The Perfect Pitching set commemorates all the perfect games ever pitched in Japan up until (and including) 1994. BBM put the set out as a response to the perfect game tossed by Hiromi Makihara of the Giants on May 18th of that year. The set features cards for each of the 15 perfect games thrown to that point (there's been one since - Game 5 of last year's Japan Series) along with three extra cards for Makihara. Actually, to be completely honest, there's a card for each game except the one thrown by Tsutomu Tanaka of the Nishitetsu Lions less than two weeks after Sasaki's. Apparently there was an issue getting rights so instead there's a card sized piece of paper with an explanation of why there's no card:
I'd be much obliged to anyone who could translate this for me.
2 comments:
This card says that they were not able to get in contact personally with Tanaka in spite of all their efforts, so they were not able to get permission to print a card of him and are only able to give the stats.
John of Japan
Thanks for the translation. I had been wondering about that for a while.
Tanaka's not in the new BBM Nohitter historic set either. I did a little research and it turns out that Tanaka was involved in the Black Miist Scandal and was actually arrested over suspicions he was involved in a scheme to fix auto races. Not sure if he was ever suspended by NBP but I wonder if this has something to do with his non-appearance in these sets.
On the other hand, Yutaka Enatsu was involved also and there's a ton of BBM cards of him, so maybe not.
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