Monday, March 28, 2016

RIP Kiyohiro Miura

I haven't seen any coverage of this in English but NPB Reddit mentioned the other day that former Nankai Hawks pitcher Kiyohiro Miura has passed away at age 77.  I looked up his Japanese wikipedia page and it confirmed that he had succumbed to pneumonia on Sunday in Osaka.

Miura had a 19 year career in NPB, signing with the Hawks prior to the 1957 season out of Beppu Tsurumioka High School.  He was sold to the Taiheiyo Club Lions after the 1972 season and he retired at the end of 1975.  He coached for the Lions in 1976 and 1977 and later ran a fugu restaurant.  His best season was probably 1965 when he went 11-3 and lead the Pacific League in ERA (1.56).  He was selected to two All Star teams (1965 & 1966) and played in four Nippon Series (1959, 1964-66).

I don't have any vintage cards of him and I don't know for sure what exists - his career falls into both the late menko era and the early Calbee years but the only card I've been able to find is his 1967 Kabaya -Leaf cards (#308).  I swiped this image from Ebay:



The only modern card I've found of him is from the 2008 BBM Hawks 70th Anniversary set (#20):


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