Takenori Emoto (江本孟紀, born July 22, 1947) is a Japanese 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 t ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

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 ...

. He played for the

Toei Flyers 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 ...

in 1971, the

Nankai 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. ...

from 1972 to 1975, and the

Hanshin Tigers The Hanshin Tigers (Japanese: 阪神タイガース ''Hanshin Taigāsu'') are a Nippon Professional Baseball team playing in the Central League. The team is based in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and is owned by Hanshin Electric Railwa ...

from 1976 to 1981. Emoto was unusually non-confirmative for a player, once almost being released by the team for letting his hair grow over his ears.

Whiting, Robert Robert Whiting (born October 24, 1942) is a best-selling author and journalist who has written several books on contemporary Japanese culture - which include topics such as baseball and American gangsters operating in Japan. He was born in New Jer ...

. ''You Gotta Have Wa'' (Vintage Departures, 1989), pp. 72–73. After complaining publicly about being shuttled between starting and relief in 1981, he was forced to retire by his team the

. Despite being only 34 years old, he was prevented from pitching professionally again. Emoto later went on to write a series of successful tell-all books about his experiences in professional baseball, drawing comparisons to pitcher-turned-author

Jim Bouton James Alan Bouton (; March 8, 1939 – July 10, 2019) was an American professional baseball player. Bouton played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a pitcher for the New York Yankees, Seattle Pilots, Houston Astros, and Atlanta Braves between 1 ...

. Turning to politics, in the late 1990s Emoto became a member of

From Five was a Japanese political party that existed from December 1997 to January 1998. It was formed by former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa and four other legislators ( Yoriko Madoka, Shinji Tarutoko, Kiyoshi Ueda and Takenori Emoto) who left the ...

, a political party that existed from December 1997 to January 1998. It was formed by former Prime Minister

Morihiro Hosokawa is a Japanese politician and noble who was Prime Minister of Japan from 1993 to 1994, leading a coalition government which was the first non- Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government of Japan since 1955. After a funding scandal in early 1994, h ...

and four other legislators (Emoto,

Yoriko Madoka is a Japanese politician of the Kokumin Ikari no Koe who served in the House of Councillors from 1993 to 2010. Madoka was born in Yokosuka, Kanagawa and grew up in Yao, Osaka and Takamatsu, Kagawa. She graduated from Tsuda College in 1969, and ...

Shinji Tarutoko is a Japanese politician and former member of the House of Representatives. Early life and education Tarutoko was born in Shimane Prefecture on 6 August 1959. He studied at the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management. Career Tarutok ...

, and

Kiyoshi Ueda is a Japanese politician currently serving as a member of the House of Councillors for the Saitama at-large district after winning a by-election in 2019. He has signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, signaling his opposition to any and all tax ...

) who left the New Frontier Party in June 1997. From Five merged into the

Good Governance Party The was a Japanese political party which was in existence for a short period in early 1998. It was a centrist, reformist party that merged with other parties in April 1998 to form the Democratic Party of Japan. There was an earlier pre-war ''Min ...

in January 1998, which became part of the

Democratic Party of Japan The was a centristThe Democratic Party of Japan was widely described as centrist: * * * * * * * to centre-left liberal or social-liberal political party in Japan from 1998 to 2016. The party's origins lie in the previous Democratic ...

in 1998. In 1998, Emoto, as a member of the DPJ, was elected to the

Japanese House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers. If the two houses disagree on matters of the budget, treaties, ...

References

External links

1947 births Living people Hosei University alumni Japanese baseball players Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers Toei Flyers players Nankai Hawks players Hanshin Tigers players People from Kōchi, Kōchi Japanese sportsperson-politicians {{Japan-baseball-pitcher-stub