Choji Murata

I think of Choji Murata as pure stubborn willpower poured into a human being. The Hiroshima kid who threw with that gorgeous, bow-bending overhand motion, finishing every pitch like he meant to break the catcher's glove, and that wicked forkball that just fell off a table. What gets me, though, is the comeback. When his elbow blew out, everyone wrote him off, but he grinded through the rehab and walked right back onto the mound, which is honestly the stuff of legend. He wasn't a loud, self-promoting guy; he let his whole back say "don't you dare quit." Later he stayed close to the game, talking pitching with younger arms with that same fire. He left us in 2022, but that head-on, no-shortcuts way of living him has never faded for me.

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.

Choji Murata (November 27, 1949 – November 11, 2022) was a Japanese professional baseball pitcher born in Toyota District, Hiroshima Prefecture. He pitched for the Tokyo/Lotte Orions from 1968 to 1990 with his distinctive "masakari" delivery. He became the first Japanese pitcher to undergo Tommy John surgery, in 1982, and came back to win the 1985 Comeback Player of the Year award with a 17–5 record. Following his playing days he worked as a baseball coach and commentator, and was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

Name (English)

Choji Murata

Name (Japanese)

村田兆治

Reading

むらた ちょうじ

Born

November 27, 1949 – November 11, 2022

Origin

Toyota District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan

Height

181cm

Occupation

Baseball player / Baseball coach / Baseball commentator

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Sagittarius / Ox

Awards & achievements

• Baseball Hall of Fame (year unknown)

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%91%E7%94%B0%E5%85%86%E6%B2%BB
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9183992

Tags

• From Hiroshima Prefecture
• Baseball player
• Baseball coach
• Baseball commentator

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.