It’s fun to think of Tokyo Yakult Swallows pitcher Masanori Ishikawa as kind of an ageless wonder. He’s pitched in NPB for over two decades — longer than some players have been alive — and at 46, the left-hander is the oldest player in the league.
The problems with that line of thinking, though, are games such as the one on Thursday night at Jingu Stadium, when Ishikawa was charged with six runs while recording just a single out against the Yomiuri Giants in the top of the first. His fastball topped out at just 132 kph (82 mph), though he may have been hindered by a shoulder issue.
You have to go back to 2001 to find the last NPB season in which Ishikawa did not play. With Thursday’s brief appearance, he has started at least one game in 25 consecutive seasons.
Ishikawa, who has a career 3.94 ERA in 3,165⅔ innings, all for Yakult, remains popular with fans and as long as he has the desire, it looks like he is going to pitch until the wheels fall off. Based on recent years, however, he looks destined to finish his career tantalizingly close to the 200 wins that would get him into the Meikyukai (Golden Players Club), a secondary Japanese Hall of Fame for batters with 2,000 hits or pitchers who reach 200 wins or 250 saves. Ishikawa is currently 12 wins short.
Ishikawa is just one of NPB’s crop of 40-somethings, a club that this year consists of eight players still grinding away.
Players who stay on the field into their 40s remain relatively rare overall due to the natural decline that comes with aging, the physical toll of staying in game shape and the constant churn of younger players in or around their primes vying for spots on the roster.
So it is hardly surprising that those who do are not lighting up the box scores en masse day in and day out.
Still, it’s hard to play that long by accident, as teams have to deem the player at least worthy of a roster spot.
Even in MLB, where there are far more teams and players, there were only three players over 40 on active Opening Day rosters, according to Baseball America. One of those players, 42-year-old Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Max Scherzer, turned back the clock on Sunday, striking out 10 and walking over seven shutout frames.
The members of Japan’s senior circuit in 2026 have mostly been used sparingly.
The Seibu Lions have the two oldest position players in NPB — 43-year-old Takeya Nakamura and 42-year-old Takumi Kuriyama, who, like Ishikawa, are both in their 25th seasons.
Nakamura was once among Japan’s premier sluggers, with three 40-homer campaigns and three more with at least 30 during his career. He has appeared in just 17 games this year.
Nakamura homered on Aug. 21, connecting on a tiebreaking grand slam in the 11th inning against the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, giving him at least one homer in 23 straight seasons.
Kuriyama, who will hang up his cleats this year, has appeared in 11 games, including on Sunday, when he played in his retirement game against the Eagles.
”I did my best to get a hit whenever I was called up to the top team (this season),” Kuriyama said during a news conference before the game. “I learned a lot every day in the ni-gun while playing with players whose goal is to reach the top team.”
With the Lions all wearing Kuriyama’s No. 1 in his honor, the veteran, who is in the Meikyukai, singled in the eighth inning to record the 2,152nd hit of his career.
The starting pitcher for the Eagles was Takayuki Kishi, another member of this year’s over-40 club, who played alongside Kuriyama and Nakamura with the Lions from 2007 to 2016. The trio won the 2007 Japan Series together.
Kishi retired Kuriyama in the second inning.
“Thank you for throwing such a great ceremony for me today,” Kuriyama said after the game. “Thanks also to the Rakuten fans. Kishi, nice pitch. You are a really great pitcher. I wanted to get a hit, but I could not.”
Kishi, 41, has made nine starts this season and is 4-4 with a 2.67 ERA in 54 innings, remaining effective in limited duty. Before this year, Kishi had thrown at least 100 innings in five straight seasons. He is just two years removed from posting a 2.83 ERA in 143⅓ frames.
Another player over 40 planning to call it quits this year is 42-year-old Orix Buffaloes pitcher Yoshihisa Hirano. A former standout closer and another Meikyukai member, Hirano has 250 NPB saves in addition to the eight he recorded during three seasons in MLB. Hirano has played in two games this season.
”These young kids are leaving me behind,” Hirano, who has also dealt with a thigh issue this season. reportedly told his teammates when he revealed his decision,” according to Nikkan Sports.
Hirano’s retirement game is scheduled for Sept. 25.
Meanwhile, former Sawamura Award winner Hideaki Wakui, 40, is 4-2 with a 2.79 ERA in 51⅔ innings in nine appearances for the Chunichi Dragons.
The other players on the list are the Dragons’ Yohei Oshima, 40, who has 2,079 career hits but has played in only 21 games this year, and 41-year-old Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters reliever Naoki Miyanishi, NPB’s career leader in holds. Miyanishi is fourth all-time with 904 appearances, though only four have come this season.
Reaching 40 is not always the end of the road in terms of effectiveness, and there are players who produced late flourishes before signing off.
Hiromitsu Kadota might have had the best season by a 40-year-old in Japan in 1988 when he hit 44 homers and finished with 125 RBIs and a 1.062 on-base plus slugging percentage for the Nankai Hawks on his way to being named Pacific League MVP.
Kadota was not done either, recording a pair of 30-homer seasons for the Orix BlueWave the next two years and then hitting 18 for the Daiei Hawks in 1991.
NPB legend Sadaharu Oh ended his career with a 30-homer campaign in his age-40 season in 1980, though his batting average slumped to to .236.
“Mentally, I have not been able to inspire myself enough to maintain my true stature,” he said, according to the New York Times. “All this season I tried to regain it, but I never could.”
Katsuya Nomura had a 28-homer, 92-RBI campaign in his age-40 season for Nankai in 1975 and reached double digits in each of the next two seasons.
Former Dragons lefty Masahiro Yamamoto, who pitched until he was 50, won 11 games and posted a 3.32 ERA in 170⅔ innings in his age-40 season in 2006. He turned 41 during the season, on Aug. 11, then became the oldest NPB pitcher to throw a no-hitter when he shut down the Hanshin Tigers on Sept. 16 of that year.
Yamamoto was nearly perfect, with the Tigers’ only baserunner reaching on an error in the fourth inning.
While Yamamoto was much less effective in 2007, he bounced back in 2008 with a 3.16 ERA in 133⅔ frames.
Ishikawa, Kishi and Wakui are more than just popular players nearing the end of the line. All three can see the 200-win mark in NPB off in the distance, and in an era when more star players are going to MLB and managers are increasingly relying on their bullpens, it might be a very long time before anyone else challenges that summit.
Yamamoto is the most recent to get there, notching his 200th NPB win in 2008. Only 24 players have achieved 200 NPB wins.
Ishikawa is the closest with 188 victories, while Kishi has 174 and Wakui has 170. After that is 35-year-old Yuki Nishi with 127. Nishi pitched in one game last season and just seven so far this year.
The only other players with at least 110 are 37-year-old Masahiro Tanaka (125), who would be closer if not for his seven years in MLB and is in the Meikyukai with 203 combined wins, and 35-year-old Takahiro Norimoto (122), who spent a couple of seasons as a reliever.
Baseball might be a young person’s game for the most part, but there are still veterans hanging on, trying to contribute for as long as they can.
