is a Japanese baseball player who currently plays for the

Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters The are a Japanese professional baseball team based in Kitahiroshima, Hokkaidō. They compete in the Pacific League of Nippon Professional Baseball, playing the majority of their home games at ES CON Field Hokkaido. The Fighters also host a ...

Nippon Professional Baseball or NPB is the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning ''Professional Baseball''. Outside Japan, it is often just referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league can be traced back to the formation ...

's (NPB)

Pacific League The or 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 annual Japan Series. It currently consis ...

as a

First Baseman A first baseman, abbreviated 1B, is the player on a baseball or softball team who fields the area nearest first base, the first of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. The first baseman is responsible for the majori ...

. A left-handed batter and right-handed thrower, Kotaro stands tall and weighs . He was the first pick of the Fighters in the 2017 draft. He is the son of notable Japanese rugby union coach,

Katsuyuki Kiyomiya is a notable Japanese rugby union coach, formerly of Waseda University RFC (2001–06) and now (since 2006) of Suntory Sungoliath. Many in Japan had hoped he would coach the national side in the future however after he criticized the then cur ...

Early career

Kiyomiya drew major news attention since the 2012 Little League World Series, where at the age of 13 he employed an 80 mph fastball (major league equivalent of throwing 104 MPH) to lead Team Japan to a 12-2 LLWS championship win over Goodlettsville (TN). He was also noted to have hit 60 home runs in 50 games Kiyomiya then went to Waseda Jitsugyo High School where he set the Japanese High School Baseball record for home runs with 111 home runs over three seasons in high school. On August 23, 2017, it was announced that he will serve as captain of Samurai Japan for the

2017 U-18 Baseball World Cup The 2017 U-18 Baseball World Cup or the XXVIII U-18 Baseball World Cup was an international baseball tournament held by the World Baseball Softball Confederation for players 18-year-old and younger. The 2017 edition was held in Thunder Bay, Canad ...

Professional career

Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters

Seven teams chose Kotaro in the first round of the 2017 NPB draft, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters won the right to negotiate with Kiyomiya by winning the lottery. Kotaro then chose the jersey number 21. On February 27, 2019, he was selected for

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

at the 2019 exhibition games against

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, but on March 4, 2019, he canceled his participation due to broken right

hamate bone The hamate bone (from Latin hamatus, "hooked"), or unciform bone (from Latin ''uncus'', "hook"), Latin os hamatum and occasionally abbreviated as just hamatum, is a bone in the human wrist readily distinguishable by its wedge shape and a hook-l ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kiyomiya, Kotaro 1999 births Living people Japanese baseball players Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters players Nippon Professional Baseball first basemen Nippon Professional Baseball outfielders Baseball people from Tokyo