NPB Pitchers in the Arizona Fall League

Five pitchers from Japanese teams have arrived in Arizona to play for a couple of teams in the Arizona Fall League. They are Hiroshi Katayama from the Eagles; Toshiyuki Yanuki from the Fighters; Tooru Murata and Takanobu Tsujiuchi from the Giants; and Ken Nishimura from the Tigers. Nishimura will be replaced mid-season (around the beginning of November) by fellow Tiger Kenta Abe. Katayama and Yanuki will play for the Phoenix Sea Dogs and the rest will be with the Scottsdale Scorpions. There are more details at both NPB Tracker and MLB.com (where there's a familiar name on the credit for the photo of Katayama).

So if you're going to check out a game and want to try to get an autograph, here's a list of some of the available BBM cards for the players. This is not a comprehensive list. Each player is probably in his team's BBM wax set for each season. If the player played in the past for another team, I'll list those teams after his cards.

Kenta Abe


2003 Rookie Edition #57 (shown above), 1st Version #243
2004 1st Version #73, 2nd Version Hot Prospects subset #832
2005 1st Version #180
2009 1st Version #267
Abe was with Kintetsu in 2003-2004, Orix in 2005-2007 and Hanshin in 2008-09.

Hiroshi Katayama


2006 Rookie Edition #41 (shown above)
2009 1st Version #152

Tooru Murata


2008 Rookie Edition #4, 1st Version #034 (shown above)

Ken Nishimura


2009 Rookie Edition #064 (shown above), 1st Version #288

Takanobu Tsujiuchi


2006 Rookie Edition #80, 1st Version #388
2007 1st Version Future Stars subset #442 (shown above)

Toshiyuki Yanuki


2009 Rookie Edition #014 (shown above), 1st Version #104