Kosuke Fukudome

Kosuke Fukudome is a professional baseball player from Japan who mainly plays as an right fielder. Fukudome attended the prestigious PL Gakuen High School and was deemed to be a first round pick for the professional draft, by scouts. True to their word, Fukudome was picked in the first round by seven teams in the 1995 draft. After a lottery, the Kintetsu Buffaloes were allowed negotiations with the player however, Fukudome only wanted to turn pro with the Chinichi Dragons or the Yomiuri Giants.

He joined Nihon Seimei and played in the industrial league for a year. He was picked for the Olympic Baseball team in 1996, which at 19-years, made him the youngest ever to be selected for any Olympic baseball team. Fukudome won the silver medal at Atlanta in 1996.

In 1998, he finally got a chance to play with the Chunichi Dragons after being picked in the first round of the draft, albeit as a shortstop. Used in 132 games in the rookie season, Fukudome batted at an average of .284 with 16 home runs, on the way, helping his team to the league title. However, he also had the most number of strikeouts in the league as well as made several errors on the field leading to a relegation to the bench for a later part of the season. His errors cost the Dragons the Japan Series.

He began playing at third base in his second year and improved his fielding but his batting lost its original touch and was moved to the outfield by his third year. Despite his poor start, he improved his game and became the first choice right field man for the Dragons. He has incredible speed and an excellent arm that got him four Golden Glove awards in his third year. Fukudome also worked on his hitting and raised his average to .343, leading the league in 2002. The following year, he established himself as the topmost hitter in the league with a .313 average and 34 home runs.

In 2004, he got another chance to be a part of the Olympics at Athens in 2004, winning the Bronze. He was also part of the 2006 World Baseball Classic team and played as a pinch hitter against Korea, hitting two-runs off Byung-Hyun Kim. In the same year, he batted at .351 with 31 home runs and 104 RBIs and won the Central League MVP award.

In 2007, after 9 seasons with the Chunichi Dragons, Fukudome registered himself as a free agent. Following this move, he was picked up by the Chicago Cubs on a 4-year $48 million contract and Fukudome stated that his main reason for joining the team was that he wanted to be the first Japanese player to play for them. His Major League debut came in 2008 against the Milwaukee Brewers where he had a 3-3 with the bat, walking on the first, a double of his first ever pitch in MLB and a three-run game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth that sent the game into an extra inning. The Brewers won 4-3 in the extra inning.

Fukudome's MLB career had a great start in 2008 but things soon began to slow down for him. An April batting average of .327 came down to .293, then to .264, .236 and with lowering values each month, stopped at .178 in September. His post season was worse, hitting at just .100. His year end average was .257 and had a .370 slugging percentage. Fukudome was voted as a starter in the 2008 MLB All-Star Game.