Haruki Ihara

Haruki Ihara (伊原 春樹)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 180 lbs

• School Shibaura Kogyo University
• High School Kitagawa Kogyo High School

• Born January 18, 1949 in Fuchu, Hiroshima Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Haruki Ihara played in Nippon Pro Baseball for 9 years.

Ihara was drafted by the Nishitetsu Lions in the second round of the 1970 NPB draft, but he didn't get many chances in his rookie year, hitting .270/.298/.374 in only 39 games. When Kazuhide Funada left the team, Ihara took the starting third baseman spot, and he recorded a .241/.310/.355 batting line with 7 homers in 1972. However, when Shojiro Kikukawa broke out in 1973, Ihara lost his spot and he was sent to the Lodi Lions of the California League. After returning from America, Ihara still spent most of his next two seasons in the NPB Farm Leagues, and only played 66 games combined. The Lions then traded him with Hajime Kato to the Yomiuri Giants for Shitoshi Sekimoto and Nobuhiro Tamai in 1975. The Hiroshima native still struggled with the Giants, and he was released after the 1977 season because he only played 9 games combined for their big club in two seasons. The Lions picked him back up, and Ihara was their main backup utility man in 1978 and 1979. He hit .253/.311/.337 and .253/.311/.337 respectively, then announced his retirement after only having 6 at-bats in 1980.

After retiring, he was the fielding coach for the Lions' minor league team in 1981 and batting coach for them from 1982 to 1984. The Lions promoted him to the big club as assistant fielding coach from 1985 to 1986, and he worked as fielding coach from 1987 to 1999. He jumped to the Hanshin Tigers as base running coach in 2000, but he was fired after this season due to a quarrel with manager Katsuya Nomura. Ihara came back to Lions as fielding coach in 2001, and managed them from 2002 to 2003. He led the Lions to the PL pennant in 2002, but he left the team in 2003 because the team preferred Tsutomu Ito as their manager. The Orix BlueWave signed him, but he then quit the team after 2004 season after they merged with the Kintetsu Buffaloes. The Yomiuri Giants signed him as bench coach from 2007 to 2010, then he worked as broadcaster for NBS and J-SPORTS from 2011 to 2013, and managed the Lions again in 2014. However, The Lions struggled at the beginning of the 2014 season, and Ihara resigned in the middle of the season.

Overall, Ihara hit .241/.294/.327 with 189 hits in 9 seasons in NPB.

Related Sites

• Stats at japanesebaseball.com
• Wiki Japan
• NPB.com bio