Takuya Kimura

Takuya Kimura is a name that still makes Japanese baseball fans go quiet. Born in Miyazaki in 1972, he spent most of his career with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp before a trade brought him to the Yomiuri Giants in 2006. He played through 2009, retired as a player, and returned to the Giants in 2010 as a coach. He never got to finish that season. He collapsed and died on April 7, 2010, at thirty-seven, eight days short of his birthday. What sticks with me is the kind of player he was. Kimura was a utility man, the guy who could be dropped into almost any position when the roster cracked. That role rarely produces gaudy statistics or magazine covers, but inside a clubhouse it produces something better: absolute trust. Teams are held together by players like him far more than by their headline stars. The sport tends to write its history through home run totals. Kimura's page is a reminder of how incomplete that history would be.

Name (English)

Takuya Kimura

Name (Japanese)

木村拓也

Reading

きむら たくや

Born

April 15, 1972 – April 7, 2010

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aries / Rat

Origin

Miyazaki, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan

Height

173 cm

Occupation

baseball player

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takuya%20Kimura%20(baseball)
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%A8%E6%9D%91%E6%8B%93%E4%B9%9F
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1073334

Tags

• Miyazaki Prefecture
• baseball player

Last updated

2026-08-07

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.