Japanese HOF Project

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Kazuyoshi Tatsunami was an infielder for the Dragons from 1988 to 2009. Over the course of 2586 games he accumulated 2480 hits, walked more than he struck out, and posted a batting line of 285/366/408. He wasn’t a power hitter, although he would sometimes post above-average slugging percentages. Likewise, he’d occasionally record double digit stolen bases, but it wasn’t really a part of his arsenal. In some ways he reminds me of Pete Rose. Both were versatile defensive players (Tatsunami was mostly a second baseman, but he played about three seasons worth of games at both third and short, and another 150 games in the outfield). They were both table-setter type hitters, although without much speed. Now obviously Tatsunami didn’t break Ty Cobb’s hits record, but he and Rose were the same kinds of player. Moreover, as befits a player with gap power and a long career, he is Japan’s all-time leader in doubles, with 487. (Although the shorter season must be noted, I expected the Japanese leader to have a higher mark than this: it would put him 76th in MLB, just below, among others Mel Ott, and just above Lou Brock.)

Despite being consistently very good, he was selected to only two best-nines of the course of his 22 year career. He did win a Rookie of the Year award, and several gold gloves. But he rarely led the league in any offensive category. Allen remarks that he was never the best player on his own team. On the other hand, as a veteran player in 2007 he led the Dragons to only their second Japan Series championship, and their first in more than half a century. And Albright likes him well enough, ranking him as Japan’s 48th greatest player

To all appearances, he has spent his retirement writing. Amazon has an author page for him. And while I’m not 100% sure this is the same guy, it looks like him, some of the books are about baseball, and Hiroki Nomura – one of his coauthors – was also a professional baseball player.

Tatsunami is one of the newest members of the hall of fame. And I mean new. He was elected in 2019.

My card is from the 2000 Calbee set. It’s much larger than the tiny 80s Calbee cards, but still slightly smaller than standard baseball card size. Somewhere along the line (1990?) Calbee started putting text on the front of the cards in English instead of Kanji. I don’t know why.