Card Of The Week May 5

The big event in Japanese baseball today was the pre-game ceremony at the Tokyo Dome honoring Hideki Matsui and Shigeo Nagashima.  It was both a retirement ceremony for Matsui and also an awards ceremony as the two men were given the People's Honor Award from Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan.

Here's some YouTube clips from the festivities (H/T YakyuBaka):

Matsui career highlights:



Victory lap around the field:



Speeches:



First pitch ceremony:



There's also a bunch of pictures from Sanspo here.

I had not realized how disabled Nagashima was from the stroke he suffered in 2004.  It looks like he has a lot of issues with his right side.  I don't think he removes his right hand from his pocket at any time in the video that I've seen (including when he swung a bat during the first pitch ceremony).  It looks like the right side of his face droops some during his speech as well.

Here's a couple Calbee cards of the pair from the 1990's:

1994 Calbee #45

1997 Calbee #057