Card Of The Week December 1

I had mentioned the other day that Masahiro Tanaka had become just the third NPB player ever to win the MVP, the Sawamura Award and Rookie Of The Year.  The other two were Tsuneo Horiuchi and Hideo Nomo.  Nomo is the only one of the three who won all three in the same year - 1990.  The three awards were commemorated in the inaugural BBM set's "Leader" subset in 1991:

#203

#204

#205

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the Hall Of Fame ballots came out last week for both Cooperstown and the Japanese Hall Of Fame and Hideo Nomo is on both ballots.  He is the first Japanese player to appear on the US ballot and I suspect that he's the first player to ever appear on both ballots.