Card Of The Week September 29

The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles clinched their first ever Pacific League pennant last week.  This is the Eagles ninth season.  They were created in 2005 to replace the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes who were "merged" (really assimilated) with the Orix Blue Wave, creating the Orix Buffaloes.

The Eagles first manager was Yasushi Tao, former star outfielder for the Chunichi Dragons, Seibu Lions and Hanshin Tigers (and Ichiro Suzuki's favorite player when he was growing up).  Tao was a teammate of current Eagles manager Senichi Hoshino when he was with the Dragons.  The team finished their inaugural season with a record of 38-97 and Tao was let go.  This was the only year that Tao ever managed a team (at least so far).

Here's a card of Tao (#E03) from the box set BBM did for the Eagles in early 2005: