Kihachi Enomoto

I'll be honest, Kihachi Enomoto is the kind of name I love stumbling onto, because he's the opposite of a flashy celebrity. People called him the "hitting demon," and from everything I know that wasn't hype, it was a temperament. A Tokyo kid who basically handed his whole life over to one bat, he treated hitting less like a job and more like a discipline you never finish, the sort of guy who'd refine a swing in total silence while everyone else clocked out. At 172cm he was never going to overpower anyone, so he out-thought and out-worked them instead, which I find way more impressive than raw size. He passed in 2012, but that quiet, almost stubborn devotion is what sticks with me. I admire people who are that single-minded about one craft.

Kihachi Enomoto (December 5, 1936 – March 14, 2012) was a Japanese professional baseball player born in Nakano, Tokyo. Standing 172 cm tall, he was renowned as a dedicated and relentless hitter throughout his career. He attended Waseda Jitsugyo School, a school affiliated with Waseda University. He passed away in March 2012.

Name (English)

Kihachi Enomoto

Name (Japanese)

榎本喜八

Reading

えのもと きはち

Born

December 5, 1936 – March 14, 2012

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Sagittarius / Rat

Origin

Nakano, Tokyo, Japan

Height

172cm

Occupation

Baseball Player

University

Waseda University Affiliated Waseda Jitsugyo School (Elementary, Junior High, and Senior High)

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A6%8E%E6%9C%AC%E5%96%9C%E5%85%AB
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11120338

Tags

• From Tokyo
• 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.