Sidetracked Stack

There's at least one person in my life that gets frustrated over the number of Federal holidays... so I'm guessing there might be others out there.  Me?  I'm way on the other end of the spectrum.  I love them.

Every year we celebrate George Washington's birthday on the third Monday of February... and every year that means I get a week off from work.

The past three days, I've been running errands, hanging out with my brother, and hitting up stores like Ikea, Daiso, and Costco Business.  But in between this busy schedule, I've been attacking some stacks that have been piling up in my office.

One of those stacks was a pile of Japanese baseball players I set aside from Rod's care package.  It was meant to be part of the 660ct. Storage Box of Cards post, but it was hidden under some top loaders and a note pad.  I found it earlier in the week and started scanning some of the cards.  I finally organized the stack and integrated the cards into my binders.

Today I'm wrapping things up by highlighting the goodies.  Let's start things off with two of the biggest Japanese rookies from 2024:

Shota Imanaga had a stellar season with the Cubs last year and clearly adopted the role as the team's ace.  If he was a few years younger, I could see collectors going wild over his cards.  But now that he's in his 30's, it'll be interesting how many more seasons he can play in the MLB at an elite level.

On the other hand, Yoshinobu Yamamoto is only twenty-six years old... so he could spend the next decade or so being teammates with Ohtani and Sasaki.  Here are two of the shinier rookie cards that Rod included:

2024 Stadium Club Chrome Refractor #114

2024 Topps Chrome X-Fractor #18

Hopefully he'll be able to stay healthy and have a long and productive career like this hall of famer:

2024 Topps 1989 All-Stars #89ASB-38

I've been a fan of Ichiro since he came over to the states in 2001.  Can't exactly say the same for 1989 Topps baseball.  

2024 Topps Chrome Silver Pack #T89CU-63

But I've gotta admit... the design has slowly been growing on me over the past decade.  

Next up is another old school (if you can call 2000's athletes old school) Japanese legend:

2024 Stadium Club Red Foil #142

Hey Bo... any idea when this photo was taken?  2009 World Series?

Let's get back to current players with this relic card of Seiya Suzuki:

Check out that dirty swatch.  I love it!  Suzuki led the Cubs in batting average, OPS, and slugging percentage among all of their regular starters.

Now for my favorites in the stack.  Let's start with a card I was hoping that someone would eventually send me:

2024 Allen & Ginter #172

Masanori Murakami was the first Japanese guy to play in the MLB.  It's nice to see Topps add him to their Ginter checklist, because now I have a few more cards of his to chase down.

The final card features a guy I've never heard of, but it's a card I'll treasure forever:

1986 ProCards Phoenix Firebirds #NNO

Cliff Shidawara was the Phoenix Firebirds trainer for several seasons back in the 80's.  He continued working in Arizona as a clinical athletic trainer into the 90's.

Couldn't find any information about him still working with baseball players.  However... according to Linkedin page, he's an elementary school bus driver in Tempe, so technically he could be a part of my Educators on Cardboard PC.

Thank you Rod for this nice stack of Japanese athletes and trainers!  Sorry I wasn't able to hang out with you, Kevin, Gavin, and Kerry.  Hopefully we can get together in the spring or summer.

Until then...

Happy Sunday and sayonara!