Should it happen?

I will have to give this further thought, but my first reaction is it seems premature to even be thinking about it. Kanemoto hasn't retired yet, so I think the priority is deciding his role next year if his performance continues to decline. All the playing time he got this year was one of the biggest criticisms of Mayumi, so Wada really needs to think about how he plans to use him. Winning should be the priority right now, not Kanemoto's legacy.

By the way, who are the three Tigers whose numbers were retired? I don't know my Tigers history well enough...

The three retired numbers are No. 10 Fumio Fujimura; No. 11 Minoru Murayama and No. 23 Yoshio Yoshida.

I was leaning towards no, and having looked at his stats, definitely not. He's played for us for nine seasons and had a fantastic year in 2005 with 120 RBIs and a 1.044 OPS. That season apart, there are five years of very good stats for a clean-up hitter, but nothing absolutely spectacular, and three years of declining performance down to pretty much nothing last season.

Is that really all it takes to get your number retired? Maybe if he'd played for us for his whole career, but it seems like a faintly ridiculous idea. Why are management so obsessed with him? I genuinely can't figure it out.

I'm also leaning towards no on this. What Kanemoto did with his consecutive full innings streak is an amazing feat that will probably never be matched in NPB or MLB. Still, I don't think that's enough to warrant retiring his number. Maybe if he had done it all with the Tigers I would feel different, but it was split with the Tigers and the Carp. To retire someone's number, I think they need to be a really special career player for a team (like Derek Jeter) or have a very profound historical impact (like Jackie Robinson). Kanemoto put up solid numbers and set an amazing record, but he spent only half his career with the Tigers and we won 0 championships during his time here. I loved watching him and will miss him, but I don't think his number needs to be retired. Again, let's focus on winning and building a team instead of looking at the past.

I´m a, I don´t know. If he had been playing for Tigers throughout his career and if he had his consecutive full innings streak going then I think he would have deserved his number to be retired just as Kinugasa for Carp. But since, he only came to Tigers as a free agent, I´m not sure.

His consecutive full innings streak is an extra ordinary achievement.

He deserved it.

If you have ever been to Koshien regularly, you'll find out his influence and impact over the years.

When he arrived from Carp at 2003, Tigers were having a 18 years title drought. And in the History of Tigers, the years 1986-2002 was considered their "dark period" as they were known as the "Toothless Tiger" who can't launch any serious title challenge. On his first season, he helped the team to a League Title.

But what's great to the Koshien faithful is not his stats, but his work ethic and all the selfless commitment he gave which also inspired Tigers to be serious contender again. He never missed a training session, and he is a workaholic, training more than anyone in the team. Coupled up with his playing streak (NEVER missing games until 2011), refusal to undertake surgery until the off-seasons, and his never-say-die playing attitude, he earned the nickname of "Tetsujin" (Iron men) and is a symbol of the team's spirit of never giving up. So much is his influence that he is known as "The man who changed Hanshin Tigers" (this was in one of the Tigers' club magazine, but i can't remember which issue was it..).

To sum it up, sometimes it takes more than stats to make a legend. Kanemoto arrived at a time when the team is in a long, bad run, gave his all, helped the team to change into what it is today. While its unfair to credit this solely to him, he definitely gave what many great player cannot produce - influence and instillment of a positive spirit to the team.