Heard a great piece of trivia from Jim Allen on the
Japan Baseball Weekly podcast a couple of weeks ago - who are the only two Japanese players with over 2000 hits and at least one pitching victory? One is Tetsuharu Kawakami, who went 11-9 as an occasional pitcher for the Giants from 1938 to 1941. The other is actually still active - Takuro Ishii of the Carp. Ishii was signed by the Yokohama Taiyo Whales as a pitcher in 1988 and went 1-4 in 28 appearances with them from 1989 to 1991. He switched to hitting fulltime in 1992 and the rest is history.
He is actually the only player in the
Meikyukai with this distinction as Kawakami is ineligible for membership due to his being born before the
Showa Era began in 1926.
Ishii's real first name is Tadanori and it's what he went by when he was pitching. As far as I know, there are only two cards that depict him as Tadanori - the 1990 Takara Whales set and this card from the 2006 BBM Draft Story set (#122):
I have to credit
Deanna with much of the backstory for this -
she pointed out this card several years ago.
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