Kimiyasu Kudō

I have a soft spot for Kimiyasu Kudo, because he's the rare athlete who feels less like a player and more like a good-luck charm with a wicked curveball. The man pitched across multiple Japanese pro teams and somehow championships kept following him around, which earned him this almost mythic "the guy who guarantees a title" reputation. What floors me most is the longevity, though, the way he kept toeing the rubber long after most lefties' shoulders had quietly retired, clearly because he treated conditioning like a religion. Then he went and won as a manager too, which feels almost rude. A lefty from Aichi who carved his name into the sport deep enough to land in the Hall of Fame, and who somehow stayed sharp and dignified the whole way through. Genuinely hard not to admire.

Kimiyasu Kudō is a former professional baseball pitcher born on May 5, 1963, in Tenpaku Ward, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. A left-handed ace renowned for his longevity on the mound, he played for multiple top-tier clubs across his career and earned a reputation for delivering championships with each team he joined. After retiring as a player he went on to manage at the professional level, again winning titles. He is enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame of Japan.

Name (English)

Kimiyasu Kudō

Name (Japanese)

工藤公康

Reading

くどう きみやす

Born

May 5, 1963 (age 63)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Taurus / Rabbit (卯)

Origin

Tenpaku, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan

Height

176 cm

Occupation

Professional baseball player / Baseball manager

Awards & achievements

• Baseball Hall of Fame (year unknown)

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttps://find-kimiyasu.jp/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/kimiyasukudo_official/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B7%A5%E8%97%A4%E5%85%AC%E5%BA%B7

Tags

• From Aichi Prefecture
• Professional 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.