Seizo Furukawa

Seizo Furukawa (古川 清蔵)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 7", Weight 143 lbs.

• High School Kagoshima Commercial High School

• Born March 4, 1922 in Kagoshima, Kagoshima Japan
• Died October 17, 2018 in Takarazuka, Hyogo Japan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Seizo Furukawa played in Nippon Pro Baseball for 17 years. .

Furukawa was signed by the Nagoya team in 1941, but he only hit .137/.257/.205 in 38 games. His batting line was still .216/.273/.330 in 1942, but he crushed 8 homers and won the Japanese Professional Baseball League home run king title in a low-offense era (he just missed the top-10 in average with his .216 and he was among the slugging leaders). Although he only recorded 4 homers with a .195/.303/.267 batting line in 1943, he still became the first player in NPB history to lead the league in homers in back-to-back seasons. After this season, he was drafted into the military and missed the next two seasons.

The Kagoshima native returned to the league with a .259/.359/.395 batting line and 9 homers in 1946, ranking 5th in homers (11 behind Hiroshi Oshita) and 8th in steals (13 behind Toshio Kawanishi). Furukawa extended his solid performance in 1947, crushed 11 homers with a .234/.320/.372 batting line, and ranked 3rd in homers (6 behind Oshita) and 6th in swipes (28 behind Kawanishi). After this season, he jumped to the Hankyu Braves with Masashi Akamine.

Furukawa only hit .247/.316/.370 in his first year with Hankyu, but he bounced back soon and recorded a .291/.360/.445 batting line with 25 steals in 1949. He hit .279/.357/.430 with 13 homers and a career-high 56 stolen bases in 1950, and he ranked 2nd in steals, 22 behind Chusuke Kizuka. The speedy outfielder slumped to .240/.301/.334 in 1951 and .271/.344/.417 in 1952, but he came back and had a .285/.320/.398 batting line with 33 steals in 1953. He also broke the NPB record when he had seven hits in a game on August 30.

After the 1953 season, Furukawa slumped again as his batting line declined to .226/.319/.349 with 30 steals in 1954. He came back and hit .276/.343/.364 in 1955, then completed his last 30-steal season with a .251/.314/.324 batting line in 1956. Furukawa was moved from the regular starting lineup after the 1956 season, and he hit .244/.322/.341 and .246/.308/.316 respectively in the next two seasons. The veteran only batted .208/.238/.280 in 57 games in 1959, then he announced his retirement. He passed away in 2018, and he was the last alive player who had played in NPB before World War II.

Overall, Furukawa had hit .248/.321/.362 with 1,419 hits, 97 homers and 370 steals in 17 seasons in NPB. He had the most stolen bases among those players who never led the league in steals.

Related Sites

• NPB site
• Wiki Japan