Sachio Kinugasa’s 76th Birthday

Google Dooles 17.01.2023 21:40  Date: January 18, 2023 Today’s Doodle celebrates the 76th birthday of Japanese baseball player Sachio Kinugasa. He broke the record for most consecutive baseball games played in 1987 and held it for nine more years. On this day in 1947, Kinugasa was born in Kyoto, Japan, to a Japanese mother and an African American father, and as a young boy, he was taunted for being mixed race. He began playing baseball at Heian Buddhist high school and gained popularity as an infielder in the national high school tournament. In 1965, he was signed to the Hiroshima Carp baseball team. He was part of the starting lineup a few years later as third basemen and was a consistent hitter with around 15 home runs a year for 20+ years. Kinugasa was dedicated to the sport and played a record-breaking 2,215 games in a row even sometimes with fractured bones. To him, it was more painful to miss a game than to play a game while injured, earning him the nickname Tetsujin . While he is best known for his consecutive game streak, Kinugasa was a well-rounded player who ranks seventh in career home runs with a grand total of 504, fifth in career hits and tenth in career runs batted in. In 1975, he helped the Carp win their first ever league championship. He received many awards for his athletic performance. Kinugasa was named Central League MVP in 1984 for winning the Japanese championship series. He was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996 and became the second baseball player to receive the People’s Honor Award, given for accomplishments in sports and entertainment, from the Prime Minister of Japan. A lifetime lover of the game, Kinugasa became a baseball announcer for TBS after retiring from the Carp. Happy birthday to a baseball player who stole countless bases and hearts, Sachio Kinugasa! Location: Tags: