Kuranosuke Furuya

Kuranosuke Furuya (古谷 倉之助)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 7", Weight 132 lbs.

• High School Hachioji Academy

• Born May 14, 1911 in Tokyo Prefecture Japan
• Died 1961

BR register page

Biographical Information

Kuranosuke Furuya was a two-way player who played in Nippon Pro Baseball for 7 years. .

Furuya was signed by the Nagoya Kinko team in 1936, and he hit .167/.194/.300 in spring. He shined in the fall season, hitting .343/.384/.429 with 2 homers and 23 RBI. He won the first official Japanese Professional Baseball League RBI and home run titles in NPB history, only .039 shy from robbing batting title from Susumu Nakane. He was also 3-10 with 3.16 ERA and started a league-leading 16 games. Furuya improved as a hurler in 1937, collected a career-high 15 wins with a 2.15 ERA. He was 3rd in wins (9 behind Eiji Sawamura), 4th in strikeouts (101 behind Sawamura) and 7th in ERA (1.35 behind Sawamura). He was still productive as a pitcher in the fall season, collected 7 wins with a 3.09 ERA. However, he struggled at the plate, hitting .240/.307/.280 and .150/.261/.150 respectively in both seasons in 1937.

The Tokyo native was not as productive as his first two seasons in the rest of his career. He was 3-6 with a 4.50 ERA in spring in 1938, then recorded a 3.06 ERA in 18 appearances in the fall season. As an infielder, his batting line was still terrible .181/.289/.236 in the spring season, then he improved to .263/.318/.293 in the fall season. Furuya bounced back in both side in 1939, hitting .253/.321/.335 with 2 homers, and having a 7-18 record with a 2.43 ERA as a pitcher. He ranked 6th in Ks, 175 behind Victor Starffin.

Furuya was still productive as a pitcher in 1940, started 35 games with a 9-19 record and a 2.56 ERA. He was 9th in strikeouts (185 behind Tadashi Kameda), 7th in starts (11 behind Kameda) but only hit .179/.278/.220. After the Kinko merged with the Taiyo, Furuya came back as he hit .282/.400/.352 and recorded an elite 1.38 ERA in 136 2/3 innings in 1941. He was 8th in ERA, 0.5 behind Jiro Noguchi. Furuya was still 5-7 with a 1.64 ERA in 1942, but he decided to retire after this season.

Overall, Furuya had hit .230/.311/.288 with 251 hits in 10 seasons in NPB. He was 56-93 with a 2.48 ERA, struck out 558 and pitched 1445 2/3 innings in 10 seasons in the NPB.

Related Sites

• NPB site
• Wiki Japan