The last of the
major NPB awards was announced this week and not surprisingly, Masahiro Tanaka was unanimously elected MVP of the Pacific League and somewhat surprisingly, Wladimir Balentien was elected MVP of the Central League. I say "somewhat surprisingly" as while Balentien's season was historic, he played for a last place team. No player for a last place team had ever won the MVP before.
With this award, Tanaka becomes the third pitcher in NPB history to win the MVP, the Sawamura Award (this year and in 2011) and Rookie Of The Year (2007). The other two were Tsuneo Horiuchi and Hideo Nomo (Nomo did it all in one year - 1990). (And just so you know, there's only been two pitchers to do the equivalent in MLB - Don Newcombe and Justin Verlander.)
Speaking of Rookie Of The Year, the winners this year came from the same two teams that the MVP winners came from. It was Takahiro Norimoto of the Nippon Series Champion Eagles and Yasuhiro "Ryan" Ogawa from the last place Swallows.
Here are the BBM 1st Version cards for the four players:
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| #246 |
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| #071 |
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| #266 |
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| #076 |
And here are the Calbee cards for the Best 9 winners (I had to use a "Title Holder" card for Hisayoshi Chono as he did not have a "regular" Calbee card this year for some reason):
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| Central League Best 9 |
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| Pacific League Best 9 |
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| Pacific League DH |
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