During his time with the Lions, the team won six Japan Series titles and he tied the rookie HR record for Japanese professional baseball.

[4] Kazuhiro Kiyohara became a household name in Japan as a home run hitter for the Osaka PL Gakuen high school baseball team in the mid-1980s.

[citation needed] (There are spring and summer national high school baseball tournaments annually in Japan, held at the famous Koshien Stadium.)

They were widely respected as high school players, and their individual and team accomplishments became memorable parts of the history of schoolboy baseball in Japan.

However, the Giants decided to take Masumi Kuwata with their initial pick in '85, instead of Kiyohara, which made for great theater in the Japanese mass media at the time.

With the Giants, Kiyohara had some outstanding seasons playing alongside many star players, including future major leaguer Hideki Matsui.

Kiyohara suited up for the Giants through the 2005 season (one in which he collected his 500th home run and 2,000th hit), and was an integral part of their 2000 and 2002 Japan Series championship squads.

[7] An aging Kiyohara moved from the Giants to the Orix Buffaloes for the final three seasons of his career, calling it quits at the end of the 2008 campaign.

On March 6, 2014, Bunshun reported that Kiyohara had an emergency hospitalization to treat side effects caused by illegal drug abuse.

[10] However, the next week, Kiyohara gave a statement on Friday denying the drug abuse allegation and that his treatment was due to type 2 diabetes.

It was noted that what made Kiyohara's violent outbursts particularly scary was the fact that he is a large man standing at 190 cm (6 ft 3 in) and weighing over 100 kg (220 lb).

[19] Ostracized by Japanese television because of his conviction on illegal drug possession, Kiyohara started a YouTube channel, Kiyochan Sports, in December 2020.