(born January 9, 1991 in

Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...

) is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

former professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

player who played 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 ...

in Japan's

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 ...

from 2012 to 2015. His younger brother

Taiga Taiga (; rus, тайга́, p=tɐjˈɡa; relates to Mongolic and Turkic languages), generally referred to in North America as a boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruce ...

is also a professional baseball player currently playing for

Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks The are a Japanese professional baseball team based in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture. They compete in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) as a member of the Pacific League. The team was formerly known as the Nankai Hawks and was based in Osaka. ...

. His father Eiichi is a former professional baseball player. In October, 2015, Kasahara was named as a result of an investigation conducted by the Giants into illegal betting on professional and high school baseball games by its players. On 9 November 2015, the Giants organization terminated Kasahara's contract, along with fellow pitchers

Satoshi Fukuda is a Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) pitcher who last played for the Yomiuri Giants in Japan's Central League. In October, 2015, Fukuda was named as a result of an investigation conducted by the Giants into illegal betting on profes ...

and

Ryuya Matsumoto (born April 29, 1993) is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher who last played for the Yomiuri Giants in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball. In November 2015 he was one of three Giants players handed a penalty of indefinite disqualification ...

. The investigation found that Kasahara introduced the other two players to a graduate school student that facilitated the betting. On 10 November the NPB league commissioner penalized the three players with indefinite disqualification. Under league rules, Kasahara will be able to apply for readmission to the league after 5 years if he satisfies the commissioner that he is remorseful for his actions. The disqualification extends to American

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

and the professional leagues in China,

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. The players avoided permanent disqualification because the investigation found no evidence that they were involved in fixing matches. The Giants were also fined ¥10 million over the incident and the team's representative at the NPB, Atsushi Harasawa, resigned to take responsibility.

External links

NPB stats

References

1991 births Living people Baseball people from Fukuoka Prefecture Japanese expatriate baseball players in Puerto Rico Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers Yomiuri Giants players Cangrejeros de Santurce (baseball) players Gigantes de Carolina players {{Japan-baseball-pitcher-stub