Kenji Furukubo

Kenji Furukubo (古久保 健二)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 9", Weight 165 lb.
• High School Taisei Gakuin University High School

• Born June 23, 1964 in Toyonaka, Osaka Japan

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Biographical Information

Kenji Furukubo is a catcher who played all 18 of his seasons in Nippon Pro Baseball with the Kintetsu Buffaloes, from 1985 to 2002, but mainly as a back-up.

Furukubo was drafted by the Buffaloes in the sixth round of 1982 NPB draft. He only appeared in over 100 games once, in 1995, when he played 113 games for Kintetsu, after long-time starter Kazuhiko Yamashita had left to join the Nippon Ham Fighters and his main back-up, Hidekazu Mitsuyama, saw his playing time diminish. However, he hit just .191/.241/.284 that season. In spite of the low production at the bat, he was selected for the 1995 NPB All-Star Game. In fact, his career average in 943 games was only .204 with a dreadful OBP of .254. Tetsuya Matoyama emerged as the starter after him, and his playing time went down again, even though Matoyama wasn't much of a hitter either. Furukubo was part of the last two Kintetsu teams to win a Pacific League pennant, in 1989 and 2001. After the 2004 season, the team would merge with the Orix Blue Wave to become the Orix Buffaloes.

During the 2001 championship season, he was the last player remaining from the 1989 championship squad and was noted for his excellent work with the team's ace, Hisashi Iwakuma. On September 26th, Kintetsu trailed Orix, 5-2, heading into the 9th inning but managed to load the bases against Masanobu Okubo. That is when manager Masataka Nashida replaced Kenji, who was due to bat, with pinch-hitter Hirotoshi Kitagawa who delivered a dramatic pennant-clinching grand slam, only the sixth pinch-hit, come-from-behind, sayonara grand slam in NPB history (and the first pennant-clinching one). The Buffaloes went on to lose the Nippon Series four games to one, to the Yakult Swallows, and he started four of the five games at catcher. In the 1989 Nippon Series, they had famously won the first three games against the Yomiuri Giants, only to lose the last four. Kenji missed the entire series due to a broken wrist.

After his playing career, he became a long-time coach, both in the senior leagues and in ni-gun, including serving as the pitching coach for Orix and for the Rakuten Golden Eagles. He also coached in the Korea Baseball Organization for the Hanwha Eagles and in the CPBL, being named bench coach of the Rakuten Monkeys in 2022. He was named the manager of the Monkeys in 2024