Koji Yamamoto

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Note: This page discusses Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder Koji Yamamoto. For others of the same name, click here

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Koji Yamamoto (山本 浩二) (Mr. Akaheru)

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Biographical Information[edit]

Koji Yamamoto was the greatest slugger in the history of the Hiroshima Carp and a key part of their only Japan Series champion teams in 1979, 1980, and 1984. The five times that the Carp made the Japan Series, Yamamoto was either the team's manager or player.

Originally a pitcher, he was converted to the outfield while in college. It took him a while to develop as a batter but by the time his amateur career was over, he was a first-round draft pick of the Carp in the 1968 NPB draft. He hit .293 with 8 homers and 2 Best Nine awards in his college career. In Nippon Pro Baseball, Yamamoto again took time to become a star - for several years he had mediocre averages and OBPs with some power. He was named one of Hiroshima's starting outfielders as a rookie in 1969, and he played 120 games with a .240/.295/.399 batting line. Yamamoto then crushed 22 homers with a .243/.316/.421 batting line in 1970, and he was 5th in the Central League in homers (22, tied with Shigeo Nagashima) and 4th in triples (4, tied with Morimichi Takagi and Yasuharu Taki).

The Hiroshima native crushed 10 homers with a .251/.319/.364 batting line in 1971, and he played all 130 games with a .258/.333/.468 batting line in 1972. Yamamoto won the first of ten consecutive Diamond Glove Awards, a Central League record. A great defensive outfielder, Yamamoto also led the league in outfield assists seven years in a row. Also in '72, Yamamoto set a record with 9 consecutive hits, since broken, and he led the league with 27 doubles. He tied Makoto Matsubara for 6th in homers (25), and he was 9th in RBI (66, between Kazuyoshi Yamamoto and Taira Fujita).

Yamamoto was selected into the All-Star Game for the first time in his career in 1973, and he would participate in this event for 14 consecutive years; he was 0-for-2 that year. He ended up hitting .269/.356/.454 with 19 homers that season, and he ranked 7th in homers (tied with Sachio Kinugasa) and 4th in doubles (24, tied with Matsubara). Yamamoto extended his solid performance in 1974, and he crushed 28 homers with a .275/.337/.508 batting line. He was 3rd in steals (18, tied with Tsutomu Wakamatsu), 8th in RBI (74, tied with Wakamatsu), 5th in homers (28, between Kinugasa and John Sipin) and 8th in hits (131, between Kenichi Yazawa and Sadaharu Oh). Yamamoto was also selected into the 1974 NPB All-Star Game, and he 1-for-8.

In 1975, Yamamoto led the Carp to their first Japan Series ever. He was 8-for-24, with a homer in each of the 1975 Nippon Series Game 3 and 4, but the Hankyu Braves beat the Carp in 6 games; he won the Fighting Spirit award as the top player on the losing team. He hit .319/.406/.565 with 30 homers - at age 28, it was the first of ten 30-homer years. Yamamoto led the league in batting and runs (86) and also set a CL record with 302 error-free chances in the outfield. He made the first of ten Best Nine teams and won his first MVP award. He was on the CL's leaderboard in homers (5th, between Gail Hopkins and Roger Repoz), hits (144, 3rd, between Sipin and Takagi), doubles (21, tied for 5th with Toshiyuki Mimura and Kunio Fukutomi), steals (24, tied for 3rd with Isao Shibata) and RBI (84, 4th, between Koichi Tabuchi and Matsubara). He crushed 2 homers in the 1975 NPB All-Star Game 1 to win the MVP, but he was 1-for-8 in the rest of the games.

Yamamoto recorded a .293/.380/.511 batting line in 1976, and he was 4th in doubles (26, tied with Kinugasa) and 7th in hits (136m between Hopkins and Mike Reinbach). He was selected into the 1976 NPB All-Star Game, and he went 1-for-8, with a homer against Keishi Suzuki in Game 2. Yamamoto bounced back soon in 1977, and he crushed 44 homers with a .308/.428/.674 batting line in 130 games. It was the first time that he hit 40 homers, and he would do it in the next four seasons. Yamamoto won his second Best Nine award, and he ranked 2nd in homers (6 behind Oh), 2nd in RBI (113, 11 behind Oh), 7th in doubles (24, tied with Shibata) and 3rd in steals (22, 12 behind Shibata; he was only caught four times). He had a 0-for-4 record in the 1977 NPB All-Star Game.

In 1978, Yamamoto was still one of the most outstanding sluggers in the league, and he became the first Carp player to lead the league in homers. He crushed 44 homers with a .323/.425/.662 batting line, and he also led the league in total bases (313), runs (114) and slugging. He was 2nd in RBI (112, 6 behind Oh), 8th in doubles (28, tied with Tomio Tashiro) and 6th in hits (138, between Jim Lyttle and Katsuo Osugi). Yamamoto also went 2-for-7 in the 1978 NPB All-Star Game, with a homer against Takashi Yamaguchi in Game 3, and he won his third Best Nine award. Yamamoto then blasted 42 homers with a .293/.396/.606 batting line in 1979, and he won another Best Nine. Yamamoto became the first Carp player to led the league in RBI (113), and he was 2nd in homers (6 behind Masayuki Kakefu), 8th in hits (137, between Takagi and Sipin) and 8th in steals (12, tied with Kinugasa). He went 3-for-23 in the 1979 Nippon Series, and the Carp beat the Kintetsu Buffaloes in 7 games. In the 1979 NPB All-Star Game 3, Yamamoto crushed a sayonara 2-run shot against Yutaka Yanagida and he was named the MVP.

Yamamoto won another MVP in 1980, and he crushed 44 homers with a .336/.445/.714 batting line. He led the league in runs (91), homers, RBI (112), walks (87) and slugging, and he ranked 3rd in batting (between Wakamatsu and Mitsuo Motoi) and 4th in hits (148, between Wakamatsu and Kinugasa). Yamamoto was also selected into the 1980 NPB All-Star Game, and he was 1-for-10. He was 6-for-26 in 7 games in the 1980 Nippon Series, with 2 homers against Yanagida in Game 3 and Koji Ota in Game 6 to help the Carp beat the Buffaloes again. He recorded a .330/.420/.647 batting line with 43 homers in 1981, and he led the league in homers, runs (102) and RBI (103) again. He also ranked 6th in batting (between Jitsuo Mizutani and Kiyoshi Nakahata) and 2nd in hits (156, tied with Kakefu). He attended the 1981 NPB All-Star Game, and he was 2-for-11 in 3 games, with a homer against Yutaka Enatsu in Game 2.

The veteran slugger slipped after that but he still crushed 30 homers with a .306/.415/.554 batting line in 1982. He hit the 45,000th homer in NPB history that season, and he was selected into the 1982 NPB All-Star Game. He went 2-for-4 in Game 1, and he was 2-for-2 with a homer against Masayuki Matsunuma in Game 2. Yamamoto ranked 3rd in homers (tied with Masaru Uno), 7th in batting (between Wakamatsu and Mizutani), 3rd in RBI (90, between Tatsunori Hara and Yazawa) and 2nd in runs (84, 8 behind Yasushi Tao). He hit for a cycle against the Hanshin Tigers on April 30, 1983, and he was voted into the 1983 NPB All-Star Game. He crushed 2 homers (against Shigekuni Mashiba and Takanori Yamauchi) in Game 1, and he added a homer against Matsunuma in Game 2. Yamamoto ended up hitting .316/.419/.600 with 36 homers that season, and he led the league in homers for the fourth and the last time. He was also 4th in batting (between Tao and Yazawa) and 6th in hits (146, tied with Yutaka Takagi).

Yamamoto got his 2,000th hit against Hiromi Makihara on May 5, 1984, and he attended the 1984 NPB All-Star Game. He crushed his 13th homer in All-Star competition against Matsunuma in Game 1, and he tied Oh's record for most homers in All-Star history. Yamamoto crushed 33 homers with a .293/.382/.554 batting line in '84, and he was 4th in RBI (94, between Kakefu and Warren Cromartie) and 5th in homers (4 behind Kakefu and Uno). In the 1984 Nippon Series, Yamamoto was 10-for-27, with a solo shot against Yoshinori Sato in Game 3, and the Carp beat the Braves in 7 games. Yamamoto then broke Oh's All-Star homer record with a homer against Tatsumi Murata in the 1985 NPB All-Star Game 3, and he was 3-for-9 in 3 games. He ended up hitting .288/.396/.521 with 24 homers, and he crushed his 500th homer against Tadashi Sugimoto on July 26.

"Mr. Akaheru" announced that the 1986 season was the last season in his career, and he still crushed 27 homers with a .276/.367/.490 batting line. He was 7th in homers (tied with Carlos Ponce and 7th in RBI (78, between Doug Loman and Hara). Yamamoto blasted a homer against Osamu Higashio in the 1986 Nippon Series Game 1, and he was 6-for-32 in 8 games in the series; the Carp lost to the Seibu Lions. Two years later, he was back in a Hiroshima uniform as a manager. Yamamoto led the team to two second-place finishes, then back to the Japan Series in 1991. After his first sub-.500 season and a last-place finish in '93, the Carp let him go. He returned to the broadcast booth but was re-hired by Hiroshima to manage again in 2001. The team was in the second division all five times in this go-around and Hiroshima again parted course with their greatest player after the 2005 season, a year in which they finished last. Yamamoto was elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008. He coached for Japan in the 2007 Asian Championship and 2008 Olympics, and he was their manager in the 2013 World Baseball Classic.

A career .290/.381/.542 hitter, Yamamoto retired third all-time with 536 homers - he is now 4th behind Sadaharu Oh, Katsuya Nomura and Hiromitsu Kadota. His 11 grand slams are tied for 6th all-time. He also had 2,339 hits (15th all-time, between Tetsuharu Kawakami and Kihachi Enomoto), 372 doubles (29th, between Kinugasa and Hiroyuki Yamazaki), 1,475 RBI (10th, between Osugi and Kinugasa), 1,365 runs (7th, between Kinugasa and Hiromitsu Ochiai), 4,361 total bases (8th, between Nagashima and Ochiai), 231 steals (58th, tied with Den Yamada) 1,168 walks (9th, between Yutaka Fukumoto and Motonobu Tanishige), 79 sacrifice flies (11th, between Takahiro Arai and Masahiro Doi), played in 2,284 games (17th, between Takumi Kuriyama and Takagi) and 8,052 AB (16th, between Nagashima and Koji Akiyama) as of 2024.

Sources[edit]

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