Sunday, November 13, 2016

Saburo

Saburo Ohmura of the Marines announced his retirement back on September 1st.  He was drafted out of PL Gakuen High School in the first round of the fall 1994 draft by Lotte.  He registered his name as "Saburo" since there was another player with the Marines with the same last name (Iwao Ohmura) and he continued to go by his first name even after the other Ohmura retired.

He has two rookie cards in the 1995 BBM set - #571 in the regular set and #644 in the Late Series.  His first Calbee card is #152 in the 2002 set.  The only one of these I have is the Late Series card:

1995 BBM Late Series #644
Saburo played for the Marines for almost his entire career.  He was traded to the Giants in the middle of the 2011 season and spent the remainder of the season with them (and changed his registered name to "Saburo Ohmura").  He returned to Lotte that winter however and spent the rest of his career in Chiba.

His best season was probably 2009 when he hit .314 with 22 home runs.  He made the All Star team twice (2002 & 2009) and won two Golden Glove awards (2005 & 2007).  He played in two Nippon Series (in 2005 and 2010, on the victorious side both times) and won an "Outstanding Player" award in the 2005 Series.

Here's more of his cards:

1997 BBM #393

2003 Calbee #065

2005 BBM Nippon Series #22

2008 BBM Lotte 40th Anniversary #96

2009 BBM All Stars #A27

2011 Owners League 04 #093

2013 BBM Marines #M98

2016 BBM 1st Version #071

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