Baseball: Chunichi ex-major leaguer Fukudome to retire at season’s end

Kosuke Fukudome, a former big leaguer and the oldest active Nippon Professional Baseball player at 45, will retire at the end of the season, the Central League’s Chunichi Dragons said Thursday. The left-handed hitter spent five years in the majors from 2008 with the Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox, logging a total of 498 hits and 42 home runs in 596 games. The outfielder joined the Dragons in 1999 as their top draft pick out of the corporate leagues and won the CL batting title twice as well as the league’s MVP award in 2006 before joining the Cubs as a free agent. He ret...