.
[6]
See also
[
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]
References
[
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]
External links
[
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]
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1950s inductees
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1960s inductees
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1970s inductees
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1980s inductees
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1990s inductees
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2000s inductees
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2010s inductees
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2020s inductees
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International
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