TOKYO: Japanese baseball star Norichika Aoki said Friday that he will retire at the end of this season.

Aoki, 42, now playing for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, has amassed a total of 2,723 hits in Japan and the United States, and won the batting title three times in the Central League of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball Organization, or NPB.

“I have decided to retire at the end of the 2024 season,” Aoki, who is in his 21st season as a professional and is the oldest active fielder in the NPB, told reporters in Tokyo. “I’ve had a really happy baseball life. I can end my career as an active player without anything left undone.”

This season, the Swallows outfielder has appeared in 61 games and racked up 20 hits, putting his batting average at .192. He was taken off the roster of the Central League team on Aug. 5.

“I was unable to give my (best) performance,” he said, adding he felt that many younger players have grown up.

The Swallows was his first professional team. Aoki began to play for the team in 2004 after joining it as a fourth-round draft pick the preceding year, after playing baseball at Hyuga high school in Miyazaki Prefecture, southwestern Japan, and Waseda University.

Renowned for his skillful bat control, he ranks fifth among Japanese professional players for total number of hits. He won the Central League batting title in 2005 at .344, in 2007 at .346 and in 2010 at .358, and ranked first in the league for stolen bases in 2006, at 41.

From 2012, Aoki played in the U.S. Major League Baseball, for seven teams including the Milwaukee Brewers and the Kansas City Royals. He started playing for the Swallows again in the 2018 season and helped it win the 2021 Japan Series, the best-of-seven championship series for the NPB’s two leagues, and two consecutive Central League pennants through 2022.

He racked up a total of 1,949 hits in the NPB and 774 in the MLB.

Aoki was a member of Japan’s national team for the World Baseball Classic in 2006 and 2009, when the country won back-to-back victories, and in 2017. He also participated in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

As of Thursday, Aoki has appeared in a total of 1,713 games in the NPB, hitting .313 with 145 home runs and 667 runs batted in. In the MLB, he played in 759 games, with one appearance as a pitcher included, logging a batting average of .285, hitting 33 homers and scoring 219 RBIs.

JIJI Press