Career Home Run Leaders #15 - Tomoaki Kanemoto

I thought I'd try to pass the time until the beginning of the season by doing a series of posts on the top 15 career home run leaders in NPB. I'm using Japan Baseball Daily's Data Warehouse as my source (as usual). I'll try to post a new one each week.

First up, Tomoaki Kanemoto with 421 home runs during his career with the Carp and Tigers. Kanemoto is one of only two active players on the list.

1994 Takara Hiroshima Carp (rookie):


1995 BBM #365:


1999 Calbee # 102:


2002 BBM 1st Version Prime Time Player Insert (#PP4). The scan may not make it obvious, but the card is 3-D (like Sportsflicks or the old Kelloggs 3-D cards from the 70's):


Following the 2002 season, Kanemoto joined Hanshin and helped lead them to their first Nippon Series since 1985 which they lost in 7 games to the Hawks. Kanemoto only had 5 hits in the Series (hitting .192), but four of those hits were home runs. He won the "Fighting Spirit" award for the Series (basically MVP for the losing team). This is his "regular" card from the 2003 BBM Nippon Series set (#50):


2004 BBM Tigers #T90 (from "The Face" subset):


In 2005, the Kanemoto helped the Tigers to another berth in the Nippon Series (and ultimately another loss). He ended up winning the Central League MVP award that season. Here's the 2006 BBM 1st Version leader card that commemorates this (#434):

Card Of The Week December 28

Koji Mitsui of the Lions has asked to be posted, but he failed to draw any bids. Here's his rookie card from the 2001 Upper Deck set (# 21):

Hankyu Braves Memorial Set

2009 marks the 20th Anniversary of the sale of the Hankyu Braves to the Orix Group. The team was called the Orix Braves for the next two years, then the Orix Blue Wave until after the 2004 season, when the Blue Wave and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes merged and became the Orix Buffaloes. BBM this week announced a memorial set celebrating the Hankyu Braves.

The set is a 50 card box set that will be in the stores January 29. The set includes 48 player cards plus 2 random memorabilia cards so it's a bit on the expensive side - 5250 yen (~$58). The players shown on the web site all played in the 1970's-80's, but since Hankyu had owned the team since 1936, it's probably safe to assume that the set will have earlier players as well.

I suspect that like last year's Lions sets, this will be followed next spring with a pack based 20th Anniversary Orix set, featuring some combination of OB and current players.

Sadaharu Oh Tribute Set

BBM has announced that they will be producing a "Thank you Sadaharu Oh" memorial set. This box set will contain 89 "regular" cards plus 1 memorabilia card. The set will be in the stores on January 22 and the SRP is 3150 yen (~$35).

Katsuhiko Maekawa of the St Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals have signed Katsuhiko Maekawa to a minor league deal. He had signed a deal with the Nats last year, but didn't play due to visa issues. I did a post on his cards back when he signed with Washington and I don't think there's really any additional information that I've learned about his cards since then (other than he does have Calbee cards in at least the 2000, 2001 and 2002 sets). But just for fun, here's another card of him (2006 Konami Baseball Heroes 2 White Edition #B06W052):

Card Of The Week December 21

Former Baystars manager Daisuke Yamashita was hired by the Dodgers to be an infield coach for their Arizona League minor league team. Here's his 1982 Calbee card (#132):

Well, that didn't take long...

I found these on Ebay today:


I don't think they're licensed or worth the card stock they're printed on, but your mileage may vary.

But you have to admit that I nailed that prediction.

Not that it was that hard to predict.