Japanese baseball legend Kazuhiro Kiyohara (ROY 1986) hasn’t played a full season in…well, forever. After sitting out the entire 2007 season following endoscopic surgery on his left knee Kiyohara, who is 5th all-time on the NPB homers list, will begin his 23rd spring training heading into 2008.
His game totals over the past few years read as follows: 67 (2006), 96, 40, 114 and 55. One of the regular commenters at japanesebaseball.com threw out the idea of creating a poll to try and peg how many games the man who is (was?) known as “The King of Roppongi,” will play this season. Take a stab folks. Winner gets a night in Roppongi with…no, just kidding.
[poll=6]
4 responses so far ↓
1 Shinsano // Feb 2, 2008 at 10:06 am
I’m an optimist. I say 60.
2 westbaystars // Feb 2, 2008 at 11:30 pm
60 sounds about right. But I think I’m going to go with 45. Pitchers love to pitch inside to him, and he has an awful tendency to get hit by a lot of those pitches. I predict that he’ll get hit on the wrist early in the season, miss a big chunk of the season, then return in time to complete 45 games, including his retirement game.
3 John Brooks // Feb 3, 2008 at 8:27 am
I’m going to say somewhere between 30-45 games. Like what Michael said, Kiyohara will get hit on the wrist miss most of the season, come back in time for a retirement game and bat once striking out.
4 Dan Miceli // Feb 3, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Strange how much Kiyohara`s body has changed from the time of his picture taking with Barry Bonds-musculature, what appears now to be significantly different facial features and overall head size-among other things. Maybe Bonds let him in on a few BALCO trade secrets.
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