Julio Franco

Julio Franco is one of those guys who just refused to let baseball be done with him — or maybe it was the other way around. Born in the Dominican Republic in 1958, he broke into the majors in 1982 and somehow kept showing up on big league rosters all the way through 2007, making him the oldest active player in MLB at the time. That's a 25-year career, which is almost absurd. What I love about Franco isn't just the longevity — it's that he was genuinely good, a five-time All-Star with a batting title to his name, not some organizational filler hanging on for a roster spot. That wide-open, quirky batting stance of his shouldn't have worked at the highest level, but it absolutely did, decade after decade. He's the kind of player who makes you rethink everything you thought you knew about athletic prime and age.

Name (English)

Julio Franco

Name (Japanese)

フリオ・フランコ

Reading

ふりお・ふらんこ

Born

August 23, 1958 (age 67)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Dog

Origin

Hato Mayor Province, Dominican Republic

Height

185 cm

Occupation

baseball player

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%95%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AA%E3%83%BB%E3%83%95%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B3

Tags

• Hato Mayor Province
• baseball player

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.