Back on September 1st, 1964... Masanori Murakami became the first Japanese baseball player to play in a MLB game. His time with the San Francisco Giants only lasted a little over a season, but his place in baseball history will hopefully be remembered forever.
I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Murakami back in 2015 and I have slowly been building a collection of his cards ever since. Last month, I purchased two autographed inserts of him off of eBay...
2025 Topps First Pitch #FP-2
This card captures Murakami throwing out the first pitch at Oracle Park on May 17th, 2024 in celebration of the 60th anniversary of his MLB debut.
2024 Topps Japan Edition 1989 #89J-48
This card features a cool koi border design and was inserted into 2024 Topps Japan Edition packs. I'm not 100% sure, but based on the scoreboard it looks like Mashi posed for this photo at Wrigley Field either in 1964 or 1965.
Both of these cards were part of auctions that I won for a combined price of $64.09 ($26.19/$29 + $12 shipping + $4.74 tax). Before bidding, I researched CGC x JSA pricing... which begins at around $15 per card if you're submitting items in bulk. With that knowledge, I was very happy to win both of these auctions.
After playing for the Giants in 1965, he was ordered by the NPB commissioner to return to the Nankai Hawks for the 1966 season. Thirty years later, Hideo Nomo became the second Japanese player (born in Japan) to cross the Pacific to play in the MLB. Since then over seventy guys have followed their lead including one of the greatest contact hitters in the 21st century and one of the greatest players currently in the game.
Each year, it's exciting to see who will follow in Murakami, Nomo, Suzuki, and Ohtani's footsteps. This past season fans watched guys like Munetaka Murakami, Kazuma Okamoto, and Tatsuya Imai make their MLB debuts.
Kenny (over at Torren' Up Cards) recently sent me ten pack of 2026 Stadium Club NPB. It'll be interesting to see if any of these guys eventually come over to the states to play:
Some of you might recognize Tsuyoshi Shinjo (in the #3 spot). He spent a few seasons with the Mets and Giants in the early 2000's. These days he's managing the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
2026 Stadium Club NPB #139
Thank you Kenny for donating these Stadium Club cards to my collection.
Happy Sunday and sayonara!
12 comments:
Mark have a great week and I am looking for something I would like to give you if I can find it.
Nice cards and those 2 cards you got autographed I bet you will treasure forever. This is what makes the hobby so much fun and that is why I stay in the hobby for that feeling of getting special cards that mean so much more than a price. Congrats on those pick-ups!!!
Great Murakami autographs. Also glad you got that envelope. There's another one en route and another one being prepped as we speak.
Good stuff. Have a great week Mark!
I was just about to research the history of Japanese players coming to MLB - your post could not have come at a better time!
Those are two fantastic cards, and I like those NPB Stadium Club cards too.
Nice autos and cards from Kenny. 2026 Stadium Club? Is this gonna be this year's design? And if so, why does Japan have it before we do?
Great new cards! And for very reasonable prices. You got yourself a great deal on them. I've seen Murakami's name here and there but never put 1 & 1 together. So I appreciate your summary at the top of the post. I'll try not to forget it. But don't quiz me!
The Hanshin Tigers announced yesterday that they are posting Teruaki Sato (basically the best hitter in Japan after Murakami left...er the other Murakami!) so there will be another one heading to MLB soon.
Nice Murakami cards!
Nice autographs of a very, very significant subject! I hadn't seen NPB cards from the Stadium Club brand before but I'm glad they were made, they look great!
rod - thanks buddy. my week was pretty busy, but luckily it kinda flew by.
rr - yeah, i love the signed mashis. it's nice that topps continues to create cards of him. plus based on from what i've seen murakami is a very willing signer. so hopefully i can add a few more of his autographs to my collection
zippy zappy - thank you kenny. always appreciate you beefing up my npb pc. hope things are going well.
batting out of order - thanks. hope you had a great week too tom!
damien - love this topic. looking forward to reading your post.
johnnys trading spot - this year's stadium club design doesn't do much for me, but i like some of the photography. the best thing about the ten pack is that they're all new additions to my npb binders (which will need to be expanded to 3 binders very soon)
jafronius - i'm guessing that the mlb stadium club design will be the same as the npb. not sure if this is the norm where stadium club npb is always released before stadium club mlb. honestly who really knows what's going over there at topps
peter k steinberg - lol. my memory is likely worse than yours, so you won't see me going around quizzing people. as for murakami, i hope to add more cards of his. and each time that i do, i'll try to recap his place in mlb history
sean - gonna put that name into my brain. saw it pop up on your post recently. hopefully the a's or padres land him. i'd love for one of my teams to land a top hitter from the npb
dennis - not sure when topps started producing stadium club cards for npb players, but it's been at least three years. i bought a box of 2024 stadium club npb a few years ago (thanks to the help of sumomenkoman who was living in japan at the time).
Always good to see Mashi cards. The Japan edition is very cool even without the sig.
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