Card Of The Week August 23

My favorite NPB player is slugger Takeya Nakamura of the Saitama Seibu Lions.  I had been tracking him as the NPB player most likely to reach 500 home runs for some time, although unfortunately it's become quite apparent now that he's probably not going to get there.  He turned 43 just over a week ago and his production has diminished quite a bit over the past few seasons.  He had 481 career home runs coming into this season and had spent much of the year on the Lions' farm team.

Friday, however, he hit his first home run of the season with the top team and it came at an excellent time.  The Lions were beating the Eagles 2-1 going into the bottom of the ninth up in Sendai but Rakuten managed to score a run off of Hiroshi Kaino to tie it up.  The game remained knotted until the top of the eleventh when the Lions loaded the bases and sent Nakamura up as a pinch hitter.  He hit a grand slam, the 23rd of his career (which extended his NPB record, eight more now than Sadaharu Oh's 15), to put the Lions up 6-2.  They needed most of those runs too, as the Eagles rallied to score two runs in the bottom of the eleventh before Wataru Matsumoto closed the 6-4 victory out.  Nakamura now has hit at least one home run in every season since 2004, 23 straight seasons.

Here's a card of Nakamura from Sports Card Magazine #52, published in July of 2005:

2005 SCM #54