Paving the Road

Things are beginning to wind down around here.  The regular school year ended twenty days ago.  I immediately headed up to Lake Oswego for a few days, then drove down to Ashland for a few more days.  We're now into the summer school phase.  It's not my normal gig.  This time around I'm working for my district... and absolutely love it.  I've got two more weeks and my official summer break begins.

Until then... cards and the blog are still on the back burner.  I have a few posts I've been tinkering with that are sitting in my drafts folder.  However this one was more of a spur of the moment post.

Over the weekend, I opened up a PWE from Tom over at The Angels, In Order.  Back in January he sent me a BAG (blogger appreciation gift) and it only took me five months to get around to it.  Sorry about that Tom.

There were six cards in the envelope, but one card stood out:

1991 Line Drive Pre-Rookie AAA #175 

Lenn Sakata is one of those ballplayers that takes me back to my childhood.  Obviously he wasn't a superstar, but he was the only Japanese MLB player I knew at the time... and he rocked a perm.  In a sense, he paved the road for my Japanese Athlete PC.

Fast forward three decades and he's probably more known for minor league managerial career where he holds the record for most wins in California League history.  Most of those wins came while he was managing the San Jose Giants off and on from 1999 to 2021.

Over the years, he's managed and coached all over the place.  As you can see from this card, he was the hitting coach for the Edmonton Trappers back in 1991.  And thanks to Tom, it's the sixth Sakata in my Japanese binder.

I'm sure there will be at least one reader who is curious or interested in the other guy on the card.  If that's you, you can read more about Gary Ruby here.

Tom also sent me these 1992-93 Upper Deck checklists of my Jordan PC:

When this product came out, I was taking a break from the hobby.  I had just finished building my 1992 Fleer Ultra baseball set... and the card shop I had worked at closed its doors.  That's my long winded way of informing you that I never opened any of this stuff.  And all five of these Jordans are brand new to my collection.  Thank you Tom.

While we're on the subject of Japanese-Americans, here's a card I picked up off of eBay back in mid-April:

1998 DuoCards Happy Days #11

Just like there weren't a lot of Japanese baseball players back in the 80's, there were a lot of super famous Japanese-American actors either.  Only two really come to mind.  George Takei is one of them.  Pat Morita is the other.  That's why I was very happy to see that Mr. Morita had a card in this set after it was featured on A Pack To Be Named Later back in April.

I was first introduced to Mr. Morita as Arnold on Happy Days, but as the back of his card states... he is "perhaps best remembered as the indomitable Mr. Miyagi" from the Karate Kid movies of the 80's.

I recently discovered that my father and him were born only three weeks apart.  His birthday was last Friday.  Happy belated birthday Mr. Morita!

As for the rest of you...

Happy Monday and sayonara!

Extra Innings!

Just realized this is the perfect opportunity to show off a ton of new additions to my Japanese Athlete PC that were sent by John over at Johnny's Trading Spot across several care packages.

Let's start off with the hits:

Shogo's stint in the MLB only lasted two seasons, while Ishii spent three seasons with the Dodgers and one with the Mets back in the 2000's.

Like Akiyama, Hirano's MLB stint was short, but when he returned to the NPB he was very successful.  Kenta on the other hand is still pitching in the MLB after eight seasons.

 

Johjima was one of those players (along with Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, and Kurt Suzuki) that made me decide to start collecting Japanese baseball players.  

Yamamoto is a Hawaii guy.  When I went to the Giants game a few weeks ago, my cousin's son brought him up.  He mentioned that he was now coaching high school and had just won a state title in Florida.

Kazuo had a decent MLB career back in the 2000's, but he's probably best known for being the first Japanese infielder to sign a MLB contract.  Yamaguchi spent his first fourteen seasons in the NPB before coming over to play with the Blue Jays.  After less than two seasons, he went back to Japan.  But he pitched in more MLB games than Shunsuke Watanabe.  If his name sounds familiar, he is credited as giving up the longest home run ever hit at the Tokyo Dome to Big Papi:

I don't have the best of luck when it comes to sharing YouTube videos on my blog, so if this clip didn't load, you can watch it here.

Moving along... here's a card of a Japanese chef throwing out the first pitch at a Mariners game:

2017 Topps First Pitch #FP-31

Can't say I am familiar with Mr. Morimoto, but I definitely know Mr. Fuji:

1991 Classic WWF Superstars #47

Honestly... this guy deserves to be up there with Mr. Sakata and Mr. Morita... because he's another one of those Japanese performers that paved the road for so many others.

Here are a few other WWE wrestlers with a sumo wrestler and a UFC fighter:

Technically Ulambayaryn Byambajav isn't Japanese, he's Mongolian.  But I collect sumo wrestlers too.

I also collect Japanese F1 and NASCAR drivers as well as soccer and hockey players:

And don't forget... golf is a sport too:

I wouldn't consider myself a huge PGA fan, but if I had to pick a current golfer to root for... it would be Mr. Morikawa.

Thank you John for this massive contribution to my Japanese Athlete PC!

Extra Extra Innings!

Back in February, Rod over at Padrographs pulled this jumbo Masataka Yoshida out of a 2023 Topps Update Super Box:

2023 Topps Update Oversized #US5

As I stated in the comment section of his post, I'm a sucker for oddball stuff like this.  As you can see on the back of his card, he had a solid MLB debut:

And he finished 6th in the AL ROY voting last year.  He's cooled off quite a bit this year.  Regardless... this is another massive contribution to my Japanese Athlete PC:

This card is huge!  It's more than 4x larger than Yoshida's standard rookie card.  Thanks Rod!