is a retired Japanese professional baseball player. He played mostly as an outfielder for the

Chunichi Dragons The are a professional baseball team based in Nagoya, the chief city in the Chūbu region of Japan. The team plays in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball. They have won the Central League pennant nine times (most recently in 2011 ...

and the

Seibu Lions The are a professional baseball team in Japan's Pacific League based north of Tokyo in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture. Before 1979, they were based in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture, in Kyushu. The team is owned by a subsidiary of Seibu Railway, ...

of the Nippon Professional Baseball league in a career spanning 18 years. Following retirement in 2015, he has become a color commentator for Dragons broadcasts for the

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

Early career

Playing for

Tohoku Fukushi University is a Japanese private university in Sendai. Notable alumni Politics *Shintaro Ito * Itsunori Onodera Sports *Baseball **Mamoru Kishida ** Takashi Saito **Kazuhiro Sasaki ** Kazuhiro Wada ** Ken Kadokura ** Tomoaki Kanemoto *Figure skating ** Ak ...

, Wada was MVP of the Sendai Big Six University League as a senior and won the batting title. He hit .429 for Kobe Seiko in the industrial leagues, then in 1996 was drafted in the fourth round of the Japanese draft by the

Professional career

Seibu Lions

He hit .190 in 1997 when he first played for Seibu and was 0/1 in the

1997 Japan Series The 1997 Japan Series was the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) championship series for the 1997 season. It was the 48th Japan Series and featured the Pacific League champions, the Seibu Lions, against the Central League champions, the Yakult Swa ...

. In 1998, Wada hit .333 in 36 games for Seibu and split his time between catching and the outfield. He went 0/2 in the

1998 Japan Series The 1998 Japan Series was the 49th edition of Nippon Professional Baseball's postseason championship series. The Seibu Lions represented the Pacific League, while the Yokohama BayStars represented the Central League. The BayStars won the serie ...

. In 1999, he batted .271 while again seeing limited time behind the plate, with Tsutomu Ito starting. In 1998, Wada began playing semiregularly as an outfielder, batting .306, the same average he recorded the next year. He still not yet an everyday player. In 2002, Wada finally became a starter and responded by batting .319 with 33 homers. Playing left field and DH, he made the Best Nine as the top designated hitter in the

Pacific League The , or , or the , due to sponsorship reasons, is one of the two professional baseball leagues constituting Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship competes against the winner in the Central League for the a ...

. He finished third in slugging behind teammates

Alex Cabrera Alexander Alberto Cabrera (born December 24, 1971) is a Venezuelan former first baseman and right-handed batter who played in 2000 for the Arizona Diamondbacks in Major League Baseball (MLB) and for 12 seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball (NP ...

and

Kazuo Matsui is a Japanese former professional baseball player who played as a shortstop and is a former manager of the Saitama Seibu Lions. He is a switch-hitter. Matsui signed with the New York Mets on December 17, 2003, becoming the first Japanese infie ...

. His Japan Series woes continued with a miserable 0/15 in the 2002 Japan Series, as Seibu got swept by the

Yomiuri Giants The are a Japanese professional baseball team competing in Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Based in Bunkyo, Tokyo, they are one of two professional baseball teams based in Tokyo, the other being the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. They h ...

. Wada did even better in 2003, hitting .346 (.379 with runners in scoring position), homering 30 times, scoring 87 runs and driving in 89. He made his first All-Star team and was on the Best Nine as an outfielder alongside

Yoshitomo Tani Yoshitomo Tani (谷佳知, born February 9, 1973) is a former Japanese professional baseball player from Higashiōsaka, Osaka, Japan. He played as an outfielder for the Orix Buffaloes and Yomiuri Giants. He holds the Pacific League record for hi ...

and

Tuffy Rhodes Karl Derrick "Tuffy" Rhodes (born August 21, 1968) is a retired American professional baseball player. He played six years in Major League Baseball in the US, and thirteen years in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in Japan. Rhodes is the all-t ...

. Wada finished third in the Pacific League in average (behind

Michihiro Ogasawara Michihiro Ogasawara (小笠原道大, born October 25, 1973, in Mihama-ku, Chiba, Chiba Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese former professional baseball player. He had an illustrious career spanning 18 years with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, ...

and Tani) and slugging (behind Cabera and Ogasawara). He was fourth in OBP behind Ogasawara,

Tadahito Iguchi , nicknamed "Gucci", is a Japanese people, Japanese served professional baseball second baseman and former Manager (baseball), manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). As a member of the Chicago White Sox in 200 ...

and

Nobuhiko Matsunaka is a former left fielder and designated hitter for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. He is currently the hitting coach for the Chunichi Dragons in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league. He played in the Baseball at the 1996 Summer Olympics, 199 ...

. 2004 was an eventful year for Wada. He hit .320 (.375 with RISP), homered 30 times and drove in 89 despite missing time for the

2004 Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...

. For the bronze medal-winning Japanese club in the Olympics, he hit .333 and slugged .636. Hitting cleanup or fifth for Seibu, he was honored again as an All-Star and Best Nine. In the 2004 Japan Series, he finally broke his postseason struggles in a big way by batting .310 with four homers in Seibu's victory over the

. Wada broke a 54-year-old record for most extra-base hits in a

Japan Series The Japan Series ( , officially the Japan Championship Series, ), also the Nippon Series, is the annual championship series in Nippon Professional Baseball, the top baseball league in Japan. It is a best-of-seven series between the winning cl ...

with eight, breaking

Isao Harimoto is a Korean-Japanese former Nippon Professional Baseball player and holder of the record for most hits in the Japanese professional leagues. An ethnic Korean, his birth name is Jang Hun (). Harimoto has spent his life as a resident of Japan and a ...

's record of 7 in the

1950 Japan Series The 1950 Japan Series was the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) championship series for the 1950 season. It was the first Japan Series and featured the Pacific League champions, the Mainichi Orions, against the Central League champions, the Shoch ...

. His 26 total bases were a Japan Series record, breaking Yasumitsu Toyoda's 46-year-old record of 25; he tied the record with four homers in a series and his two homers in game six helped Seibu to a 4-2 victory to tie the series at three. Takashi Ishii beat him out for Series MVP honors, though. Wada continued his dazzling pace in 2005, batting .322, though his 27 homers were his lowest total in four years. He made his fourth straight All-Star contingent. He edged Julio Zuleta (.319) and Matsunaka (.315) for the first Pacific League batting title won by a right-handed hitter since

Hatsuhiko Tsuji is a former Nippon Professional Baseball player and manager. During his playing career he was well known as a skillful second baseman. Career After spending six seasons as the manager of the Saitama Seibu Lions, Tsuji stepped down from his pos ...

in 1993. He was fourth in slugging, third in OBP, tied for third in runs (80), first in hits (153), second in doubles (32). Wada was on the winning Japanese club in the

2006 World Baseball Classic The 2006 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was the inaugural tournament between national baseball teams that included players from Major League Baseball. It was held from March 3 to 20 in stadiums in or around Tokyo, Japan, and the American cities o ...

and went 0 of 2 with one strikeout in two games as the backup left fielder to Hitoshi Tamura. Wada hit .298 in 2006 and finished third in the PL with 95 RBI, second to

Fernando Seguignol Fernando Alfredo Seguignol Garcia (born January 19, 1975) is a Panamanian former Major League Baseball first baseman and outfielder. Seguignol also played eight years in Nippon Professional Baseball. A switch hitter, Seguignol is regarded as t ...

with 34 doubles, eighth with 144 hits, seventh with 239 total bases, tied for seventh with 72 runs, second with 78 walks (trailing only Matsunaka). He was fourth in OBP and eighth in slugging. His home run total continued to fall, down to 19, but still tied for seventh in the PL. He re-signed for Seibu for ¥275 million plus incentives.

Chunichi Dragons

At the end of the 2007 season, Wada opted for free agency and joined boyhood club and reigning Japan Series champions, the

in a 3-year, ¥840 million deal to replace

MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

bound right-fielder,

Kosuke Fukudome is a Japanese former professional baseball outfielder. He played in Major League Baseball from 2008 to 2012, primarily with the Chicago Cubs and had a long spanning career in the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) with the Chunichi Dragons and ...

Personal

Wada's hobbies are fishing,

pachinko is a mechanical game originating in Japan that is used as an arcade game, and much more frequently for gambling. Pachinko fills a niche in Gambling in Japan, Japanese gambling comparable to that of the slot machine in the West as a form of l ...

and mah jong.

Sources

*This is a shortened version of the Baseball-Reference.com Bullpen articl
Kazuhiro Wada
accessed February 21, 2007. The Bullpen is a wiki, and its content is available under the

GNU Free Documentation License The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights ...

External links

Japanbaseballdaily.com by Gary Garland

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wada, Kazuhiro 1972 births Living people Baseball people from Gifu Prefecture Sportspeople from Gifu category:Japanese baseball players Nippon Professional Baseball outfielders Seibu Lions players Chunichi Dragons players 2006 World Baseball Classic players Olympic baseball players for Japan Baseball players at the 2004 Summer Olympics Olympic bronze medalists for Japan Nippon Professional Baseball MVP Award winners Olympic medalists in baseball Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics category:Japanese baseball coaches Nippon Professional Baseball coaches World Baseball Classic players of Japan