Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Masahide Kobayashi of the Cleveland Indians

OK, this is old news now, but Masahide Kobayashi of the Marines has signed a contract with the Indians. His BBM Rookie card is number 512 from the 1999 set. I don't think he has a card in a Calbee set until 2001 (card 062), but I could be wrong. He also appears in the 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2006 BBM All Star sets, the 2003 BBM Japanese National Team box set, the 2005 BBM Nippon Series set and the 2001 Upper Deck set. (This isn't a complete list of what's out there, but some of the highlights.)

Here's a smattering of his cards:





From top to bottom that's his 2000 BBM Late Series (#557), 2001 Upper Deck (#174), 2003 BBM Japan National Team (#12), 2005 BBM Nippon Series (# 06), and 2007 BBM 1st Version Record Achievers subset (#482).

1 comment:

drbillellis said...

In retrospect, he pitched for Cleveland in 57 games in 2008 and 10 games in 2009, with an overall Earned Run Average (ERA) of 5.10 (mediocre). His Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched (WHIP) was 1.45 (poor). Not surprisingly, he returned to Japan. In 2010, he pitched 14 innings of relief for the Yomiuri Giants, with an ERA of 5.14 (poor) and WHIP of 1.71 (whoops!).