Japan baseball great Isao 'Hit Machine' Harimoto dies at 86

Isao Harimoto, the baseball great who survived the Hiroshima atomic bomb and still holds Japan’s hits record, has died. He was 86. The Golden Players Club, an organization for elite baseball players, says Harimoto died on Wednesday without specifying the cause of death. Harimoto debuted in the Nippon league in 1959 and played for 23 years. He was the first player in Japan to reach the milestone of 3,000 hits in 1980. He was nicknamed “Hit Machine.” He was born to Korean parents in Hiroshima.

He was five when he survived the U.S. atomic bombing in 1945. It turned him into an anti-war and nuclear disarmament advocate.

Read the original report at Apnews.