Akihiko Hōrai

Akihiko Hōrai is exactly the kind of guy who makes baseball work without ever being the guy on the poster. At 166 cm he was never built to intimidate anyone at the plate, but baseball has always had room for the scrappy, heads-down type who outworks his physical limits. That's the impression I get here: a career spent grinding in the dugout, passing on technique and toughness to younger players who'll never fully know where they got it. He's not a household name outside Kumamoto, and honestly that feels right for who he is — the kind of baseball lifer who thinks the scoreboard tells enough of the story.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Akihiko Hōrai is a Japanese baseball player and coach born on April 24, 1957, in Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture, Japan. Standing 166 cm tall, he built his career in baseball both as a player and later as an instructor. He is a Taurus born in the Year of the Rooster. Raised in Kumamoto, he went from Kumamoto Technical High School and Seinan Gakuin University to the Seibu Lions in the 1979 draft, played outfield for Seibu (1980–1986) and the Chunichi Dragons (1987–1988), and later worked as a coach, including with Yokohama, and as a commentator.

Name (English)

Akihiko Hōrai

Name (Japanese)

蓬萊昭彦

Reading

ほうらい あきひこ

Born

April 24, 1957 (age 69)

Origin

Kumamoto City, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan

Height

166cm

Occupation

Baseball Player / Baseball Coach

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Taurus / Rooster

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%93%AC%E8%90%8A%E6%98%AD%E5%BD%A6
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11621616

Tags

• From Okayama Prefecture
• Baseball Player
• Baseball Coach

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.