The Meikyukai, an association of former and current NPB players, said on Sept. 10 that "Chang died on the morning of Sept. 9 at a hospital in Tokyo, Japan."
Born in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1940, Chang was a second-generation Korean-Japanese who starred in NPB from 1959 to 1981. He set the league's career hits record with 3,085 and finished with a .319 batting average, 504 home runs and 1,676 RBIs.
Chang faced discrimination for being Korean but kept his South Korean citizenship throughout his playing career, becoming a naturalized Japanese citizen only after retiring.
He also engaged actively with Korean professional baseball and the country's sports community. He served as a special adviser to the Korea Baseball Organization commissioner from 1982, when the Korean league launched, until 2005, and received Korea's Order of Civil Merit, Mugunghwa Medal, in 2007.
Chang also helped the late former manager Baek In-chun, who died last month, break into NPB. Chang mourned him last month, calling Baek "a colleague who ran alongside me in the same era." A month later, he too has died.
