Card Of The Week October 27

I saw some interesting Nippon Series trivia on Yakyu Baka regarding Takehiro Norimoto of the Eagles.  Norimoto was only the third rookie pitcher ever to start Game One of the Nippon Series.  The first one was Nobuo Oshima, who started the very first Game One ever in 1950 for the Shochiku Robins.  The second was Taketoshi Ogami for the Nankai Hawks in 1952.  I thought it would be great to feature these guys this week but I don't have cards for either of them - both players' careers were rather short (Oshima was done after 1955 and Ogami was done after 1956) so neither have made any of BBM's OB sets.  And I don't happen to have any vintage cards of either (I know Oshima had at least one bromide card - don't know about Ogami).

Norimoto is the first rookie pitcher to start any Nippon Series game since Mitsuo Yoshikawa started Game Four for the Fighters in the 2007 Series.  I've got cards of Yoshikawa - here's his 2007 BBM Nippon Series card (#S35):

We won't have to wait six years for the next rookie pitcher to start a Nippon Series game - Tomoyuki Sugano is starting Game Two.  Norimoto actually pitched quite well in Game One - going eight innings with ten strikeouts and only giving up two runs.  Unfortunately the Eagles could not score any runs for him so he took the loss.  But I would expect him to get another start later in the Series - assuming the Eagles manage to win a game or two.