With the tragic news of Rickey Henderson's passing this past week, I got to thinking about Yutaka Fukumoto. I was a big Lou Brock fan when I was a kid so I've kind of naturally been attracted to base stealers like Henderson (not that there's really guys like him), Willie Wilson and Tim Raines. When I got into Japanese baseball, it was only natural that I'd gravitate towards Yutaka Fukumoto, NPB's career stolen base leader. I thought I'd do an appreciation post for Fukumoto.
The parallels between Henderson and Fukumoto are striking. They're the only two players in the world to have had more than 1000 stolen bases in their careers. Fukumoto led his league in steals 13 times (1970-82) while Henderson did it 12 times. Both players hold their leagues single season steal record as well, with Fukumoto's 106 in 1972 being the NPB record and Henderson's 130 ten years later being the MLB record. Both players also had some pop in their bats and hold the record for most lead off home runs in their respective leagues.
Like Henderson, Fukumoto dominates the NPB career stolen base leader board. His 1065 steals is 469 more than the runner up, Yoshinori Hirose. Oddly enough, Henderson leads Brock by almost the same amount - 468 steals. The nearest active player, Haruki Nishkawa, has only 342 steals. The most by any player in the 21st Century is Norihiro Akahoshi's 381 although that total certainly would have been higher had Akashoshi not been forced to retire relatively young due to injuries. In addition, Kazuo Matsui would have had more than 363 steals had he not spent seven years in MLB (where he amassed another 102 steals) although I feel it's unlikely he would have gotten much closer to Fukimoto's total than Hirose.
The big difference I see in their careers is the context of when they played. Henderson was the greatest base stealer in MLB history but he wasn't the only base stealer of his era. Wilson, Raines, Vince Coleman and later Kenny Lofton and Juan Pierre also had lots of stolen bases. Fukumoto, on the other hand, seems to have been the only prolific base stealer of his era. The most steals by a player whose career overlapped significantly with Fukumoto's was Yoshihiko Takahashi's 477, almost 600 behind Fukumoto's total.
It would have been interesting to see what Fukumoto's total would have been if he'd continued playing a few more years. He retired after Orix bought the Braves from Hankyu after the 1988 season but it really wasn't his idea. After Hankyu's final game on October 23rd, manager Toshiharu Ueda meant to say that they'd be bidding farewall to Hisashi Yamada (who was retiring) but continuing on with Fukumoto on the new team but instead said they'd be bidding farewell to both Yamada and Fukumoto. Although he had contemplated playing for another three years, he decided to go ahead and retire at 40. There were no hard feelings as he coached for Ueda and Orix for a few years after that. Given how limited his playing time was in his last couple seasons, I don't see him adding a whole lot more to his total if he'd continued playing..
Fukumoto has a lot of great cards and it was hard trying to decide on one. Ultimately I punted and decided to show six Calbees in all:
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| 1974-75 Calbee #484 |
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| 1979 Calbee May Best #11 |
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| 1980 Calbee #282 |
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| 1981 Calbee #244 |
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| 1983 Calbee #395 |
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| 1984 Calbee #75 |
That 1981 card shows a scene from one of the All Star games that year.
Rickey Henderson was aware of Fukumoto and when he passed Fukumoto's total, he signed the base and presented it to him. That base now resides in the Japanese Baseball Hall Of Fame in Tokyo:
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