Motonobu Tanishige

Ho-hum, another day, another 2000 hit milestone reached.  Today it was Motonobu Tanishige of the Dragons getting hits 1999 and 2000.  If it seems like there's a lot of guys reaching 2000 hits lately, you're right.  This is the third one this season and there were three guys last season.  And we're probably not done for the year - Tadahito Iguchi is currently at 1931 hits between NPB (1437) and MLB (494).

Tanishige was a 1st round pick of the Whales in the 1989 draft (same round as Kenjiro Nomura).  He debuted in 1989 and remained with Yokohama through the 2001 season, winning a championship in 1998.

The earliest card of Tanishige is from the Takara Whales set in 1989.  His first Calbee card is #42 of the "small" sized 1990 cards (plus a premium "Big" card).  His first BBM card is #200 of the inaugural 1991 set - I believe that he is the only player to have a card in every "flagship" BBM set so far including all of the 1st and 2nd Version sets but I could be wrong.

1989 Takara Whales #1

1990 Calbee "Small" #42

1992 BBM #476

1998 BBM Nippon Series #S14

2000 Epoch "Pro Baseball Sticker" #148

That 1992 card is the only one I've seen with him sporting a mustache.

After 13 seasons with the BayStars, Tanishige headed west for Nagoya for the 2002 season.  He has remained with the Dragons ever since.  He won another Nippon Series in 2007 and played on the losing side in 2004, 2006, 2010 and 2011.

2002 BBM 1st Version #131

2003 Chunichi Sports #7

2007 BBM 2nd Version #599

2012 BBM 1st Version #387

In addition to his NBP career, Tanishige has also been a member of the Japanese National Team twice - in 2003 for the Asian Championship (a qualifier for the 2004 Olympics) and in 2006 for the first World Baseball Classic.  He does not appear on any WBC cards, but he does appear in BBM's 2003 Japan National Team set:

2003 BBM Japan National Team #14