Tomoaki Kanemoto

Tomoaki Kanemoto of the Tigers played his final game today at Koshien against the Baystars.  I was lucky enough to tune into the game this morning (US East Coast time) just in time to see him hit a single in the sixth inning - the final hit in his career.

I've previously done a post for Kanemoto when I did a series of posts on the Top 15 Career Home Run Hitters a few years back, so I won't go into a lot of detail on his career.  He's best known, of course, for his consecutive game and innings streak - the innings streak is the longest known in professional baseball history (passing even Cal Ripken's) and the game streak was the second longest in Japan (behind Sachio Kinugasa).

He was drafted by Hiroshima in the fourth round of the 1992 draft (which was a hell of a round as it also included Norihiro Nakamura and Ichiro Suzuki).

2007 BBM Draft Story #113

2001 Upper Deck Victory #026

2008 BBM Hiroshima Memorial #24 (Celebrating his hitting for the cycle)

Following the 2002 season, he departed Hiroshima for the Hanshin Tigers.  He went to the Nippon Series twice with the Tigers, in 2003 and 2004.

2007 BBM Tigers #T099

2005 BBM Nippon Series #49

Kanemoto made the All Star team 11 times in his career (1995-97, 2000-01, 2003-06, 2008-09).  He was MVP of one of the games in 2003.

2004 BBM All Stars #A65

He reached 2000 hits in his career on April , 2008.

2009 BBM 1st Version #472