Yutaka Fukumoto

Japanese baseball player and commentator

Baseball player

Yutaka Fukumoto
福本 豊

Outfielder
Born: (1947-11-07) November 7, 1947 (age 77)[1]
Ikuno-ku, Osaka, Japan

Batted: Left

Threw: Left

debut
1969, for the Hankyu Braves
Last appearance
1988, for the Hankyu Braves
Career statistics
Batting average| .291
Home runs| 208
Hits| 2,543
Stolen bases| 1,065
Teams
As player

* Hankyu Braves (1969–1988)

As coach

* Orix Braves/Orix BlueWave (1989–1991)
* Hanshin Tigers (1998–1999)

Career highlights and awards

* 3x Japan Series champion (1975–1977)
* Pacific League MVP (1972)
* Japan Series MVP (1976)

Member of the Japanese
Baseball Hall of Fame
Induction| 2002

Yutaka Fukumoto (福本 豊, Fukumoto Yutaka; born November 7, 1947 in Osaka, Osaka) is a retired Japanese professional baseball player in Nippon Professional Baseball. An aggressive lead-off man and superior defensive centerfielder, he holds the Japanese career records in triples and stolen bases. He also hit more lead-off home runs than anyone in Japanese history, with 43. In 2002 (Heisei 14), Fukumoto was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.[1]

## Playing career

[edit]

After a brief career at the company team of Matsushita,[1] he was drafted seventh overall by the Hankyu Braves (currently the Orix Buffaloes) in 1968. In his second season, he stole 75 bases, setting the Japanese single-season record.

In 1972 (Shōwa 47), he stole 106 bases, setting the all-world single-season modern-era record,[1][2] which stood until it was broken by Rickey Henderson. He also led the Braves to the Japanese championship. Fukumoto was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) and became the first Japanese MVP who had also led the league in steals.

In 1983, he stole his 939th career base,[1] passing Lou Brock and setting the all-world career steals mark (later passed by Rickey Henderson in 1993).[2][3] That year he also collected his 2000th career hit. He was contacted for a People's Honour Award, but declined.[citation needed]

## Retirement

[edit]

After the 1988 season, the Braves were slated to become the Orix BlueWave. At the last game of the year, manager Toshiharu Ueda delivered a farewell address at the post-game ceremony. Ueda made the mistake of saying, "We bid farewell to Yamada and Fukumoto (who will leave the team) ..." instead of "We bid farewell to Yamada but will have Fukumoto (for the new team) ...". Everyone was caught by surprise, including Fukumoto himself, since he had intended to play at least another year. Fukumoto shrugged to reporters and said, "Ueda said so, I'm retiring", and ended his career. He retired with 2,543 hits, 208 home runs, 449 doubles (2nd all-time), 115 triples, 884 runs batted in, 1,065 stolen bases, and a .291 batting average, in 2401 games.

Fukumoto felt no ill will towards Ueda and went on to coach for Orix in 1989 and 1990. From 1998 to 1999, he coached for the Hanshin Tigers.

He works as a baseball commentator for Asahi Broadcasting Corporation and an independent TV station, SUN-TV.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c d e "デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plusの解説" (in Japanese). Kodansha. Retrieved November 6, 2010.
2. ^ a b Fitts, Robert K. (2005). Remembering Japanese baseball: an oral history of the game. SIU Press. pp. xxix–xxxi.
3. ^ "Fukumoto blazed quite a trail on bases before Rickey came along". The Japan Times. January 17, 2009. Retrieved November 6, 2010.

* v
* t
* e

Pacific League MVP Award

* 1950: Betto
* 1951: K. Yamamoto
* 1952: Yuki
* 1953: Okamoto
* 1954: Oshita
* 1955: Iida
* 1956: Nakanishi
* 1957: Inao
* 1958: Inao
* 1959: Sugiura
* 1960: Yamauchi
* 1961: Nomura
* 1962: Harimoto
* 1963: Nomura
* 1964: Stanka
* 1965: Nomura
* 1966: Nomura
* 1967: Adachi
* 1968: Yoneda
* 1969: Nagaike
* 1970: Kitaru
* 1971: Nagaike
* 1972: Fukumoto
* 1973: Nomura
* 1974: Kaneda
* 1975: Katō
* 1976: Yamada
* 1977: Yamada
* 1978: Yamada
* 1979: Manuel
* 1980: Kida
* 1981: Enatsu
* 1982: Ochiai
* 1983: Higashio
* 1984: Boomer
* 1985: Ochiai
* 1986: Ishige
* 1987: Higashio
* 1988: Kadota
* 1989: Bryant
* 1990: Nomo
* 1991: T. Kaku
* 1992: Ishii
* 1993: Kudō
* 1994: Ichirō
* 1995: Ichirō
* 1996: Ichirō
* 1997: Nishiguchi
* 1998: K. Matsui
* 1999: Kudō
* 2000: Matsunaka
* 2001: Rhodes
* 2002: Cabrera
* 2003: Johjima
* 2004: Matsunaka
* 2005: Sugiuchi
* 2006: Ogasawara
* 2007: Darvish
* 2008: Iwakuma
* 2009: Darvish
* 2010: Wada
* 2011: Uchikawa
* 2012: Yoshikawa
* 2013: Tanaka
* 2014: Kaneko
* 2015: Yanagita
* 2016: Ohtani
* 2017: Sarfate
* 2018: Yamakawa
* 2019: Mori
* 2020: Yanagita
* 2021: Y. Yamamoto
* 2022: Y. Yamamoto
* 2023: Y. Yamamoto
* 2024: Kondoh

* v
* t
* e

Japan Series MVP Award

* 1950: Betto
* 1951: Minamimura
* 1952: Bessho
* 1953: Kawakami
* 1954: Sugishita
* 1955: Bessho
* 1956: Toyoda
* 1957: Ohshita
* 1958: Inao
* 1959: Sugiura
* 1960: Kondo
* 1961: Miyamoto
* 1962: Dobashi
* 1962: Tanemo
* 1963: S. Nagashima
* 1964: Stanka
* 1965: S. Nagashima
* 1966: Shibata
* 1967: Mori
* 1968: Takada
* 1969: S. Nagashima
* 1970: S. Nagashima
* 1971: Suetsugu
* 1972: Horiuchi
* 1973: Horiuchi
* 1974: Hirota
* 1975: Yamaguchi
* 1976: Fukumoto
* 1977: Yamada
* 1978: Osugi
* 1979: Y. Takahashi
* 1980: Lyttle
* 1981: Nishimoto
* 1982: Higashio
* 1983: Ota
* 1984: K. Nagashima
* 1985: Bass
* 1986: Kudō
* 1987: Kudō
* 1988: Ishige
* 1989: Komada
* 1990: Destrade
* 1991: Akiyama
* 1992: Take. Ishii
* 1993: Kawasaki
* 1994: Makihara
* 1995: O'Malley
* 1996: Neel
* 1997: Furuta
* 1998: Taka. Suzuki
* 1999: Akiyama
* 2000: Matsui
* 2001: Furuta
* 2002: Nioka
* 2003: Sugiuchi
* 2004: Taka. Ishii
* 2005: Imae
* 2006: Inaba
* 2007: N. Nakamura
* 2008: Kishi
* 2009: Abe
* 2010: Imae
* 2011: Kokubo
* 2012: Utsumi
* 2013: Mima
* 2014: Uchikawa
* 2015: Lee Dae-ho
* 2016: Laird
* 2017: Sarfate
* 2018: Kai
* 2019: Gracial
* 2020: Kurihara
* 2021: Y. Nakamura
* 2022: Sugimoto
* 2023: Chikamoto
* 2024: Kuwahara

* v
* t
* e

Members of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame

1950s inductees|

* Matsutarō Shōriki (1959)
* Hiroshi Hiraoka (1959)
* Yukio Aoi (1959)
* Shin Hashido (1959)
* Kiyoshi Oshikawa (1959)
* Jiro Kuji (1959)
* Eiji Sawamura (1959)
* Iso Abe (1959)

1960s inductees|

* Victor Starffin (1960)
* Yutaka Ikeda (1962)
* Haruyasu Nakajima (1963)
* Tadashi Wakabayashi (1964)
* Masaru Kageura (1965)
* Tetsuharu Kawakami (1965)
* Tsunetaro Moriyama (1966)
* Kazuto Tsuruoka (1969)

1970s inductees|

* Shunichi Amachi (1970)
* Nobuaki Nidegawa (1970)
* Shuichi Ishimoto (1972)
* Sadayoshi Fujimoto (1974)
* Fumio Fujimura (1974)
* Hideo Fujimoto (1976)
* Shigeru Mizuhara (1977)
* Michio Nishizawa (1977)
* Kenjiro Matsuki (1978)
* Shinji Hamazaki (1978)
* Takehiko Bessho (1979)

1980s inductees|

* Hiroshi Ohshita (1980)
* Makoto Kozuru (1980)
* Shigeru Chiba (1980)
* Tokuji Iida (1981)
* Yoshiyuki Iwamoto (1981)
* Osamu Mihara (1983)
* Shinji Kirihara (1984)
* Shigeru Sugishita (1985)
* Katsumi Shiraishi (1985)
* Atsushi Aramaki (1985)
* Takeo Akuta (1988)
* Shigeo Nagashima (1988)
* Kaoru Bettou (1988)
* Masaichi Nagata (1988)
* Saburo Yokozawa (1988)
* Yukio Nishimoto (1988)
* Masaichi Kaneda (1988)
* Hidenosuke Shima (1989)
* Katsuya Nomura (1989)
* Jiro Noguchi (1989)

1990s inductees|

* Juzo Sanada (1990)
* Isao Harimoto (1990)
* Shigeru Makino (1991)
* Osamu Tsutsui (1991)
* Kichiro Shimaoka (1991)
* Tatsuro Hirooka (1992)
* Michinori Tsubouchi (1992)
* Masao Yoshida (1992)
* Yoshio Yoshida (1992)
* Kazuhisa Inao (1993)
* Minoru Murayama (1993)
* Sadaharu Oh (1994)
* Wally Yonamine (1994)
* Shosei Go (1995)
* Tadashi Sugiura (1995)
* Tokichiro Ishii (1995)
* Motoshi Fujita (1996)
* Sachio Kinugasa (1996)
* Katsuo Osugi (1997)
* Futoshi Nakanishi (1999)
* Yoshinori Hirose (1999)
* Takeshi Koba (1999)
* Sadao Kondo (1999)

2000s inductees|

* Tetsuya Yoneda (2000)
* Rikuo Nemoto (2001)
* Masaaki Koyama (2001)
* Kazuhiro Yamauchi (2002)
* Keishi Suzuki (2002)
* Yutaka Fukumoto (2002)
* Kenjiro Tamiya (2002)
* Lefty O'Doul (2002)
* Masaoka Shiki (2002)
* Toshiharu Ueda (2003)
* Junzo Sekine (2003)
* Horace Wilson (2003)
* Sakae Suzuka (2003)
* Akira Ogi (2004)
* Noboru Akiyama (2004)
* Choji Murata (2005)
* Masaaki Mori (2005)
* Masayori Shimura (2005)
* Hiromitsu Kadota (2006)
* Morimichi Takagi (2006)
* Hisashi Yamada (2006)
* Yasumitsu Toyoda (2006)
* Hiromori Kawashima (2006)
* Takao Kajimoto (2007)
* Reiichi Matsunaga (2007)
* Koji Yamamoto (2008)
* Tsuneo Horiuchi (2008)
* Tsutomu Wakamatsu (2009)
* Seiichi Shima (2008)

2010s inductees|

* Osamu Higashio (2010)
* Hiromitsu Ochiai (2011)
* Mutsuo Minagawa (2011)
* Manabu Kitabeppu (2012)
* Tsunemi Tsuda (2012)
* Yutaka Ohno (2013)
* Hideo Nomo (2014)
* Koji Akiyama (2014)
* Kazuhiro Sasaki (2014)
* Atsuya Furuta (2015)
* Kihachi Enomoto (2016)
* Kimiyasu Kudoh (2016)
* Masaki Saito (2016)
* Tsutomu Ito (2017)
* Masaji Hiramatsu (2017)
* Senichi Hoshino (2017)
* Hideki Matsui (2018)
* Tomoaki Kanemoto (2018)
* Kazuyoshi Tatsunami (2019)
* Hiroshi Gondoh (2019)

2020s inductees|

* Koichi Tabuchi (2020)
* Kazuo Sayama (2021)
* Katsuji Kawashima (2021)
* Shigeyoshi Matsumae (2022)
* Shingo Takatsu (2022)
* Masa Yamamoto (2022)
* Alex Ramírez (2023)
* Randy Bass (2023)
* Yūji Koseki (2023)
* Ichiro Suzuki (2025)
* Hitoki Iwase (2025)
* Masayuki Kakefu (2025)

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* WorldCat

National|

* United States
* Japan

Academics|

* CiNii

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