Card Of The Week April 27

There were two walk off wins today in NPB and, luckily, they were both in the Pacific League so I can share video of them.  

First up, Takeya Nakamura of the Lions came through in the bottom of the ninth with a pinch hit single with two on and two out to beat the Buffaloes in Tokorozawa:

About an hour later up in Sendai, Yoshiaki Watanabe of the Eagles hit a ball into the left field corner with the bases loaded and nobody out in the eleventh inning to beat the Hawks:

There was some significance to both events.  The 41 year old Nakamura became the oldest player in club history to get a sayonara hit and the Eagles' victory was the 1300th in club history (H/T NPB Reddit).

Here are team issued cards of both players:

2020 Lions Fan Club #60

2020 Eagles Team Cards 1st Version #54

RIP Masaaki Koyama

Hall of Fame pitcher Masaaki Koyama passed away from congestive heart failure last week.  He was 90 years old.

Koyama failed in a tryout with the Taiyo Shochiku Robins in 1953 before signing with the Osaka Tigers as a trainee and batting practice pitcher when he was just 18 years old.  His being a distant relative of Seizo Noda, president of Hanshin Electric Railway and chairman of the board of Osaka Baseball Club, has been rumored to have played a part in the Tigers signing him.  He quickly got promoted to a spot on the farm team and made his debut with the top team late in the season, going 5-1 in 16 games and throwing one shutout.

He moved into the rotation for good the following season and quickly established himself as the Tigers ace.  He really hit his stride in 1958, starting a streak of three consecutive seasons in which he won 20 games each year.  He was the Tigers starting pitcher in the Emperor's Game in 1959.  

After a down year in 1961 that saw him lose 22 games, he bounced back in 1962 with what was probably his best season ever.  He went 27-11 with an ERA of 1.66 and 270 strikeouts in 352 2/3 innings.  He threw a Central League record 13 shutouts that season, including five in a row.  He also had a streak of 47 consecutive scoreless innings.

He and Minoru Murayama combined to start 78 of the Tigers 133 games that season and led the team to its first ever Central League pennant.  Manager Sadayoshi Fujimoto quipped that his pitching rotation was "Koyama, Murayama, and pray for rain".  Koyama started against the Pacific League champion Toei Flyers in Game One of the Nippon Series and pitched into the tenth inning, despite having given up five runs.  Murayama relieved him with two outs in the tenth and got the win when the Tigers walked it off in the bottom of the inning.  He started and lost Game 4 and then came in in relief in Game 5 the next day and gave up a sayonara home run to Koichi Iwashita in the bottom of the 11th.

The Tigers had their backs to the wall for Game 7.  They were down three games to two with Game Three having ended in a tie, and needed to win to stave off elimination and force a decisive Game Eight.  Koyama got the start and pitched well, keeping the Flyers off the board for nine innings.  The bad news for Hanshin was that Flyers starter Osamu Kubota was pitching just as well and the scoreless tie went into extra innings.  Koyama finally gave up a run on a sacrifice fly to Masayuki Tanemo in the tenth and that's when things got kind of controversial.  After the half inning was over, Koyama apparently thought he was done and went to the locker room.  The Tigers tied the game in the bottom of the tenth but Koyama hadn't returned to the dugout in time for the top of the eleventh.  Fujimoto had to sent Murayama to the mound without him having warmed up.  Murayama kept the Flyers off the board in the eleventh but gave up a go ahead home run to Akio Saionji in the twelfth to lose the game and the Series.  

Afterwards, Fujimoto suggested that Koyama had not played his best in the Series because he was disappointed to have not won the Central League MVP award - Murayama won it instead.  Fujimoto proposed that the league not announce the award winners until after the end of the Nippon Series and the league has done so ever since.  Koyama did win his only Sawamura Award that season.  

Koyama slumped to 14-14 in 1963 and the Tigers slumped with him, dropping to third place with a 69-70-1 record.  Hanshin's management felt that the team needed to add offense and worked out the "Trade Of The Century" with the Daimai Orions - a blockbuster trade that would sent Koyama to the Orions for slugger Kazuhiro Yamauchi.

The new league agreed with Koyama as he went 30-12 with the renamed Tokyo Orions in 1964.  (The Tigers did well too, winning the Central League pennant again before losing to the Nankai Hawks in the first all-Kansai Nippon Series.)  He'd run off two more 20 win seasons in 1965 and 1966 (although he also lost 20 in 1965).  He was a player-coach from 1966-68 but may have been injured in 1968 as he only made 25 appearances that season.  He only pitched in 87 innings in 1968 after having pitched 200+ innings in each of the previous 12 seasons.  He played in the Fall Instructional League in the US in 1967 as a guest of the Detroit Tigers (along with three other Orions players).

He recovered from whatever cost him time in 1968 and went 11-7 in 1969.  1970 would see him notch a 16-11 record and help the now-Lotte Orions to the Pacific League pennant.  He appeared in three games in the Nippon Series against the Giants, taking the loss in Game Three on another eleventh inning home run - this time by Shigeo Nagashima.  Yomiuri would win the Series in five games - their six championship of the V9 era.

He won his 300th game on May 3, 1971, driving in the game winning run with a double in the eighth inning to beat Toei.  

His future was in question after the 1972 season in which he went 9-6 with a career worst ERA of 4.08.  Lotte had a new manager coming in - Masaichi Kaneda - and Koyama was now 38 years old.  Koyama's Japanese Wikipedia page says that Leo Durocher attempted to acquire him for the Astros around this time but I don't know how serious the attempt was.  Obviously it didn't happen.

The Orions ended up trading him to the Taiyo Whales - the team he had failed his tryout with 20 years earlier - for Hiroshi Kito and Taiichi Yasuda.  The intention was for him to be the Whale's pitching coach but he was pressed into active service by manager Noburo Aota.  He went 4-4 with a 2.54 ERA in 15 games before hanging up his spikes for good at the end of the season.

After retiring as an active player, he had several coaching jobs over the next 25 years.  He had three separate stints with the Tigers along with one each with the Lions and Hawks.  He worked as TV commentator when he wasn't coaching.

He ended his career with 320 wins, third highest in NPB history behind Kaneda and Tetsuya Yoneda.  He's also third all time behind Kaneda and Yoneda in strikeouts (3159) and innings pitched (4899).  His 74 career shutouts is also third on the all time list although this time it's behind Victor Starffin and Kaneda.  He's the only player in NPB history with 100 wins in each league.

Surprisingly he only led the league in any major category three times - wins (1964), winning percentage (1962) and strikeouts (1962).  He also only won one major award - the 1962 Sawamura Award.  He never won a Best 9 award but he was an 11-time All Star.  He was elected to the Hall Of Fame in 2001.*

*This seems incredibly late given that he retired 28 years earlier but I think there was something in the eligibility rules at the time about a player having to have been retired from ANY role in baseball for a certain number of years and Koyama was a coach up until 1998.  This explains why Shigeo Nagashima and Sadaharu Oh weren't elected to the Hall Of Fame until 1988 and 1994 respectively despite their final seasons as players being in 1974 and 1980.  And also why there's such a backlog of deserving players who have not yet been inducted into the Hall Of Fame.

There were a lot of contemporary baseball cards issued of Koyama as a Tiger - he shows up in a variety of menko, bromide, candy and game sets - but not many as a member of the Orions and none as a member of the Whales.  The menko age pretty much ended a year after his trade to Tokyo and there were very few cards issued until Calbee started up in 1973.  The 1967 Kabaya-Leaf set was the big exception but it only had cards for half the teams and the Orions weren't one of those teams.  He's been featured fairly often in BBM OB issues over the past 25 years or so, however.  Here's some of his cards - both from when he was an active player and from modern sets:

1958 Marukami JCM 31c Type II (Shozo Watanabe, Mitsuo Osaki and Koyama)

1959 Maruten JCM 135 (#2 in sequence)

1959 Maruten JCM 135 (#8 in sequence)

1963 Marukami JCM 14f

1964 Marukami JCM 14g

1991 BBM #229

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #369

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #093

2016 BBM Fusion #058

2021 BBM Marines History 1950-2021 #09

2022 BBM Fusion #27

2024 BBM Professional Baseball 90th Anniversary #110

A couple quick notes:

• That 2016 BBM Fusion card commemorates him getting at least one base hit for 21 consecutive seasons which was a record for a pitcher until it was broken by Daisuke Miura that season
• The 2022 BBM Fusion card is the only card I've ever seen of him as a Taiyo Whale.  Hell, it's the only PICTURE I've ever seen of him as a Taiyo Whale
• The 2024 BBM Professional Baseball 90th Anniversary card commemorates the "Trade Of The Century" and features him and Yamauchi (on the left) at the press conference announcing the trade on December 26th, 1963
• I'm wondering now if the 2013 BBM "The Trade Stories" set was meant to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the "Trade Of The Century".  Koyama and Yamauchi are the first two cards in the set.

An Introduction

About a year or so ago, I was approached by someone on Reddit about collaborating on some sort of introduction to Japanese baseball cards.  He was very enthusiastic about it and I tried to be, but I was getting ready for last year's trip to Japan and, when I got back, I was concentrating on dealing with the cards I had brought home and writing about the trip.  So the project kind of fell off of my radar and Dylan, the gentleman I was working with, had some family issues that kept him from working on it as well.  I reached out to him a few months back but didn't hear anything back from him.  I apologize to him deeply for dropping the ball on this.

All that said, I finally have completed something I probably should have written years ago - An Introduction to Japanese Baseball Cards.  It's an attempt to capture the current state of the NPB card market - I'm not diving into any of the older cards like menko, Yamakatsu or Kabaya-Leaf.  Hopefully I will be able to keep the page up-to-date - it's kind of amazing how many things I had to tweak from the first version of this that I wrote a year ago.

Yet Another Zippy Zapping

I was traveling for work all of last week and when I returned home late Friday night, I discovered that I had once again received an envelope from Kenny - aka Zippy Zappy - in Japan.  I was somewhat surprised to get something from Kenny since I had just gotten an envelope from him two weeks ago but I am not complaining.  I don't know what it was that I did that made me a target for Kenny's generosity but I am always grateful for what he decides to send me.

When I saw the envelope, I turned to my wife and said "I bet he sent me one of those new 'Pro Baseball Deforme' cards."  I opened it up and discovered I was correct:

2025 Bandai Pro Baseball Deforme #BDC02-C03

These cards are issued by Bandai and are distributed with bags of kaki no tane which is a bar snack consisting of soy crackers and peanuts (although the bags don't have peanuts).  I have not tried them myself but Kenny likes them.  Sean, on the other hand, is not a fan.

And, if you're curious what "deforme" means, Nippon Baseball Retro explains in a comment on Sean's post that it refers to the art style of a figure having a big head and small body.  Thanks for the explanation!

As always, thanks for the card, Kenny!

Card Of The Week April 20

The Hawks went hitless in Tokorozawa last Friday night but you won't see that game added to the roster of NPB no-hitters for two reasons.  The first is that Softbank was held hitless by two pitchers and combined no-hitters are not considered "official" by NPB.  The second is that the Hawks scored a run and games in which the team being no-hit still manages to score a run are also not considered "official" no-hitters.

The two Lions pitchers in question were Tatsuya Imae and Kaima Taira.  Imae started the game and went eight innings, striking out nine and walking one.  Taira came in and finished the game in the ninth, striking out one of the three batters he faced.

If you've been watching the Lions the past few seasons, you'll be forgiven for wondering if they actually won the game.  They did, although that one run the Hawks got off Imae (on a leadoff walk to Naoki Satoh in the seventh followed by a stolen base and two groundouts) tied the game up.  The Lions scored another run in the bottom of the seventh to put Seibu up for good and they held on for the 2-1 victory.  

This was only the fifth time in NPB (and JBL) history that a no-hit team scored a run and the first time in over 60 years.  The Hawks - then of Osaka and owned by Nankai - held hitless by Noboru Makino and Shigemasa Yamamoto of the Kintetsu Buffaloes on May 13, 1964.  

Here are Calbee cards of both Imae and Taira:

2020 Calbee Series Two #075 (Imae)

2021 Calbee Series Three #IL-03 (Taira)

Card Of The Week April 13

The Lions and Fighters had a scoreless tie going into the bottom of the twelfth inning Friday in Hokkaido.  With two outs and pinch runner Go Matsumoto on second, though, pinch hitter Yuya Gunji stepped to the plate and ended both the tie and the game:

It was only the second time in NPB history that a player hit a pinch hit, sayonara home run to end a scoreless tie in extra innings.  The first time?  July 29th, 1970 when Junichi Ikeda hit a walk-off grand slam in the thirteenth inning to beat the Giants 4-0.

Here are cards of both Gunji and Ikeda:

2024 Topps Stadium Club NPB #163

1973/74 Calbee #118

Hiroyuki Nakajima

Long time NPB star Hiroyuki Nakajima officially announced his retirement a few weeks ago.  He'd been hoping to continue playing after being released by Chunichi last fall but, with the beginning of the new season, his first in 25 years that he wasn't on the roster for a professional team, the 42 year old decided to hang up his spikes.

Nakajima had been the fifth round pick of the Seibu Lions in the 2000 draft out of Hyogo Prefectural Itamikita High School.  He spent most of his first few seasons on Seibu's farm team as Kazuo Matsui was firmly entrenched as the starting shortstop on the ichi-gun squad.  When Matsui left for the Mets in 2004, though, Nakajima had an opportunity to replace him and he made the most of it, hitting .287 with 29 home runs and 90 RBIs.  He made the All Star team and helped the Lions win the Nippon Series despite finishing second - it was the first year that the Pacific League had a playoff system.

He put up good numbers over the following eight seasons, making the All Star team in every season except 2005 (when he missed time with a broken cheekbone from getting hit by a batted ball).  He won four Best 9 awards (2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012) and three Golden Glove awards (2008, 2011 and 2012) and led the Pacific League in hits in 2009 and OBP in 2008 and 2009.  He helped the Lions win another Nippon Series in 2008 and played for the National Team in both the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

Nakajima wanted to play in MLB and asked the Lions to post him following the 2011 season.  The Yankees won the bidding for him but he and New York failed to come to an agreement.  He returned to the Lions for one final season in 2012 before leaving as a free agent and signing with the Oakland Athletics.

He played poorly in spring training in 2013 and started the season on the disabled list.  The A's sent him to their Triple-A team in Sacramento when he was healthy again and he spent the entire season with the River Cats.  He started the 2014 season back in Sacramento but, after only hitting .128 in 12 games, he was demoted to Oakland's Double-A team in the Texas League, the Midland Rockhounds.  He spent the rest of the season with Midland and, frustrated by not being able to get promoted to the majors, decided to return to Japan.

He talked with three teams upon his return to Japan - his two "hometown" teams of the Tigers and Buffaloes as well as the Lions.  He ultimately signed with Orix which reunited him with an elementary school teammate - Katsuki Yamazaki.  

He wasn't the same player after he returned to Japan.  He had hit over .300 in six of the seven seasons before he headed to the US but never reached that number after he came back.  He was slowed some by injuries but being in his 30's (and later 40's) probably didn't help.  

He spent four seasons with Orix before joining the Giants as a free agent in 2019.  After five seasons in Tokyo, he moved to Nagoya for 2024 and spent most of last season on the Dragons' farm team.

Nakajima's rookie card was #426 from the 2001 BBM set.  His only other 2001 card was from the Broccoli Lions set (#065).  He didn't have any cards that I know of in 2002 (although I'd be willing to bet he had a card in a Lions team-issued set) and his only known 2003 card was in BBM's first comprehensive Lions team set.  He started appearing in many card sets in 2004 - getting into both of BBM's flagship sets (1st and 2nd Version) as well as appearing on his first Calbee (#081 in Series Two) and Konami cards.  Here's a bunch of his cards:

2001 BBM #426

2001 Broccoli #065

2004 BBM Nippon Series #19

2005 SCM #49

2006 BBM 2nd Version #M02

2007 Lions "Special Card 2007" #3

2008 BBM 2nd Version #694

2009 Topps 2 WBC #BCS4

2010 BBM 1st Version #448

2011 BBM All Stars #A27

2012 Epoch TCP Lions #SL-02

2013 BBM 1st Version #375

2015 BBM Classic #009

2016 Calbee Series One #025

2017 Epoch Pacific League #48

2018 BBM 1st Version #092

2019 BBM Giants #G70

2020 Calbee Series Two #109

2021 BBM 1st Version #174

2022 Topps NPB #37

2023 Epoch NPB #342

2024 BBM 1st Version #148

My friend Justin of Charm City Autographs gave me a card a while back that Nakajima signed for him in Sacramento.  He said that it's a terrible autograph but "Believe it or not, that was probably one of the better autographs that I got from him":

2012 BBM 1st Version #382

Certainly doesn't look as good as the facsimile autographs on the 2005 and 2019 cards.

RIP Tony Blanco

Devastating news out of the Dominican Republic today - a roof collapse at a night club in Santo Domingo has left at least 66 people dead and over 150 injured.  Among the dead were merengue musician Rubby Pérez who was on stage when the roof collapsed; Nelsy Cruz, governor of the Montecristi province and sister of former MLB star Nelson Cruz; former MLB player Octovio Dotel and former MLB and NPB player Tony Blanco.

Blanco spent about ten years in the Red Sox, Reds, Nationals and Rockies organizations with only a brief, 56 games stint in the majors with the Nationals in their inaugural 2005 season.  He joined the Dragons in 2009 as a replacement for Tyrone Woods and homered in his first NPB at bat on Opening Day against Daisuke Miura of the Baystars.  He led the Central League in home runs (39) and RBIs (110) that season, was selected for the All Star game and won a Best 9 award.  He again hit over 30 home runs in 2010 and again made the All Star team.  His performance tailed off somewhat the two years (definitely due to injury in 2012 but maybe also in 2011) - although he won a second Best 9 award in 2012 and was again selected for the All Star team although he declined to participate - and he left Nagoya for Yokohama after the 2012 season.

He had an amazing first season with DeNA in 2013, leading the Central League in batting (.333) and RBIs (136) while also hitting 41 home runs.  He probably would have won the Triple Crown had that not been the season that Wladimir Balentien hit 60 home runs.  He won his third and final Best 9 award that year and was once again selected for the All Star team.

Muscle strains in his legs plagued him in 2014, ultimately limiting him to only 85 games.  His performance when healthy resulted in yet another All Star team selection but he lost his spot in the starting lineup to Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh late in the season.

He moved on to the Orix Buffaloes, signing a two year contract in December of 2014.  Injuries limited him to only 52 ichi-gun appearances in 2015 and only 27 in 2016 (I remember that his only card in the 2016 BBM 1st Version set was the Buffaloes team checklist showing him standing in the dugout with a stabilizing boot on his left foot).  He and Orix parted ways when his contract was over and his final days as an active player came in a 7 game stint with Estrellas Orientales of the Dominican Winter League during the 2016-17 season.

Here's a bunch of his cards - I picked at least one for each of the eight years he played in Japan:

2009 Calbee Series Two #180

2010 BBM All Stars #A19

2011 BBM 2nd Version #576

2012 Calbee Series Three #186

2013 BBM 1st Version #149

2013 Front Runner Baystars Season Summary #03

2014 SCM Cosmic Cross #SCM23/#SCM276

2015 Calbee Series Two #098

2016 BBM 1st Version #329

2016 BBM Buffaloes #Bs54

I was fortunate enough to see Blanco play in an open-sen game for the Baystars against the Dragons on my first trip to Japan in March of 2013.  I think it might have been his first game in Yokohama as a member of the Baystars but I don't know that for sure.  I do know that he hit a home run completely out of Yokohama Stadium that afternoon - it was a windy afternoon and the Baystars had four home runs that day along with one by the Dragons but Blanco's was the only one to leave the ballpark.

There was one thing I saw that day that I didn't understand until today.  "Blanco" is similar to the Japanese word "buranko" which means "swing" (as in "swing set") so he was more or less known as "Swing" in Japan.  Which explains this t-shirt I saw for sale at the Baystars shop that day: