Hichori Morimoto

Hichori Morimoto
Morimoto with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters (2009)
Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters – No. 80
Outfielder / Coach
Born: (1981-01-31) January 31, 1981 Tokyo, Japan
Batted: Right Threw: Right
NPB debut
August 2, 2000, for the Nippon Ham Fighters
Last NPB appearance
September 27, 2015, for the Saitama Seibu Lions
NPB statistics (through 2015 season)
Batting average	.259
Hits	904
RBIs	267
Teams
As player Nippon Ham Fighters/Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters (1999 – 2010) Yokohama BayStars/Yokohama DeNA BayStars (2011 – 2013) Saitama Seibu Lions (2014 – 2015) As coach Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (2023 - )
Last updated on: Nov 18, 2022

Hichori Morimoto (Japanese: 森本 稀哲, Korean: 이희철, Hanja: 李稀哲, born January 31, 1981) is a Japanese professional baseballer of Korean descent for the Saitama Seibu Lions. He was the number 4 draft pick for the Fighters in 1999. For years, he was the backup for the most popular player in the league, Tsuyoshi Shinjo. After the 2006 season in which the Fighters won the Japan Series, SHINJO (registered name with capital letters) announced his retirement, in which Morimoto then took over SHINJO's center field spot, and also his number 1 (Morimoto had worn number 46 when SHINJO was playing). Morimoto has alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that causes loss of body hair.

References

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference (Minors)
• Nippon Professional Baseball career statistics from JapaneseBaseball.com
• Hichori Morimoto, JapaneseBallPlayers.com Archived April 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine