The shameful record of Japan's Baseball Hall of Fame with foreign players

TOKYO — The Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, which first opened in 1959 next door to old Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo and is now located in the Tokyo Dome, is a venerable institution that is a fitting tribute to the long and great history of Japanese baseball.

The JBHOFM honors over 200 inductees so far, including “God of Batting” Tetsuharu Kawakami, 400-game winner Masaichi Kaneda, “Mr. Giants” Shigeo Nagashima, Sadaharu Oh, who hit 868 career home runs, and Hideki Matsui, among others. The latest members voted in earlier this year in January feature former major league pitcher Hiroki Kuroda along with catcher Motonobu Tanishige and late umpire Tomoichi Tanimura.

Kuroda won a total of 203 games in a career divided between Japan and the majors from 1997 to 2016. The right-hander won 124 games for the Hiroshima Carp, 41 for the Los Angeles Dodgers and 38 for the New York Yankees. Kuroda returned to Japan  to play his last two seasons in Hiroshima, for a much  lower salary than he would have gotten in MLB, to demonstrate his loyalty to Carp fans.