Japanese Baseball Star Aoki to Retire at End of 2024 Season

Tokyo, Sept. 13 (Jiji Press)--Japanese baseball star Norichika Aoki said Friday that he will retire at the end of this season.

Aoki, 42, now playing for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, has amassed a total of 2,723 hits in Japan and the United States, and won the batting title three times in the Central League of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball Organization, or NPB.

"I have decided to retire at the end of the 2024 season," Aoki, who is in his 21st season as a professional baseball player and is the oldest fielder in the NPB, said at a press conference in Tokyo on Friday.

This season, the Swallows outfielder has appeared in 61 games and racked up 20 hits, putting his batting average at .192. He was taken off the roster of the Central League team on Aug. 5.

The Swallows was his first professional team. Aoki began to play for the team in 2004 after joining it as a fourth-round draft pick the preceding year, after playing baseball at Hyuga high school in Miyazaki Prefecture, southwestern Japan, and Waseda University.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]