After what seemed like forever, Masahiro Tanaka finally got his 200th career win between NPB and MLB yesterday. He'd gotten to 197 wins after the 2023 season but went winless in his final season with the Eagles last year and it took nine starts this season with the Yomiuri Giants to get those last three wins.
I'm not going to do the usual deep dive into Tanaka's career here because it's pretty well known and I've covered it a lot in the past. He had a stellar career at Komazawa University Tomakomai High School which culminated in his famous duel with Yuki Saitoh in the finals of the 2006 Summer Koshien Tournament and was taken in the first round of the 2006 draft by the Eagles. He spent the next seven seasons in Sendai, winning a Rookie Of The Year Award, two Sawamura Awards and an MVP award while capping his tenure off with a phenomenal 24-0 season in which he led the Eagles to their first (and to date only) championship in 2013.
He left for MLB and the Yankees after that and spent seven seasons in pinstripes before returning to Japan and the Eagles for the 2021 season. His first three years back were somewhat mediocre and then he missed a lot of last season due to an elbow injury. He ultimately only made one start at the ichi-gun level, giving up four runs in five innings against the Buffaloes on September 28th and took the loss. That was his last appearance with the Eagles as the team released him at the beginning of December and he signed with the Giants later that month.
I'm again not going to do my usual thing of saying what his rookie cards are and et cetera - I did all that in a post back in late 2013 and I did another post showing a bunch of his cards when he signed with the Yankees a month or so later. I'll just share a bunch of other cards of his here:
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| 2007 BBM SCM #82 |
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| 2007 Calbee Series Three #C-11 |
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| 2009 Eagles Seat Owners Club #18 |
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| 2013 Topps Tribute WBC Edition #45 |
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| 2013 BBM Shukan Baseball Season Memorial #1 |
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| 2013 BBM Masahiro Tanaka Invincibility Legend #25 |
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| 2014 Calbee Series One #NS-1 |
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| 2021 BBM 1st Version #087 |
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| 2022 Epoch One #604 |
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| 2023 Calbee Series Two #FW-04 |
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| 2023 Topps NPB #197 |
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| 2024 Epoch/Eagles Team Set 1st Version #03 |
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| 2024 Bandai Pro Baseball Deforme #BDC1-E02 |
A couple comments:
- That's Takeshi Yamazaki with him on the 2007 Calbee checklist card
- That 2014 Calbee card is not officially a Tanaka card as Calbee didn't have the rights to make a card of him that year since he was in MLB. But that's obviously him in the middle of the crowd.
2 comments:
That 2013 season was insane. Glad he finally reached #200.
Yes it was. Funny thing about that season - he didn't pitch too well in the WBC that spring and there were a lot of folks asking what was wrong with him. Nothing as it turned out!
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