List of top Nippon Professional Baseball home run hitters

This is a list of the top 34 Nippon Professional Baseball home run hitters. In the sport of baseball, a home run is a hit in which the batter scores by circling all the bases and reaching home plate in one play, without the benefit of a fielding error. This can be accomplished either by hitting the ball out of play while it is still in fair territory (a conventional home run), or by an inside-the-park home run.

Sadaharu Oh holds the Nippon Professional Baseball home run record (as well as the world lifetime home run record)[1] with 868. He passed Hank Aaron (who is currently second on the Major League Baseball career home run list) with 755, on September 3, 1977.[2] The only other NPB player to have hit even 600 or more home runs is Katsuya Nomura with 657.

Slugger Noboru Aota retired in 1959 as the Japanese professional baseball career leader with 265 career homers.[3] He was surpassed in 1963 by Kazuhiro Yamauchi, the first Japanese professional baseball player to hit 300 home runs.[4] (Yamauchi finished his career with 396 home runs.) Sadaharu Oh assumed the top spot in 1968, later becoming the first NPB hitter to surpass 600 home runs during the 1974 season.

Listed are all Nippon Professional Baseball players with 300 or more home runs hit during official regular season (i.e., excluding playoffs or exhibition games). Players in bold face are active as of the 2015 Nippon Professional Baseball season (including free agents), with the number in parentheses designating the number of home runs they hit during the 2014 season.

List

* denotes elected to Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.
Bold denotes active player.[lower-alpha 1]

Stats updated as of 2015 season.

Rank Player (2015 HRs) HR Years
1 Sadaharu Oh * 868 1959–1980
2 Katsuya Nomura * 657 1954–1980
3 Hiromitsu Kadota * 567 1970–1992
4 Koji Yamamoto * 536 1969–1986
5 Kazuhiro Kiyohara 525 1985–2008
6 Hiromitsu Ochiai * 510 1979–1998
7 Isao Harimoto * 504 1959–1981
Sachio Kinugasa * 504 1965–1987
9 Katsuo Osugi * 486 1965–1983
10 Tomoaki Kanemoto 476 1992–2012
11 Kōichi Tabuchi 474 1969–1984
12 Masahiro Doi 465 1962–1981
13 Tuffy Rhodes 464 1996–2005, 2007–2009
14 Shigeo Nagashima * 444 1958–1974
15 Koji Akiyama * 437 1981, 1984–2002
16 Norihiro Nakamura 404 1992–2014
17 Takeshi Yamasaki 403 1989–2013
18 Kazuhiro Yamauchi * 396 1952–1970
19 Tatsunori Hara 382 1981–1995
Yasunori Oshima 382 1971–1994
21 Alex Ramírez 380 2001–2013
22 Michihiro Ogasawara 378 1997–2015
23 Shinichi Eto * 367 1959–1976
24 Akira Eto 364 1990–2009
25 Alex Cabrera 357 2001–2012
26 Masayuki Kakefu 349 1974–1988
27 Michiyo Arito 348 1969–1986
28 Hideji Katō 347 1969–1987
29 Tokuji Nagaike 338 1966–1979
Masaru Uno 338 1977–1994
31 Hideki Matsui 332 1993–2002
32 Makoto Matsubara 331 1962–1981
33 Takeya Nakamura (37) 309 2003–present
34 Katsumi Hirosawa 306 1985–2003
35 Takahiro Ikeyama 304 1984–2002

References

  1. ↑ A player is considered inactive if he has announced his retirement or not played for a full season.
  1. ↑ Spatz, Lyle. Historical Dictionary of Baseball (Scarecrow Press, 2012), p. 169.
  2. ↑ Whiting, Robert. "The Emperor of Swat," New York Times (AUG. 9, 2007).
  3. ↑ "Noboru Aota", Baseball-Reference.com "Bullpen." Accessed March 27, 2015.
  4. ↑ "Yamauchi, NPB's 1st 300-HR man, dies at 76," Yomiuri Shimbun (Feb. 6, 2009).

See also

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