About Tomoaki Kanemoto
Tomoaki Kanemoto (金本 知憲, Kanemoto Tomoaki; born April 3, 1968) is a Japanese former professional baseball outfielder and manager. In his career as a player he spent 11 years with the Hiroshima Carp before moving to the Hanshin Tigers in 2003, where he spent another 10 years. He holds the world record for consecutive games played without missing an inning (1492, ending on April 18, 2010) and consecutive innings (13686, ending on 9th inning on April 17). The Tigers' former cleanup hitter, Kanemoto is regarded as one of the most accomplished hitters in Japanese professional baseball history. His 476 career home runs are the most by a left-handed hitter who throws right-handed and tenth overall on the all-time NPB list. Kanemoto retired as a player at the end of the 2012 season and rejoined the Tigers as their manager for the 2016 season, replacing Yutaka Wada. At the time of his retirement, Kanemoto was ninth on the all-time hit list for Japanese players across Japan and MLB. He is now 10th on the all-time list in both hits and home runs. Kanemoto earned a spot in the starting lineup in his first year at Tohoku Fukushi University. Kanemoto played an integral role in leading the Tigers to their first league title in 18 years. He continued to make strides with his bat in 1995, hitting.274 with 24 home runs (including his first career grand slam off then-Tigers left-hander Toshiro Yufune on August 10) and earning his first Best Nine Award. He holds the world record for consecutive games played without missing an inning and consecutive innings.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.