Saturday, November 2, 2013

Dual Champions Updated

I did a post a few years back listing all the guys who had played on both a World Series Champion and a Nippon Series Champion.  At the time, there were 10 players - five Westerners and five Japanese players.  On Wednesday of this week, Koji Uehara of the 2013 World Champion Boston Red Sox (sorry - as a Red Sox fan I really enjoy saying that phrase) became the eleventh player to do it, so I figured I should update the list.  Plus I actually now have Japanese cards of all eleven guys (thanks partly to the two gaijin OB sets BBM did last year) so I figured I could illustrate it a little better this time.

1964 Marukami JCM 14g

The first guy to pull the double was Johnny Logan.  Logan was the shortstop of the 1957 Champion Milwaukee Braves and played second and third for the Nankai Hawks in 1964.  He was also the first player to hit a home run in both in the World Series and the Nippon Series.

2013 BBM Legendary Foreigners #09

The next player was Jim Lefebvre, who had won a World Series with the 1965 Dodgers and a Nippon Series with the 1974 Lotte Orions.

2013 BBM Deep Impact #08

Roy White was the regular left fielder for the New York Yankees for most of the 1970's.  He moved to the Yomiuri Giants (the Japanese equivalent) in 1980 and spent three years in Tokyo. He won two World Series with the Yankees (1977 and 1978) and a Nippon Series with the Giants in 1981.  He was the second player to hit home runs in both the World Series and the Nippon Series.

1981 Calbee #366

Gary Thomasson was a teammate of Roy White's on the 1978 Champion Yankees and again on the 1981 Giants.

2013 BBM Deep Impact #37

Dan Gladden is the only other guy on this list (after Roy White) to play on multiple World Series winners.  He won with the Twins in both 1987 and 1991 and with the Giants in 1994.  Gladden is the final Westerner on the list.

2010 BBM Nippon Series #S18

Tadahito Iguchi was the first Japanese player to join the group.  After two Nippon Series Championships with the Hawks in 1999 and 2003, he joined the Chicago White Sox in 2005 just in time for them to win their first World Series since 1917.  He returned to Japan in 2009 and won a fourth Championship with the Chiba Lotte Marines in 2010 (making him the third guy on the list with four championships between the two leagues).

1996 BBM Nippon Series #S23

So Taguchi won a Nippon Series with the Orix Blue Wave in 1996 and a World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2006.  He was also on the World Series roster for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008 but did not appear in the Series.  (Iguchi briefly played for the Phillies that season as well but did not play in the post-season.)

2004 BBM Nippon Series #06

The 2007 World Champion Boston Red Sox (another of my favorite phrases) featured two players on this list.  Daisuke Matsuzaka had previously won a Nippon Series Championship with the 2004 Seibu Lions.

2006 BBM Nippon Series #S10

Hideki Okajima was the other player on this list on the 2007 Red Sox.  Okajima was the first four time Champion on the list - he had won two Nippon Series Championships with the Giants in 2000 and 2002 and another with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in 2006.

2002 BBM Nippon Series #S23

Another member of the 2000 and 2002 Nippon Series Champion Yomiuri Giants who also won a World Series (with the 2009 Yankees) was Hideki Matsui.  He also won a Nippon Series as a teammate of Gladden's in 1994.  Matsui is the only player to be named MVP of both the Nippon Series (2000) and the World Series.  He was the third player to homer in both the Nippon Series and the World Series (Andruw Jones this year became the fourth player to do although Jones never won a World Series.)  He was the second player on the list to have four championships.

2000 BBM Nippon Series #S5

Uehara is yet another member of the 2000 and 2002 Giants to also win a World Series.

As I had in the original post, I'll mention that George Vukovich could also be included on this list.  He was on the roster for the 1980 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies but did not appear in the World Series.  He also won Nippon Series with the Seibu Lions in 1986 and 1987.

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