Card Of The Week June 17

Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles manager Masataka Nashida announced a couple days ago that he's stepping down due to the team's poor performance this season.  The team announced that head coach Yosuke Hiraishi would become interim manager for the remainder of the season.

Hiraishi was the Eagles' seventh round pick in the fall 2004 draft, their first one ever.  Prior to being drafted he had attended PL Gakuen High School and Doshisha University before playing for Toyota in the corporate leagues.  He spent seven years in the Eagles organization, getting into only 122 games with the ichi-gun team before retiring after the 2011 season.  He's been a coach for the team ever since.

Here's Hiraishi's rookie card from the 2005 BBM 1st Version set (#246):