Isao Harimoto
South Korean-Japanese former professional baseball player, baseball critic, baseball commentator (1940-) · Japan · On the map · Athletes
The all-time hits king of Japanese baseball, who became the first player in NPB history to collect 3,000 hits and later the first to reach both 500 home runs and 300 stolen bases - milestones he set in 1980 at age 40, twenty-one years into a career that began after a childhood accident forced him to relearn the game left-handed.
Isao Harimoto is read about 794 times a day, in 8 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 10 November 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 416 days, one point a day.
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About this person
Born Jang Hun in 1940, an ethnic Korean who remained a Zainichi resident throughout his life, Harimoto retrained himself as a left-hander after an early accident and broke into the Pacific League in 1959, batting .275 and winning Rookie of the Year. He won his first batting title in 1961 at .336, then led the Toei Flyers to their only Japan Series championship in 1962 while taking league MVP - the pinnacle arrived early and never returned. Across the 1960s he made the Best Nine every single season, racking up seven batting crowns before a 1975 trade sent him to the Yomiuri Giants, where he added two more Best Nine honors and played until age 37. He closed his career with the Lotte Orions, crossing 3,000 hits in May 1980 and 500 home runs that same year - sixteen 20-HR seasons, sixteen .300 seasons, a record that still stands. The Hall of Fame took him in 1990; he spent his later years in the broadcast booth.