Yoshimi Moritaki

Yoshimi Moritaki (森滝 義巳)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 154 lb.
• School Rikkyo University
• High School Hyogo Prefectural Hyogo High School

• Born March 8, 1938 in Kobe, Hyogo Japan

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Biographical Information

Pitcher Yoshimi Moritaki played in Nippon Pro Baseball from 1960 to 1966, the first five seasons with the Kokutetsu Swallows of the Central League, and the final two with the renamed Sankei Swallows / Sankei Atoms in the same league.

His best season was by far in 1961 when he went 10-8, 2.31 in 38 games for Kokutetsu, including 18 starts. On June 20th, he pitched the seventh perfect game in NPB history (and fifth in the Central League), defeating the Chunichi Dragons, 1-0, while striking out 4. He later said that he did not expect to start that day's game and had gone out drinking the night before, showing up at the ballpark with a slight hangover. Interestingly, three of the five Central League perfectos up to that point had been thrown by Kokutetsu pitchers: Moritaki's followed those by Yoshitomo Miyaji in 1956 and Masaichi Kaneda in 1957, the latter also achieved against Chunichi. The franchise exists to this day as the Yakult Swallows, but no one else has thrown a perfect game wearing their colors since then. He played in the 1961 NPB All-Star Game, but was the losing pitcher in the first of two games after giving up a three-run homer to Yoshinori Hirose for a 3-0 loss. He struggled badly after his one good season, going 5-30 over the remainder of his career, all five wins coming in 1964, when he also lost 14 games in spite of a 2.98 ERA, which was the 11th best in the league.

He had a great amateur career, including twice winning the All-Japan University Baseball Championship Series with Rikkyo University in 1957 and 1958. He won gold as a member of the Japanese national team in the 1959 Asian Championship.