was a Japanese

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 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 ...

. He previously played for the

Hiroshima Toyo Carp The is a professional baseball team based in Hiroshima, Japan. They compete in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball. The team is primarily owned by the Matsuda family, led by , who is a descendant of Mazda founder Jujiro Matsuda ...

before being traded to the Giants in 2006. He played for the Giants through the 2009 season before retiring as a player, returning to the Giants for 2010 in a coaching capacity. Kimura was born in

Miyazaki, Miyazaki is the capital city of Miyazaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. The city was founded on April 1, 1924. As of July 2022, the city had an estimated population of 399,788 and a population density of 621 persons per km2. The total area ...

, Japan. He joined the

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 ...

from outside the amateur draft in 1990 after graduating from high school, and went on to become the leading utility player in Japanese baseball. His solid hitting, speed, and strong arm made him a valuable offensive and defensive player. He played games at every single position except pitcher, catching four games in the 1999 season. He played first base for one game in 1998. He was registered as an outfielder, but played more games in the infield in recent years. In 2004, he was recruited for the Athens Olympics for his skills as a utility player. He had the same name as

Takuya Kimura is a Japanese actor, singer, and radio personality. He is regarded as a Japanese icon after achieving success as an actor. He was also a popular member of SMAP, one of the best-selling boy bands in Asia. A 1996 television drama series, ''Long ...

of the popular Japanese pop group,

SMAP SMAP was a Japanese boy band, composed of Masahiro Nakai, Takuya Kimura, Goro Inagaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, and Shingo Katori. The group was created in 1988 by music producer Johnny Kitagawa, founder of Johnny & Associates, originally as a six-pi ...

. He once made an appearance on the television show

SMAP×SMAP ''SMAP×SMAP'', often referred to simply as ''Sma-Sma'', was a Japanese television variety show hosted by boy band SMAP. Debuting on April 15, 1996, it was produced by Kansai TV and Fuji TV and aired on Fuji TV every Monday from 10:00 p.m. t ...

, hosted by his namesake. On April 2, 2010, at Hiroshima's

Mazda Stadium , also called , is a baseball stadium in Minami-ku, Hiroshima, Japan. It is used primarily for baseball and is the home of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of the Japanese Central League. The ballpark has a capacity of 32,000 people and opened on Apri ...

preceding a game against the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, Kimura was hitting practice knocks to infielders when he suddenly collapsed and was rushed to hospital in a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

. He was diagnosed with

subarachnoid hemorrhage Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is bleeding into the subarachnoid space—the area between the arachnoid membrane and the pia mater surrounding the brain. Symptoms may include a severe headache of rapid onset, vomiting, decreased level of consci ...

and died in

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, on April 7, 2010.巨人の木村拓也コーチが死去…意識戻らぬまま
/ref> He died just eight days before his 38th birthday.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kimura, Takuya 1972 births 2010 deaths Baseball players at the 2004 Summer Olympics Hiroshima Toyo Carp players Nippon Ham Fighters players Olympic baseball players of Japan Olympic bronze medalists for Japan Baseball people from Miyazaki Prefecture Yomiuri Giants players Olympic medalists in baseball Japanese baseball coaches Nippon Professional Baseball coaches Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics