Giants and Lions farmhand Takashi "Taka" Miura has passed away at age 45 due to colorectal cancer. Miura was a pitcher for the Toyo University team in the late 90's/early 00's and - along with his battery mate Shinnosuke Abe - helped the team win the league championship in his final season in the fall of 2000 when he went 7-2 and won the league MVP and Best Pitcher awards along with winning a Best 9 award. He was the Giants' third pick in the 2000 draft out of Toyo University, two picks after Yomiuri took Abe.
He got into 49 games in middle relief with the top team in his rookie season of 2001, going 3-2 with a 3.41 ERA but he developed a case of the "yips" in 2002 and had difficulty throwing strikes. He ended up being the first pitcher to be ejected under the new "dangerous pitch" rule introduced in NPB that season and only pitched in three games at the ichi-gun level.
Miura had been a good hitter in college, frequently appearing in the lineup as a DH on days he wasn't pitching so in 2003 Tatunori Hara decided to have him switch to being a position player. His first hit as a non-pitcher was also his first home run, hit in September of 2003 against the Dragons.
The Giants used him as a utility player, playing in both the infield and the outfield, but he didn't spend a lot of time with the top team - only about 52 games over the five seasons from 2003 to 2007. They released him following the 2007 season and he almost retired after initially drawing no interest from any teams after attending the 12 team tryout that fall. But after Kazuki Fukuchi left the Lions for the Swallows, Seibu came calling and he spent the last two seasons of his career with them. They released him after the 2009 season and, after again drawing no interest after the 12 team tryout, he retired as a player.
He visited his old high school, Urawa Gakuin, after he retired and was encouraged to became a teacher and coach for the baseball team by his old head coach. He spent a couple more years back at Toyo University to get his teaching license and then was hired on at his old school. He was able to take advantage of a change in coaching requirements. Previously former professional players needed to have spend two years teaching before they could become high school coaches but the new rule allowed them to start coaching if they had had the necessary training. He continued as a coach at his old school until he was diagnosed with cancer last year. He was able to briefly return to work earlier this year but he got too sick to continue last month.
Miura's first baseball card was in the 2001 BBM set (#284). There's actually two different versions of this card - the original one listed him as "Takashi Miura" while the corrected one lists him as "Taka Miura". TCDB lists 23 cards for him although several of those are parallels or autograph cards. He appeared in BBM's Giants team set every year from 2001 to 2007 and in their Lions team sets in 2008 and 2009. His other rookie cards from 2001 are from BBM's Diamond Heroes set and Konami's Field Of 9 set (he has two cards in that set). His only other flagship appearance was in the 2002 BBM 1st Version set. He never had a Calbee card. He also appeared in some team issued sets although only one of those is listed on TCDB. Here's all the cards I have of his:
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| 2001 BBM #284 (original version) |
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| 2002 BBM 1st Version #39 |
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| 2003 BBM Giants #051 |
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| 2004 BBM Giants #G65 |
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| 2005 BBM Giants #G062 |
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| 2006 BBM Giants #G062 |
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| 2007 Giants Team Issue #54 |
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| 2009 Lions Fan Club #21 |
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