Atsuya Furuta

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Atsuya Furuta (b. August 6, 1965 in Kawanishi, Hy¿go) is a Japanese former baseball player and player-manager for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows professional baseball club in the Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Drafted in the 2nd round in 1990, Furuta became a leader for the Swallows as a catcher and became the first player-manager in Japanese baseball in 29 years, since Katsuya Nomura in 1977. In addition to his skills on the field, he is also known for leading a successful two day strike in 2004 as the head of the Japanese baseball players union.