Card Of The Week December 21

Last week, former MLB pitcher Mike Campbell suffered a heart attack and passed away at age 61.  Campbell had been drafted in the first round by the Mariners in 1985 and was the player to be named later sent to the Expos to complete the Mark Langston trade in 1989 (the one that brought Randy Johnson to Seattle).  He only spent a few months in the Montreal organization, though, moving back to the Pacific Northwest in 1990 to play in Triple-A for the White Sox in Vancouver.  He was part of a number of teams over the next six years, sometimes just on paper in the off season.  He went from the White Sox to the Brewers to the Rangers to the Padres to the Cubs to the Red Sox, appearing in the majors with Texas, San Diego and Chicago.  

He'd gotten injured in 1996 - not sure if it was his ankle or his shoulder - and the injury took a while to heal.  He joined the Red Sox organization in October of 1996 and they promptly sold him to the Yokohama BayStars less than three weeks later.  His lingering injury and ineffectiveness limited his time in Japan to just three games with Yokohama's farm team though.  He returned to the US and, after being released by the Expos in spring training of 1998, finished his career playing in the Western and Atlantic Leagues over the next two seasons.

As you might expect, Campbell did not have many NPB cards (which is partly why I'm doing a memorial post for him as a "Card Of The Week" post).  As far as I know, the only card issued during his playing time in Japan was in the 1997 BBM "flagship" set - although it's entirely possible that he had a team issued card that year as well.  He also appeared in the 2022 Epoch Japan Retired Foreign Player Association (JRFPA) set.  Here's both of his NPB cards:

1997 BBM #227

2022 Epoch JRFPA #13