Seiichi Uchikawa is a Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 professional

Professional

A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...

 baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 player for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks

Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks

The are a Japanese baseball team based in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture. The team was bought on January 28, 2005 by the SoftBank Corporation.The team was formerly known as the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. In 1988, Daiei bought the team from Osaka's Nankai Electric Railway Co., and its headquarters were...

 in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

's Nippon Professional Baseball. He rose to prominence in 2008 with a league-leading .378 batting average. He was a part of the Japanese baseball team during the 2009 World Baseball Classic

World Baseball Classic

The World Baseball Classic is an international baseball tournament sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation and created by Major League Baseball , the Major League Baseball Players Association , and other professional baseball leagues and their players associations around the world...

.

During the 2010 offseason, he exercised his free agent option and after weeks of negotiations between the Yokohama BayStars

Yokohama BayStars

The are a professional baseball team in the Japanese Central League. Home field is the Yokohama Stadium, located in central Yokohama. The clubhouse is located near the stadium....

, Hiroshima Toyo Carp

Hiroshima Toyo Carp

The are a professional baseball team in Japan's Central League. The team is primarily owned by the Matsuda family, led by , who is a descendant of Mazda founder Jujiro Matsuda. Mazda is the largest single shareholder , which is less than the portion owned by the Matsuda family . Because of that,...

, and Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks

Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks

The are a Japanese baseball team based in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture. The team was bought on January 28, 2005 by the SoftBank Corporation.The team was formerly known as the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. In 1988, Daiei bought the team from Osaka's Nankai Electric Railway Co., and its headquarters were...

, he decided to sign a four-year deal with SoftBank worth up to 1.36 billion yen.

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