Standing next to Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo, The Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame honors the greatest Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) players of all time. The NPB is the professional baseball league in Japan, similar to the MLB in the United States.

To be selected into this hall of fame, a player must be voted in by one of two committees: the athlete committee and the special committee. A player needs 75% of the vote of one of these committees to join the hall of fame. In addition to performance on the field, the committees also look at character and devotion to baseball when voting to induct players.

Horace Wilson, a British English teacher in Japan, is credited with introducing baseball to Japan in 1873 by bringing the rules and equipment to his students at Kaisei School. Despite a standardized rulebook not being established in Japan until 1916, with Spalding’s Baseball Guides setting a general set of rules previous to that, Japanese students popularized the western game and agreed on which set of rules they would use before each game was played.

The first Japanese high school, the First Higher School of Tokyo (mononymously referred to as Ichikō), is famous for having the first organized baseball team in Japan with their students. Japanese baseball culture was born at Ichikō, where the “bloody urine” practice was coined from the bloody urine the players had after grueling practice everyday. Many of the students were not allowed to express their pain, only that they felt “itchy” (kayui), and it was easy to tell who the pitchers were based on their crooked pitching arm from overthrowing curveballs.

Schools that initially adopted baseball in Japan were typically wealthy middle and high schools, and the culture surrounding baseball was one of elitism and westernization. It wasn’t until Hiroshi Hiraoka (1856–1934) brought baseball equipment to Japan as souvenirs from the U.S. in 1876 that baseball became a more accessible sport. Hiroshi created the first official baseball team in Japan, the *Shimbashi Athletic Club, and built the first baseball diamond with spectator stands in Japan. While his team eventually died out, competitive baseball teams not associated with schools were created in the aftermath of the Shimbashi Athletic Club.

The Kōshien annual baseball tournament is the quintessential baseball event in Japan. Known mononymously by the name of the stadium its takes place in, the Kōshien tournament began as a high school baseball competition in 1915, which is now considered the beginning of competitive baseball in Japan. Founded by a rivalry between Osaka newspaper agencies Asahi shinbun and Mainichi shinbun, Kōshien had the greatest participation of any sporting event in the world before WW2 with an average of 5,000 players. The popularity of the event spurred the need for a single-purpose baseball stadium in Japan. Kōshien stadium had been built and was the highest capacity baseball stadium in Japan until 1988. The Kōshien tournament featured players from all corners of Japan and all classes, diverging from elitist schools like Ichiko. Even today, the Kōshien tournament is widely regarded as the ultimate show of guts and courage for middle and high school baseball players, and it retains its popularity as an icon of Japanese baseball.

The 1934 American All-Stars Tour in Japan is known as one of the most important events in the history of Japanese baseball. Following his retirement from the New York Yankees in 1934, Babe Ruth (1895–1948) was invited by Shōriki Matsutarō to play with an American all-stars team invited by to tour Japan. Ruth was hesitant to join the team after having been released from the New York Yankees, but after seeing that he was the only person depicted on the Japanese tour poster, dubbed the “baseball king” (yakyū ō), Ruth agreed to join the team. Record audiences attended the American all-star games in Japan, selling out Tokyo’s Jingu and Osaka’s Kōshien Stadiums with 65,000 and 75,000 people respectively.

Despite nearing forty years old and depressed by his release from the Yankees, Ruth performed on par with his reputation. He had 14 home runs, a batting average of .408, and the team left with a 16-0 record.

The famous American baseball manager Connie Mack stated the tour was “one of the greatest peace measures in the history of nations,” but not all people felt this way. An ultra-nationalist Japanese man most likely sponsored by Shōriki Matsutarō’s rival newspaper the Mainichi Shinbun attempted to assassinate Shōriki with a katana for allowing Americans to play at the sacred Meiji Jingū Stadium.

The “Immortal Player,” Sawamura Eiji (1917–1944), was a Japanese professional baseball pitcher. Before the formation of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), Sawamura played an exhibition game against the All-American baseball team in 1934. Sawamura rose to fame during the match for consecutively striking out American legends including Babe Ruth (1895–1948) and Lou Gehrig (1903–1941). Despite an offer to play in the MLB, and the chance to be the first Japanese person to do so, Sawamura declined in favor of staying in Japan. Sawamura died during WWII when his ship was sunk by a torpedo. The annual Sawamura Eiji award, typically awarded to the greatest pitcher in Japanese baseball, was posthumously named in his honor.

Victor Starffin (1916–1957) , “the blue-eyed Japanese”, was a professional Japanese Baseball player. He was born to Russian immigrants and grew up in Hokkaido and played baseball at the high school level. Shōriki Matsutarō scouted Starffin to play for the 1934 Japanese all-star team.

Due to an edict from the Ministry of Education, Japanese college athletes were not allowed to play against American professional athletes. When Shōriki scouted Starffin, the latter was initially hesitant to join the all-star team because he would not be able to attend college. But Shōriki knew that Starffin’s father, a Russian immigrant on transit visa, was in jail under manslaughter charges and blackmailed Starffin by threatening him with deportation. If Shōriki’s newspaper the Yomiuri shinbun brought special attention to the manslaughter case, Starffin’s family would be deported.

Starffin left Hokkaido and joined the all-star team, and later played professionally under Shōriki’s Japanese Baseball League (which later became the NPB)

Starffin was so successful as a player because as a non-citizen in Japan during WWII, he continued to play professionally while his Japanese colleagues were away fighting in the war. He continued to practice and play because he could not be drafted into the Japanese military.

Starffin was beloved by Japanese baseball fans as one of their own despite his Russian heritage, and he was the first foreign-born player inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1960. This award was posthumously awarded to him, as Starffin died in 1957 when he was struck by a car while crossing the street in Tokyo.

Despite his mediocre performance with the MLB, catcher Moe Berg (1902–1972) was brought along on the 1934 American All-Stars Tour in Japan. No one was surprised however, because Berg was the perfect ambassador between the two countries as he had spent considerable time in the country and was fluent in Japanese. Berg was even known to make addresses at Japanese universities and said he hoped for a closer relationship between America and Japan.

Berg was not in Japan to just play baseball. He was not played regularly in the all-star games, and instead used his time to catch Japan on film. Most notably - on a trip to St. Luke’s International Hospital where he was purportedly going to see the daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Japan - Berg skipped a game entirely to get an aerial view of Tokyo from the hospital roof. This film was later used to plot the path bombers would take on the Doolittle Raids (April 18th, 1942).

Despite his espionage, Berg was immensely popular in Japan afterwards for his appreciation of the culture, and even had a special exhibit dedicated to him in the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

The NPB is split into two leagues, the Central League and the Pacific League. This split occurred in 1950 when new teams wished to join the NPB as official teams. Teams that now belong to the Central League opposed this expansion and teams in the Pacific League favored this expansion of the organization. There are a few differences between the leagues today, the most important being that the Pacific League uses designated hitters (DH) for their pitchers, while the Central League does not.

The Central League has generally garnered favoritism among Japanese baseball fans because the most famous and popular baseball team in Japan, the Yomiuri Giants, is the star team of the Central League.

On June 25, 1959, the Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers played the first baseball game a reigning emperor of Japan had ever attended. Then rookies, now famous Ō Sadaharu and Nagashima Shigeo played the first of many games they would both homer in. Rookie Tiger’s pitcher Murayama Minoru, who later that year won the Sawamura Award, joined the game in the eighth inning. Tied at the bottom of the ninth, Nagashima and Murayama had a showdown where Nagashima blasted the game-winning homerun out of the park mere minutes before Emperor Hirohito (1901–1989) left for the night. The game is remembered in Giants history as the game Nagashima Shigeo became a national baseball hero.

Ō Sadaharu (1940–) is a world-famous Chinese national baseball player born in Japan known for holding the world career home run record (868). He also held the record for most homeruns in a season in the NPB (55) until 2013. While Ō initially signed with the Yomiuri Giants as a pitcher, he couldn’t pitch at the professional level and instead worked on improving his batting. Working closely with coach Arakawa Hiroshi (1930-2016), Ō practiced his batting using techniques from Japanese martial arts. Ō would replicate batting by slicing through hanging sheets of paper with a katana, which is a kendo technique. He also learned from the founder of aikido how to tap into his ki and become a more disciplined baseball player. From these trainings, Ō developed his iconic “flamingo” batting stance, where he raised his right leg up ninety degrees before swinging.

Blasted into fame after The Emperor’s Game, Nagashima Shigeo (1936–) is known around Japan as a national hero for his time as a player on the Yomiuri Giants. Nagashima and Ō Sadaharu batted back-to-back and were dubbed the "ON Cannon." Nagashima helped lead the Giants to dominate the central league championship through the 1960s and ‘70s. He won the Best Nine Award every year of his seventeen-year career. Nagashima periodically managed the Giants following his playing career. He was awarded the People’s Honour Award and the Order of Culture in 2013 and 2021 respectively for his contribution to Japanese baseball.

Nomura Katsuya (1935–2020) was a Japanese catcher with the NPB and the most famous and highly awarded catcher in the sport. Nomura came from humble beginnings in life and in baseball. He grew up in poverty, and when he joined the Nankai Hawks (now Fukuoka Softbank Hawks) he debuted with nine hitless games. While his superiors considered kicking him off the team, he pleaded to stay, offering to play for no money and threatening to jump in front of a train if he was fired.

He proved himself to be the greatest player in the pacific league’s arsenal. Nomura won the Pacific League’s first Triple Crown, and won the Best Nine Award as a catcher 19 times during his career, the most out of any player in NPB history. He also won nine consecutive home run titles from 1962 to 1971, however Nomura is often said to have played in the shadow of Ō Sadaharu. While Ō derived his playing style from Japanese martial arts, Nomura took a less nationalistic approach and created his playing style based on making judgements based on statistical data. Despite Ō’s half Chinese lineage, he was more popular for his Japanese nationalism, while Nomura who played in the less popular Pacific League could never reach the same public enthusiasm despite a similar baseball record.

Nomura also convinced Murakami Masanori to return to Japan after his season with the San Francisco Giants, for which he was dubbed a hero in Japan.

A zainichi Japanese baseball player, Kaneda Masaichi (1933–2019) was known as “The Emperor” for his dominance as a pitcher. Kaneda dropped out of high school in 1950 and signed with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. He was known for his extreme fastballs, and while the speed gun was not introduced to baseball before Kaneda’s retirement, he claimed his fastball reached over 100 mph at his best.

Kaneda is still the only Japanese player to have won 400 games, now dubbed “The Winningest Japanese.” Although he was offered a place in the MLB, Kaneda declined the opportunity, citing he felt his body would give out faster in America when he still had much to give.

Kaneda also founded the Meikyūkai, the “Golden Player’s Club” for Japanese Baseball, which is regarded as one of the highest honors an NPB player can receive for their performance.

Wallace “Wally” Kaname Yonamine (1925–2011), was an nisei baseball player for the NPB from 1951-1962. Yonamine was the first American to play for the NPB when he debuted with the Yomiuri Giants, and he was famous for his aggressive playing style. Yonamine was also the first Japanese-American to play professional football when he played for the San Francisco 49ers as a running back in 1947, which explains his aggressive playing style in baseball as well. He could adeptly read pitchers and stole more bases than anyone else had at the time. He also knew how to slide better than anyone else on the Giants due to his time learning baseball in America under famous ball players.

Yonamine is also famously known as the “Japanese Jackie Robinson.” While he attested that the discrimination and barriers he had to break through in Japan were nowhere near as harsh as Jackie Robinson (1919–1972) faced in America, they were both aggressive base-stealing players with a football background that had to break ethnic barriers in baseball. The future of racial integration in both the MLB and NPB rode on these two players, and they both performed well enough to break those barriers and see baseball become a multiracial sport in both major baseball leagues.

Ō Sadaharu has credited Yonamine with a great part of his success as well. When Ō needed to switch from pitching to another position on the Yomiuri Giants, Yonamine who had played on the Giant’s for years already made the decision to give Ō the first baseman position instead of himself, where he then played as an outfielder. Ō stated he felt this decision might have limited Yonamine’s career, Ō made history as a batter and first baseman.

Harimoto Isao (1940–) is a Zainichi Korean former Japanese professional baseball player. While Harimoto adopted a Japanese name and has maintained Japanese residency his entire life, he remains a Korean citizen. Harimoto is famous for being the only player in the NPB to reach 3,000 hits (3,085), his only rival to the record being Ichiro who has also reached over 3,000 hits but between his time in the NPB and MLB.

Harimoto is also the only professional baseball player in Japan to have survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He grew up in Hiroshima, and only survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as his house was in the shadow of a mountain that blocked the blast from reaching him. He is known as a hibakusha (bombing victim), and has worked throughout his life against global nuclear weapons and to get compensation for bombing victims.

Harimoto debuted in 1959 with the Pacific League’s Toei Flyers (now Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters) and won rookie of the year. Hariomoto was a power hitter, and his 3,000th hit in 1980 was a home run. In addition to career hits, Harimoto also finished with over 500 home runs and over 300 stolen bases, a feat only two other people in all of baseball have ever accomplished. Harimoto is a member of both the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame and the Meikyukai.

Ochiai Hiromitsu (1953–) is a famous former Japanese baseball player and later manager. Dubbed “the gaijin who spoke Japanese,” he is famous for the foreigner-like attitude he took when playing baseball and his great success despite not adhering to the Japanese style of playing the game.. When he joined his college baseball team, he quit before even one year had passed because he would not subject himself to lowly and humiliating tasks like washing his upperclassmen’s underwear and rubbing their backs, which first years were expected to do.

He played on an industrial league team in Japan until he was 25 when he was drafted to play for the Lotte Orions (now Chiba Lotte Marines). Ochiai played with their minor league team in the Eastern League until he was 28 and moved to the Orions. Despite his late arrival to the major leagues, Ochiai was an unstoppable force. He began openly predicting that he would win the league’s triple crown, which he did three out of four times in 1983, 1985, and 1986. He is still the player with the highest amount of triple crown wins in the NPB. He also would not subject himself to the grueling trainings Japanese baseball teams are famous for, often lounging around on the field after a light warm up before games instead of hours long pregame practice. This attitude was similar to many of the foreign players who had played in the NPB, and many people in the baseball community thought him arrogant, saved only by his prowess as a player. Ō Sadaharu publicly said he was afraid that Ochiai’s playing style would harm up and coming players that emulated him.

When a strict manager was appointed head of the Lotte Orion’s, Ochiai who would not adhere to spartan practices he did not need was traded to the Chunichi Dragons, where he continued to be a powerful player./p>

Egawa Suguru (1955–), nicknamed “Dirty Egawa,” is a retired pitcher for the Yomiuri Giants who’s draft scandal and playing attitude ushered in a new generation of Japanese youth.

The one contemporary Ochiai Hiromitsu said he admired most, Egawa was an extremely gifted pitcher in college who was first pick by the Seibu Lions who had won rights to him in the 1977 draft. Shockingly, Egawa declined to join the Lions because he said he would only ever play for his favorite team, the Yomiuri Giants. This caused uproar in the Japanese baseball community when a year later, Egawa signed a contract with the Giants who technically did not still have the rights to contract him. The Giants then threatened to leave the Central League and create their own league if they couldn’t sign Egawa, which would have been a major blow to the central league who’s fans were majority Giants fans. The Hanshin Tigers, who drew the rights to contract Egawa in 1978, had to sign him and immediately trade him to the Giants, going against the rule that rookies could not be traded in their first year in the NPB, to keep the Giants from leaving the league. The uproar from this trade forced the baseball commissioner who allowed it to retire, and sales of the Yomiuri Shinbun dropped from two months. This scandal in Japanese baseball is now known as the “Egawa Affair.”

Egawa was a force to be reckoned with on the Giants, even though he would often skip practice or games if he felt there were issues with his pitching arm. Despite how this angered management on the Giants, including Ō Sadaharu, Egawa’s performance and strikeout records kept him on the team. To the surprise of the Giant’s who fought diligently to get him on their team, Egawa retired nine years after they acquired him in 1987. He cited he had long been in pain and no one on the team would listen to him, so he retired at 32 despite being expected to stay until he was released.

Randy Bass (1954–) is an American professional baseball player who played with the NPB’s Hanshin Tigers from 1983-1988. He is known for setting an unprecedented amount of records as a foreign player in the NPB and his experiences showcased the discriminatory issues foreign players experienced in Japan regardless of their performance. Bass was the first person to threaten Ō Sadaharu’s record of 55 home runs in one season in the NPB, and he was walked by the Ō managed Giant’s right before he could break the record.

When Bass won Central League MVP in 1985 and led the Tiger’s to their first Japan Series victory, he was touted around Japan as a hero, an unprecedented amount of positive attention for a foreign player in Japan. Foreigners were widely unpopular even when they performed well. In 1987, the then commissioner of Japanese baseball publicly asked “Is there any foreign player who has ever taught the Japanese anything of value?”

Despite his record breaking performance for the Tiger’s, in 1986 when bass asked for an expensive three year contract and it was reluctantly given to him, he began to have minor disputes with his management get blown out of proportion. When his eight year old son needed surgery for a brain tumor, Bass was released from the Tigers completely after extending his leave from the team for a month. It was not normal in Japanese baseball to leave mid-season, even for family emergencies, so when Bass put his family first he was ridiculed for his selfishness.

Bass was voted into Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2023 with a vote of 78.6% by the expert division.

From 1964 to 2013, Ō Sadaharu held the record for the highest number of homeruns recorded in a single season (55). The first person to come close to beating this record was Randy Bass in 1985 with 54 home runs towards the end of the season. Ō was the manager for the Giants during the 1985 season, and every time a pitcher on the Giants pitched to Bass they walked him. Ō continuously denied instructing his pitchers to walk Bass, but Keith Comstock, American pitcher on the Giants that year, later told Bass the Giant’s pitchers were threatened with fines for every strike they threw Bass. This trend prevailed as other players came close to beating his record. In 2001 and 2002, two foreign Japanese baseball players tied Ō for the record at 55 home runs, but were not thrown strikes for the rest of their seasons, this time against the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks (then Fukuoka Daiei Hawks) managed again by Ō. Ō again denied ordering his pitchers to walk these players, but even then Japanese newspaper the Asahi shinbun accused Ō of preventing players from fairly breaking his record.

The record was eventually broken in 2013 by Wladimir Balentien (1984–), who finished the season with 60 home runs. In a stark change to previous public sentiment, by then many Japanese people shared the sentiment that the record should fall if it fell fairly.

Alex Ramirez (1974–) was born in Venezuela and played his first Major League professional baseball game with the then Cleveland Indians in 1998. Having played with the Yakult Swallows, Yomiuri Giants, and the DeNa Baystars, he is the first foreigner to be inducted into the meikyukai, gaining the invitation with his 2,000th career hit with the NPB. He broke Ō Sadaharu’s record of consecutive seasons with over 100 RBIs. Foreign players in the NPB have had negative reputations for playing with bad attitudes and non-adherence to Japanese baseball culture, but Ramirez is widely regarded as an exception to this stereotype. Ramirez is now a naturalized Japanese citizen, and widely regarded as a one of the greatest foreigners to play for the NPB for how he embraced Japanese culture.

Harimoto Isao (1940–) is a Zainichi Korean former Japanese professional baseball player. While Harimoto adopted a Japanese name and has maintained Japanese residency his entire life, he remains a Korean citizen. Harimoto is famous for being the only player in the NPB to reach 3,000 hits (3,085), his only rival to the record being Ichiro who has also reached over 3,000 hits but between his time in the NPB and MLB.

Harimoto is also the only professional baseball player in Japan to have survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He grew up in Hiroshima, and only survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as his house was in the shadow of a mountain that blocked the blast from reaching him. He is known as a hibakusha (bombing victim), and has worked throughout his life against global nuclear weapons and to get compensation for bombing victims.

Harimoto debuted in 1959 with the Pacific League’s Toei Flyers (now Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters) and won rookie of the year. Hariomoto was a power hitter, and his 3,000th hit in 1980 was a home run. In addition to career hits, Harimoto also finished with over 500 home runs and over 300 stolen bases, a feat only two other people in all of baseball have ever accomplished. Harimoto is a member of both the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame and the Meikyukai.

Murakami Masanori (1944–) is a Japanese former baseball player most known for being the first professional Japanese player to hold contract with a major league team in America. His signing with the San Francisco Giants also marked the end of an official relationship between the NPB and the MLB.

When the NPB was officially formed during American occupation of Japan, baseball was used as a bridge between America and Japan. A few Japanese players known as “exchange students” would play in the American minor leagues in order to bring the baseball style of America to Japan.

When Murakami went to America, he went as one of these exchange players for an entire season. Despite never having played professionally before, Murakami performed well and was eventually moved from the San Francisco seals (minor league) to the San Francisco Giants - signing his contract in a language he couldn’t understand as he walked onto the field for his first game.

While the NPB claimed they still had the rights to Murakami as a player, the MLB claimed his contract allowed him to play the full 1965 season with the Giants. Following intense arguments from each organization to keep Murakami, he played the 1965 season with the Giants and returned to play in Japan afterwards of his own accord. The “exchange student” relationship between the NPB and MLB was stopped, and the NPB stood as an organization with no ties to the MLB following the contract issues with Murakami.

Nomo Hideo (1968–) was the first Japanese native baseball player to have a career in the MLB. Nomo’s professional career began in 1990 when he joined the Kintetsu Buffaloes. He won many awards including the Best Nine Award and the Sawamura Award. During his time with the Buffaloes, he also garnered the nickname “Tornado” due to his corkscrew pitching delivery. Despite his wishes to play in America, NPB players were not able to make the jump to the MLB until they spent ten years in the NPB. In order to join the MLB sooner, Nomo exploited a loophole by “retiring” from the NPB. This freed him to join the MLB, debuting with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995. He is credited with opening the door for other Japanese players to play in the MLB under long term contracts.

Suzuki Ichirō (1973–), known simply as “Ichiro” internationally, is the first native Japanese position player to play in the MLB. Ichiro practiced baseball everyday with his father growing up, and practiced using unorthodox methods like swinging a coal shovel to simulate batting. Ichiro first signed with the Orix Blue Wave and played in the NPB until 2000, where he made the jump to the MLB to play for the Seattle Mariners. Ichiro was not only the first native Japanese position player signed to the MLB, but also the first Japanese MLB player inducted into the Meikyukai. Ichiro was known for his speed at the plate, utilizing a pendulum-like stance where he swung while leaning back on one leg, allowing him to begin running while finishing his swing.

Ōtani Shohei (1994–) is perhaps the most popular current MLB player, Japanese or otherwise. By age eighteen, he was already throwing 99 mph pitches. Ōtani wanted to go to the MLB directly after high school, but after being drafted by the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in 2012, he decided to play in Japan before attempting to make the switch to the MLB. In 2017, Ōtani signed a deal with the Los Angeles Angels where he won the American League (AL) Rookie of the Year, but his 2019 and ‘20 seasons were hampered by injuries. It was in 2021 when Ōtani began to flourish. Since 2021, Ōtani has been popularly dubbed “Shotime” and has garnered unrivaled popularity in both the US and Japan. His success as a two-way player, both a batter and a pitcher, is rivaled only by the legendary Babe Ruth. In 2023, this newfound popularity paid off when Ōtani signed a $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the largest contract in professional sports history. Ōtani has been so highly awarded with both the NPB and MLB that it would take too long to list them all.