Meikyukai

The Meikyukai is sometimes called one of the Japanese baseball Halls of Fame but this designation is not technically correct as the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame is the lone such institution.

To be honored as part of the Meikyukai, a player has to reach the 2,000-hit plateau, 200 career victories or 250 saves in Nippon Pro Baseball and Major League Baseball. Occasionally, other players can be added who have not reached any of those levels - for instance, Koji Uehara was added as he collected 100 wins, 100 holds and 100 saves. Hiromitsu Ochiai is the only player to turn down membership (as he felt the guidelines were too arbitrary) while Yutaka Enatsu gave up his membership due to a drug scandal. Kihachi Enomoto does not participate in their events even though he qualifies.

Also, players must have been after the Taisho era (which ended 12/25/26), which has excluded Victor Starffin, Tetsuharu Kawakami, Takehiko Bessho, Jiro Noguchi, Tadashi Wakabayashi, Shigeru Sugishita, Hiroshi Nakao and Hideo Fujimoto.

Alex Ramirez was the first foreign player to make the Meikyukai, doing so in 2013. With expanded schedules, it has become much easier to gain entry, with three players joining in 2012 and four more in 2013. Alfonso Soriano got his 2,000th hit between NPB and MLB in 2013 and thus also qualified under the rules as he began his career in NPB, but did not immediately receive an invitation.

Members

Player	Date	Category	Notes
Masaichi Kaneda	June 6, 1958	200 wins	initial member, withdrew in 2009
Kazuhisa Inao	June 25, 1962	200 wins	initial member
Masaaki Koyama	August 31, 1964	200 wins	initial member
Tetsuya Yoneda	August 14, 1966	200 wins	initial member
Takao Kajimoto	June 6, 1967	200 wins	initial member
Kazuhiro Yamauchi	October 14, 1967	2,000 hits	initial member
Mutsuo Minagawa	October 6, 1968	200 wins	initial member
Minoru Murayama	July 7, 1970	200 wins	initial member
Katsuya Nomura	October 18, 1970	2,000 hits	initial member
Shigeo Nagashima	May 25, 1971	2,000 hits	initial member
Yoshinori Hirose	July 1, 1972	2,000 hits	initial member
Isao Harimoto	August 19, 1972	2,000 hits	initial member
Sadaharu Oh	August 4, 1974	2,000 hits	initial member
Shinichi Etoh	September 6, 1975	2,000 hits	initial member
Keishi Suzuki	April 26, 1977	200 wins	initial member
Masahiro Doi	July 5, 1977	2,000 hits	initial member
Morimichi Takagi	April 25, 1978	2,000 hits	initial member
Makoto Matsubara	April 23, 1980	2,000 hits
Tsuneo Horiuchi	June 2, 1980	200 wins	withdrew in 2010
Isao Shibata	August 7, 1980	2,000 hits
Katsuo Ohsugi	July 21, 1981	2,000 hits
Hisashi Yamada	April 29, 1982	200 wins
Yutaka Enatsu	July 2, 1982	200 wins
Taira Fujita	May 3, 1983	2,000 hits
Sachio Kinugasa	August 9, 1983	2,000 hits
Yutaka Fukumoto	September 1, 1983	2,000 hits
Hiroyuki Yamazaki	September 18, 1983	2,000 hits
Masaji Hiramatsu	October 21, 1983	200 wins
Koji Yamamoto	May 5, 1984	2,000 hits
Michiyo Arito	July 11, 1984	2,000 hits
Osamu Higashio	September 15, 1984	200 wins
Tsutomu Wakamatsu	October 9, 1985	2,000 hits
Kenichi Yazawa	October 23, 1985	2,000 hits	withdrew in 2010
Hideji Kato	May 7, 1987	2,000 hits
Hiromitsu Kadota	August 26, 1987	2,000 hits
Choji Murata	May 13, 1989	200 wins
Yasunori Oshima	August 21, 1990	2,000 hits
Hiromasa Arai	July 8, 1992	2,000 hits
Manabu Kitabeppu	July 16, 1992	200 wins
Kazuhiro Sasaki	July 16, 2000	250 saves	NPB&MLB combined
Koji Akiyama	August 18, 2000	2,000 hits
Norihiro Komada	September 6, 2000	2,000 hits
Kazuyoshi Tatsunami	July 5, 2003	2,000 hits
Shingo Takatsu	August 16, 2003	250 saves	NPB&MLB combined
Ichiro Suzuki	May 21, 2004	2,000 hits	NPB&MLB combined
Kazuhiro Kiyohara	June 4, 2004	2,000 hits
Kimiyasu Kudoh	August 17, 2004	200 wins
Atsuya Furuta	April 24, 2005	2,000 hits
Hideo Nomo	June 15, 2005	200 wins	NPB&MLB combined
Kenjiro Nomura	June 23, 2005	2,000 hits
Takuro Ishii	May 11, 2006	2,000 hits
Hideki Matsui	May 6, 2007	2,000 hits	NPB&MLB combined
Yukio Tanaka	May 17, 2007	2,000 hits
Tomonori Maeda	September 1, 2007	2,000 hits
Tomoaki Kanemoto	April 12, 2008	2,000 hits
Masahiro Yamamoto	August 4, 2008	200 wins
Kazuo Matsui	August 15, 2009	2,000 hits	NPB&MLB combined
Hitoki Iwase	June 16, 2010	250 saves
Michihiro Ogasawara	May 5, 2011	2,000 hits
Atsunori Inaba	April 28, 2012	2,000 hits
Shinya Miyamoto	May 4, 2012	2,000 hits
Hiroki Kokubo	June 24, 2012	2,000 hits
Alex Ramirez	April 6, 2013	2,000 hits	first foreigner
Norihiro Nakamura	May 1, 2013	2,000 hits	NPB&MLB combined
Motonobu Tanishige	May 6, 2013	2,000 hits
Tadahito Iguchi	July 26, 2013	2,000 hits	NPB&MLB combined
Kazuhiro Wada	June 11, 2015	2,000 hits
Takahiro Arai	April 26, 2016	2,000 hits
Kosuke Fukudome	June 25, 2016	2,000 hits	NPB&MLB combined
Hiroki Kuroda	July 23, 2016	200 wins	NPB&MLB combined
Masahiro Araki	June 3, 2017	2,000 hits
Norichika Aoki	June 11, 2017	2,000 hits	NPB&MLB combined
Shinnosuke Abe	August 13, 2017	2,000 hits
Takashi Toritani	September 8, 2017	2,000 hits
Seiichi Uchikawa	May 9, 2018	2,000 hits
Kazuya Fukuura	May 22, 2018	2,000 hits
Hayato Sakamoto	November 8, 2020	2,000 hits
Takumi Kuriyama	September 4, 2021	2,000 hits
Kyuji Fujikawa	December 9, 2022	Vote
Koji Uehara	December 9, 2022	Vote
Yohei Oshima	August 26, 2023	2,000 hits
Yoshihisa Hirano	October 2, 2023	250 saves	NPB&MLB combined
Yu Darvish	May 19, 2024	200 wins	NPB&MLB combined