Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Kenjiro Nomura was Hiroshima’s shortstop from 1989 to 2005. As a young man he had good power, good speed, a healthy OBP, and played pretty much every day. Sort of Alan-Trammell-like. Age 31 was his last really good year, after that he missed lots of time every season for the rest of his career, retiring after his age 38 season. Nomura’s best season was 1995, in which he hit 32 home runs (double the figure that is his career high otherwise), stole 30 bases (three off his career high), and slashed 315/380/560. While playing shortstop. The HR total was second in the league, as was his batting average, and he was third in slugging percentage. In total he was an all-star eight times and was selected to three best-nines. Albright regards him as Japan’s 9th greatest shortstop.

Nomura really wasn’t a good player in his 30s, he lost his SS job to Eddy Diaz and age quickly caught up with him. But he did hang on long enough to qualify for the Meikyukai with his 2000th hit in 2005. Replacing Nomura was kind of weird. He went downhill quickly, but he was still a star when he lost his job. Diaz was not immediately an improvement. He had two iffy seasons, one season that matched Nomura’s 1995, one decent season, and then he was off to Korea.

After retiring he coached the Carp and spent five seasons managing them. Traditionally the Carp have been a second-division team, but under Nomura they managed to improve pretty steadily. Nevertheless, his tenure was for only those five years. As of 2016 he was a member of the Kansas City Royals’ baseball-ops team in Japan. I presume that means scouting. And in 2017 he enrolled in the Hiroshima University’s MA program in “Coaching Science and Sports Psychology”, saying something about how he expects it to be useful in his second career. Which makes it sound like he wants to get back into managing.

Meikyukai: yes - Hall of Fame: no

My card is from the 1994 BBM set. Over time (probably due to hanging out on a pre-war baseball card message board) I have developed a casual distaste for standard, post 1956 American-style baseball cards. And that means BBM cards. That said, the design on their 1994 offering is pretty nice. If we should have learned anything from 1953 Bowman, it’s that less (usually-I’ll admit to a certain affection for Delongs) is more on baseball cards. And, except for the logo, the 1994 BBM set is nice and clean.