The Biggest Stretch

Sean posed an interesting question in a comment to my post last week about the only player to appear (as a player) in both the first Calbee set in 1973 and the first BBM set in 1991.  He asked "What is the longest stretch between a player's first card appearance and their last while still an active player?"  He pointed out the longest stretch in MLB is the 26 years for Nolan Ryan between his 1968 rookie card and his last card as an active player in 1993* but he wanted to know what the longest stretch for an NPB player was.

*Yes, I know 1993-1968 = 25 but that's an INCLUSIVE set of years so it's 26 years total.  And Ryan's 1994 cards don't count because he wasn't an active player that season.

My first thought when reading his question was that the answer was probably going to be Kimiyasu Kudoh for a number of reasons.  First reason - Kudoh had the longest career in NPB history.  He debuted in 1982 and played his last game in 2010.  Second reason - unlike the several of the other players I could think of, Kudoh actually had a card in his rookie season.  His cards stretch across 29 years.

But I went ahead and did the research this past week just in case I missed something.  The other candidates I considered were Katsuya Nomura, Masahiro Yamamoto, Motonobu Tanishige and Satoshi Nakajima.

Nomura played from 1954 to 1980, a 27 year span.  However the earliest baseball cards of him listed in Engel are from 1957 so his stretch of cards is only 24 years.

Had BBM started doing cards in 1981 instead of 1991, Yamamoto could have been the answer to this question.  He was the fifth round pick of the Dragons in the 1983 draft and made his debut with the ichi-gun team in 1986.  His final season was 2015.  He is tied with Kudoh for most seasons played in NPB history* - he missed the entire 2011 season with injuries which is why he doesn't have 30 seasons.  But his first baseball card didn't come until 1988** so his stretch of cards is 28 years, one short of Kudoh's.  Before BBM started doing cards it was very rare for a player to have a baseball card in their rookie season.  Had Yamamoto had a card in a 1984 set (like he would have if BBM was doing cards that year), his stretch of cards would have spanned the 32 years total that he spent with the Dragons.

*To be clear - the record is for most seasons with at least one appearance with the ichi-gun team which is why Yamamoto's 1984 and 1985 seasons with the farm team don't count

**With the Vero Beach Dodgers

Like Kudoh, Tanishige had a card in every year he played.  He debuted with the Yokohama Taiyo Whales in 1989 after being their first round draft pick the year before and played his last game in 2015.  That's a stretch of 27 years but it's two short of Kudoh's stretch.

I didn't think of Nakajima at first but he also had a 29 year career.  He debuted with the Hankyu Braves in 1987 and played his last game with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in 2015*.  But like Yamamoto, he didn't have a baseball card until several years after his debut.  His first card wasn't until 1989 so his cards "only" stretch 28 years, like Yamamoto one short of Kudoh.

*No, I don't know why three of these players hung up their spikes after the 2015 season.  I also don't know why I've done some many Joe Posnanski-ish notes in this post either

One other name popped into my head while I was researching this - Ichiro Suzuki.  Ichiro's first cards were in 1993 and his final MLB cards (I assume) were in 2019, giving him a stretch of 27 years.

So it looks like my first instinct was correct and the answer to the question is Kimiyasu Kudoh.  Here's his first and last cards as an active player, 28 years apart and spanning a career of 29 years:

1982 Takara Lions #47

2010 BBM 1st Version #339

And just for fun, here's the back of Kudoh's 2010 card showing his entire career (except for his 2010 season):

Let me know if there's someone I missed.