Long time Tokyo Yakult Swallows outfielder Norichika Aoki announced his retirement a few months back. Aoki had been a pitcher in high school but a broken shoulder made him switch to the outfield when he entered college in 2000.
He was a star on a loaded Waseda University team that included Takashi Toritani and Tsuyoshi Wada. The team won four consecutive titles for the first time in its history during his tenure with the team. He batted ,332 over his collegiate career (including a league leading .463 in the spring 2003 season) and won three Best 9 awards. He also set a Tokyo Big Six record by scoring five runs in a game against Todai. Yakult scouts who came out to Waseda games to see Toritani were impressed with Aoki and the Swallows took him in the fourth round of the fall 2003 draft.
He spent most of the 2004 season on the farm but his performance there (an Eastern League leading .372 batting average) ensured that he wouldn't be there for long. That winter, Atsunori Inaba left the team as a free agent, opening up an outfield spot, and Aoki won the job in training camp that next spring. He ended up having a breakout season, leading the Central League with a .344 average and becoming only the second batter in NPB history to get more than 200 hits in a season. As you'd expect, he won the CL Rookie Of The Year award that year.
I won't go year-by-year for the rest of his career but suffice it to say that he continued performing at a high level for the Swallows for the next six years, hitting over .300 each year until 2011 when he "only" hit ,292. He had 209 hits in 2010, becoming the only batter in NPB history to top 200 hits in a season twice. The Swallows posted him after the 2011 season and the Brewers won the bidding. He spent the next six seasons in MLB, splitting time between Milwaukee (2012-13), Kansas City (2014), San Francisco (2015), Seattle (2016) and the Mets, Astros and Blue Jays in 2017.
He returned to Japan and the Swallows in 2018 and, for a few seasons at least, it was like he never left. He hit .327, .297 and .317 his first three years back but his average dropped into the .250's over the following three years. He hit only .229 in limited playing time this season and announced his retirement in mid-September.
Aoki won three Central League batting crowns (2005, 2007 & 2010), led the league in OBP twice (2007 & 2009); steals once (2006) and hits twice (2005 & 2006)*. Besides his Rookie Of The Year award, he also won seven Best 9 awards (2005-11) and seven Golden Glove awards (2006-11 & 2020). He made the All Star team eight times (2005-11 & 2018) and won a Nippon Series with the Swallows in 2021**.
* Yes, despite getting 209 hits in 2010, he did not lead the league in hits - Matt Murton of the Tigers had 214. Tsuyoshi Nishioka had 206 hits that year as well so three of the seven 200 hit seasons in NPB history happened in 2010.
** He was awarded a World Series ring by the Astros in 2017 but did not play in the Series that year (he ended that season with the Blue Jays) so he is not a member of the "dual champions" club.
He suited up for the Japanese National Baseball team four times - the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2006, 2009 and 2017 World Baseball Classics. He hit .324 in the 2009 WBC and made the All Tournament Team.
His first baseball cards were in BBM's Rookie Edition (#61) and 1st Version (#308) sets in 2004. His first Calbee card was #125 in the 2005 Series Two set. Here's a bunch of his cards:
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| 2004 BBM 1st Version #61 |
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| 2004 BBM 1st Version #308 |
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| 2005 BBM All Stars #A61 |
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| 2006 BBM 1st Version #436 |
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| 2007 BBM 1st Version #M2 |
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| 2008 Calbee #S-12 |
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| 2009 BBM 1st Version #522 |
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| 2010 BBM Swallows #S60 |
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| 2011 BBM Legend Of Tokyo Big 6 #085 |
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| 2012 BBM 1st Version #393 |
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| 2017 Topps TBT #32 |
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| 2018 Calbee #ES-12 |
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| 2019 Swallows Bento Box |
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| 2020 BBM 1st Version #317 |
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| 2021 Calbee #IL-12 |
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| 2022 Topps NPB #10 |
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| 2023 BBM 1st Version #182 |
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| 2024 Epoch NPB #133 |
