Sachio Kinugasa

Sachio Kinugasa (衣笠 祥雄; January 18, 1947 – April 23, 2018) was a Japanese professional baseball third baseman for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of the Nippon Professional Baseball league from 1965 to 1987. He was nicknamed Tetsujin, meaning "Iron Man". He played in a record-breaking 2,215 consecutive games, having surpassed Lou Gehrig's record by 1987.

Kinugasa is mostly remembered for his consecutive-game streak, but he ranks seventh in Nippon Professional Baseball in career home runs (504), 5th in career hits (2543) and 10th in career RBIs (1448), showing that he was one of the most consistent hitters in Japanese baseball. He was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996.

Kinugasa's mother was Japanese and she raised him by herself. Kinugasa's father was an African American serviceman who was stationed in Japan after World War II. He reported that he never met his father.