Card Gallery: Takahiro Norimoto BBM cards
By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor
A team of MLB All-Stars were no-hit by Samurai Japan Saturday, but you won’t find any of the four pitchers who worked the gem on any World Baseball Classic baseball cards.
But where you will find Takahiro Norimoto baseball cards are in 2013 releases from BBM, the major card-maker for Nippon Professional Baseball. His Japanese Rookie Cards show him with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles — the team that New York Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka played for before coming to MLB.
Norimoto was perfect for five innings before the game was finished off by Yuki Nishi, Kazuhisa Makita and Yuji Nishino. None of them have cards appearing in the Beckett database.
Here’s a gallery of six cards from Norimoto’s rookie year when he went 15-8 with a 3.34 ERA. In two seasons, he has a 29-18 record with a 3.16 ERA and 338 strikeouts in 372 innings.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball and Beckett Sports Card Monthly magazines. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
Pretty sure I gave the crosswind insert of him. BBM makes some pretty cool cards