Kenji Johjima

Kenji Johjima did something people had quietly decided was impossible. Japanese pitchers had crossed to the major leagues, and hitters too, but never a catcher, because catching is not only a physical position. It is a management job performed in a second language: calling the game, reading hitters, overruling a pitcher who outranks you in the clubhouse. He was the first Japanese-born catcher to do it, and Seattle committed $16.5 million over three years in November 2005, before he had caught a single major league inning. That is a bet on a player's mind, not his bat. Four seasons with the Mariners, then home to finish with the Hanshin Tigers. Born in Sasebo, Nagasaki, and 182 cm, he was large for a Japanese catcher of his era. Whatever the stat lines say, I rate him for walking through a door nobody had opened, with no compatriot's example to copy.

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Name (English)

Kenji Johjima

Name (Japanese)

城島健司

Reading

じょうじま けんじ

Born

June 8, 1976 (age 50)

Origin

Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan

Height

182 cm

Occupation

baseball player

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Gemini / Dragon

High school

Meihō High School

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenji%20Johjima
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9F%8E%E5%B3%B6%E5%81%A5%E5%8F%B8
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1147297

Tags

• Nagasaki Prefecture
• baseball player

Last updated

September 18, 2026

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.