Seiji Kobayashi (小林誠司, born June 7, 1989) is a Japanese

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Moder ...

catcher Catcher is a position in baseball and softball. When a batter takes their turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the (home) umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. In addition to this primary duty, the catc ...

for 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 ...

Nippon Professional Baseball is a professional baseball league and the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning simply ''Professional Baseball''; outside of Japan, NPB is often referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league ...

(NPB).

Career

Kobayashi attended

Doshisha University , also referred to as , is a private university in Kyoto, Japan. Established in 1875, it is one of Japan's oldest private institutions of higher learning, and has approximately 30,000 students enrolled on four campuses in Kyoto. It is one of Japa ...

, where he played for the school's baseball team. The

selected Kobayashi in the 2013 Nippon Professional Baseball draft. In 2018, he was selected .

International career

Kobayashi represented the

Japan national baseball team The , also known as , is the national team representing Japan in international baseball competitions. It won the World Baseball Classic in 2006, 2009, and 2023 as well as WBSC Premier12 in 2019. The team is currently ranked 1st in the world by t ...

in the 2014 MLB Japan All-Star Series, 2015 exhibition games against Europe,

2017 World Baseball Classic The 2017 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international professional baseball competition, composed of 16 competing nations, held from March 6 to 22, 2017. It was the fourth iteration of the World Baseball Classic. The first-round hosts wer ...

, 2019 exhibition games against

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and

2019 WBSC Premier12 The 2019 WBSC Premier12 was an international baseball championship featuring the 12 highest-ranked national teams in the world, held by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC). It was the second WBSC Premier12 event. The championship w ...

. On February 18, 2019, he was selected at the 2019 exhibition games against Mexico. On October 1, 2019, he was selected at the 2019 WBSC Premier12. And also, on November 16, 2018, he was selected Yomiuri Giants roster at the

2018 MLB Japan All-Star Series The 2018 MLB Japan All-Star Series was the twelfth edition of the MLB Japan All-Star Series, a best-of-six series between an All-Star team from Major League Baseball (MLB) and for the second time in series history, the Japanese national team, Samu ...

exhibition game against MLB All-Stars.

References

External links

1989 births Living people Doshisha University alumni Japanese baseball players Nippon Professional Baseball catchers Yomiuri Giants players 2017 World Baseball Classic players 2019 WBSC Premier12 players World Baseball Classic players of Japan {{Japan-baseball-catcher-stub