The Sour Sixteen: Ranking Cleveland’s Sports Rivals
February 10, 2015Cavs confident Ray Allen comes to Cleveland if he decides to play
February 10, 2015The ageless one Julio Franco is continuing his baseball career, this time in Japan. Franco, at the spry age of 56, has agreed to be the player-manager for Ishikawa Million Stars in Japan, according to the team via the Wall Street Journal. Ishikawa Million Stars of the Japan’s independent Baseball Challenge League will begin their season in April. His last stint in baseball came last year when he was the player-manager for the Fort Worth Cats of United League Baseball.
The former Cleveland Indians infielder played 23 years in Major League Baseball. He played his first professional game with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1982 at the age of 23. Franco was then traded in the following offseason to the Cleveland Indians. He played for six seasons with the Tribe before getting traded to the Texas Rangers. He would later return to Cleveland through free agency in 1996 for one and half seasons. In his eight seasons with the Indians, he batted .297 with 62 home runs, 1,272 hits, 530 RBI, and 147 stolen bases. In his 23 seasons in the MLB, he batted .298 and compiled 2,586 hits, 173 home runs, 1,194 RBI, and 281 stolen bases.
In his illustrious Major League career, Franco was selected to three All-Star Games and won five Silver Slugger Awards. He played with eight MLB teams in his career, playing his longest time with Cleveland (8 years), the Atlanta Braves (6 years), and the Texas Rangers (5 years). He first retired from baseball in 2007, but returned to the diamond in 2014 with the Fort Worth Cats. The baseball lifer could not stay away from the game for too long.
Interestingly enough, the team that Franco will be player-managing this coming season has a tie to the Cleveland Indians. The Ishikawa Million Stars include former Indians’ pitcher Kazuhito Tadano, who famously was caught in a controversy involving an illicit adult video. Tadano played in 15 total games with the Tribe during the 2004 and 2005 seasons. The Million Stars also have the famous female knuckleballer Eri Yoshida. The addition of Franco will undoubtedly bring even more press to this already talked about team.
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All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com
3 Comments
A female knuckle baller, a gay porn actor and a 56 year old player manager. What, no hot fielding dwarves to sign to this squad? Sounds like this team may be owned by the Japanese Bill Veeck.
“What, no hot fielding dwarves to sign to this squad?”
Dude, the team name is Ishikawa Million Stars, not Ishikawa TWO Million Stars.
To us oldsters, who remember the attempts to babysit the young Julio on and off the field, the idea of him managing is pretty rich. Not quite like imagining JR Smith as a HC, but close.