Nori Aoki

Norichika Aoki (青木 宣親, Aoki Norichika; born January 5, 1982) is a Japanese former professional baseball outfielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Milwaukee Brewers, Kansas City Royals, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, Houston Astros, Toronto Blue Jays, and New York Mets, and in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.

Aoki is one of only six players, alongside Ichiro Suzuki, Matt Murton, Alex Ramirez, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, and Shogo Akiyama, to amass 200 or more hits in a single season in Japanese professional baseball, and the only individual to do so in two separate seasons. He played in the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classics as well as the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and represented Japan in the 2017 World Baseball Classic.

Aoki was born in Hyūga, Miyazaki, and attended Hyuga Municipal Hichiya Elementary School and Tomishima Junior High School before going on to Miyazaki Prefectural Hyuga High School. Surprisingly, he was a pitcher throughout junior high and high school, converting to the outfield only upon entering Waseda University where he majored in human sciences.

Aoki was surrounded by a remarkable concentration of talent at Waseda: his year included shortstop Takashi Toritani (currently with the Chiba Lotte Marines), third baseman Toshimitsu Higa (Hiroshima Toyo Carp) and center fielder Shintaro Yoshida (Orix Buffaloes), all three of whom would later go on to the pros. Left-handed pitcher Tsuyoshi Wada (Fukuoka Softbank Hawks) was one year his senior, and second baseman Hiroyasu Tanaka and first baseman Shinichi Takeuchi, both of whom would later rejoin Aoki with the Swallows, were one and two years his junior, respectively.

The six hitters, who often batted in the order of Tanaka, Aoki, Toritani, Higa, Takeuchi and Yoshida, formed one of the most potent lineups in college baseball history and led Waseda to four consecutive Tokyo Big6 titles for the first time in the history of the university. Aoki hit .463 in the spring of his junior year (2002) and set a Tokyo Big6 record for runs scored in a single game with six in a game against the University of Tokyo that season, going 5-for-5 with five RBI and a walk in that same game. He hit .332 during his college career, albeit without a single home run, and was selected to the Tokyo Big6 Best Nine Award three times in his eight seasons (spring and fall) with Waseda as the starting right fielder. He was selected in the fourth round of the 2003 NPB amateur draft by the Yakult Swallows.

In 2004, Aoki saw little playing time in his rookie season (2004), playing just 10 games at the ichigun (Japanese equivalent of "major league") level. However, he showed signs of promise in the minors, hitting .372 and leading the Eastern League in both batting average and on-base percentage (.436) and coming second in stolen bases (21). In the Fresh All-Star Game (the Japanese equivalent of the All-Star Futures Game) held that year, Aoki went 4-for-5, coming a home run short of the cycle and winning Most Valuable Player honors for the game.

In 2005, Aoki enjoyed a breakout year, earning the job of starting center fielder with the departure of Atsunori Inaba. While he struggled in the opening weeks of the season as the Swallows' No. 2 hitter, striking out uncharacteristically often, he slowly began to collect hits at his usual pace and was promoted to the leadoff role by June 2005. On October 6, 2005, he tied the Central League single-season hit record of 192 (set by Robert Rose in 1999), following up the feat by becoming the second player in NPB history (after Ichiro Suzuki) to record 200 hits in a single season, on October 11, 2005.

While Aoki missed Suzuki's NPB record for hits in a single season of 210, he finished with a league-record 202 hits (his 169 singles were an NPB single-season record). He led all Central League players in batting average (.344) and hits, and was voted the league Most Valuable Rookie.