Kimiyasu Kudō

Kimiyasu Kudo (工藤 公康, Kudō Kimiyasu, born May 5, 1963) is a Japanese former professional baseball pitcher and the former manager of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Nippon Professional Baseball. Known for his longevity as a player, he holds the NPB records for longest career with 29 seasons played, most consecutive seasons with at least one win with 23 and is the oldest pitcher to strike out 10 batters in a game, doing so at the age of 41 years and 11 months. In his career, he recorded 224 wins, a 3.45 ERA and 2,859 strike outs. However, despite all his accolades, he is famously known for having never won the Eiji Sawamura Award, given to Japan's top pitcher.

Kudo has been a part of 16 Japan Series championships, 11 as a player and 5 as a manager. As a player, he was a member of the Seibu Lions Golden Age, winning 8 championships in 11 years, and won one championship with Fukuoka Daiei Hawks and two with Yomiuri Giants. As a manager, he has led the Hawks to five Japan Series championships in six years, winning in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 Kudo has won the Matsutaro Shoriki Award, given annually to the person who is deemed to have contributed the most to baseball in Japan, 4 times, once as a player in 1987 and 3 times as a manager in 2015, 2018 and 2019. He was also known as the last active player on the Lions from the "Invincible Seibu" era.

Kudo was born in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. For the English spelling of his last name, "Kudo" and "Kudoh" are used regularly and interchangeably. Technically, both are correct as there is no straight letter-for-letter translation because it is a series of Japanese characters. His preference for the spelling on the back of his uniform was "Kudoh" as a player and "Kudo" as a manager.