Shinya Miyamoto

Running late on this, but last week Shinya Miyamoto of the Swallows got career hit number 2000.  Miyamoto and Atsunori Inaba, the other player to reach 2000 hits this season (so far but Hiroki Kokobu of the Hawks is getting close as well), both started their careers with the Swallows in 1995 (Miyamoto was the Yakult's second round pick in the 1995 draft; Inaba was the third round pick).  They are only the second pair of rookie teammates to go on to get 2000 hits in their careers - the first set being Yutaka Fukumoto and Hideji Kato, who both debuted with the 1969 Hankyu Braves.  Not only are they the first set of rookie teammates to get their 2000th hit in the same season, but they actually got it in the same number of games - 1976.

Like Inaba, Miyamoto's rookie card is in the 1995 BBM set (#553, one before Inaba's) and as was the case for Inaba, I don't have the card.  He did appear in the 1995 BBM Nippon Series set (#S17):

Here's a selection of Miyamoto cards from the last 15 years or so:

1997 BBM #192

1999 Future Bee #008

2002 BBM 1st Version #408

2003 BBM Japan National Team #17

2005 BBM Swallows #S63

2007 BBM All Stars #A59

2012 Calbee #046

So who was the first round pick in the 1995 draft for the Swallows?  A pitcher named Tetsuya Kitagawa, who was drafted out of the industrial leagues (Nissan Motors), appeared in 36 games with Yakult between 1995 and 1998 and then returned to the industrial leagues.