Sachio Kinugasa

Japanese baseball player

Sachio Kinugasa (衣笠 祥雄; January 18, 1947 – April 23, 2018) was a Japanese professional baseball third baseman for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of the Nippon Professional Baseball league from 1965 to 1987. He was nicknamed Tetsujin, meaning "Iron Man". He played in a record breaking 2,215 consecutive games, having surpassed Lou Gehrig's record by 1987. Kinugasa is mostly remembered for his consecutive game streak, but he ranks seventh in Nippon Professional Baseball in career home runs (504), 5th in career hits (2543) and 10th in career RBIs (1448), showing that he was one of the most consistent hitters in Japanese baseball. He was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996.

Kinugasa's mother was Japanese and she raised him by herself. Kinugasa's father was an African American serviceman who was stationed in Japan after World War II. He reported that he never met his father. and advanced to the Japanese National High School Baseball Championship twice in his senior year as a catcher. Nicknamed Tetsujin (Iron Man), after the robot manga "Tetsujin 28" (Known as Gigantor in the United States), Kinugasa played in games even when he was badly injured, including with bone fractures. He tied Lou Gehrig's record of 2,130 consecutive games played on June 11, 1987. Kinugasa retired after the 1987 season, ending his career with 2,215 consecutive games played, 2,543 hits, and 504 home runs.

Kinugasa was given the People's Honour Award for his performance in the professional leagues. He is the second baseball player, following Sadaharu Oh and followed by Shigeo Nagashima and Hideki Matsui, to have received the award. On 18 January 2023, Google celebrated the 76th birthday of Kinugasa with a Google Doodle.

The character of Mitsuo from the Yakuza series is based on Kinugasa, as he too is a half African American baseball player who never met his father.