The format of the games was that each team would play the other three teams in its division in the first round.  Following this round, the first place team of each division would play the second place team of the other division in the semi-final round.  The winners of the two semi-final games would play in the final game (the gold medal game although as I said no medals were actually awarded) while the losers would play in the "third place" (bronze medal) game.

Japan went 2-1 in first round, defeating South Korea 2-0 and Nicaragua 19-1 before losing to Canada 6-4.  They finished first in their division, technically tied with South Korea but were awarded first since they had beaten the Koreans.  They defeated Taiwan 2-1 in 10 innings in the semi-finals to move on to the final game against the undefeated Team USA.

Team USA was managed by USC coach Rod Dedeaux and featured an impressive roster of collegiate players, among them future major leaguers like Hall Of Famer Barry Larkin, Will Clark, Mark McGwire, Cory Snyder, Bobby Witt, BJ Surhoff and future Yomiuri Giant Shane Mack.  Fresno State pitcher John Hoover, considered the ace of the staff, started the final game for the US while Japan countered with Atsunori Itoh.  Team USA took an early lead with a run in the bottom of the third but Japan countered with two in the fourth and another in the top of the fifth before Katsumi Hirosawa broke the game open with a three run home run in the eighth.  Team USA rallied to score a pair of runs in the ninth but couldn't get any closer.  Japan won the game 6-3.

Here's a team photo swiped from Wikipedia.


16 of the 20 players on the roster went on to play in NPB.  Corporate league players Katsuyuki Fukumoto, Noburo Morita, Yasaushi Urahigashi and Yukio Yasuda never made the jump to the professional ranks.  Here's a card and a blurb about each of the other 16:

1993 BBM #308

At 19, Yukio Arai was the youngest member of the team.  He had joined Nippon Oil after leaving high school and continued to play for them for a year after the Olympics before declaring for the draft.  He was taken in the second round of the 1985 draft by the Swallows.  He won the Central League Rookie Of The Year award in 1987, hitting .301 in his first full season at the ichi-gun level.  That was probably his best season but he got regular playing time with Yakult for the next eight seasons and made the All Star team in 1993.  He was traded to the Kintetsu Buffaloes after the 1995 season and again to the Yokohama Baystars after 1997.  He retired after the 2000 season and later coached for the Swallows, Giants and Fighters.

1993 Tomy #251

Shinichi Furukawa was in his third year at Asia University when he played in the Olympics.  He was drafted by the Lotte Orions in the fourth round of the 1985 draft and got into 96 games in his rookie season of 1986, hitting .274 with 16 home runs.  He was expected to replace Hiromitsu Ochiai as the clean up hitter in 1987 (Ochiai had been traded to Chunichi in anticipation of him not getting along with new Lotte manager Michio Arito) but a broken wrist limit him to just 80 games in which he hit only .222.  He played in 116 games in 1988 but only hit .236.  His playing time tailed off after that, partly due to the arrival of Mitsuchika Hirai and Norifumi Nishimura's conversion to the outfield.  He retired following the 1995 season and spent a couple of years coaching with Lotte.

1992 BBM Nippon Series #S48

Shinji Hata was a two time Tokyo Big Six Best 9 winner at Hosei University before being taken in the second round of the 1984 draft by the Swallows.  He spent the next couple years as the backup catcher to Yukio Yaegashi before becoming the starting catcher in 1988.  He split the catching duties with Chikashi Nakanishi in 1989 and was forced to move to the outfield in 1990 when Atsuya Furuta joined the team.  He had his best season in 1991 when he hit .292 with 16 home runs and made the All Star team.  What was probably the highlight of his professional career occurred in Game Six of the 1992 Nippon Series when his home run in the bottom of the tenth gave the Swallows an 8-7 walk off victory and tied the Series against the Lions at three games apiece.  His playing time diminished over the next few years and he was sold to the Hawks after the 1998 season.  After one season in Fukuoka he was sent to the Chiba Lotte Marines and retired after the 2000 season.  He has coached for the Marines, Dragons and Giants as well as the Gunma Diamond Pegasus of the Baseball Challenge League.

1990 Lotte #107

Katsumi Hirosawa had been a star at Meiji University in the Tokyo Big Six league.  He hit .351 with 18 home runs over his college career, winning three Best 9 awards.  He was selected by three teams in the first round of the fall 1984 draft with the Swallows beating out the Fighters and Lions in the lottery for him.  He almost immediately became the regular first baseman for the team in 1985 although he moved to the outfield in 1987 to make room for Bob Horner.  He had a breakout season in 1988, hitting .288 with 30 home runs and 80 RBIs.  His home run total dipped to 17 in 1989 but he started a streak of five straight seasons of at least 25 home runs in 1990 after moving back to first base.  He left Yakult for the Yomiuri Giants as a free agent after the 1994 season, signing a five year contract.  He moved back to the outfield in 1995 since the Giants had Hiromitsu Ochiai at first.  He missed much of the 1996 season after breaking a bone (not sure which one) after being hit by a pitch.  He came back strong in 1997 but the emergence of Yoshinobu Takahashi in 1998 severely cut into his playing time and he missed a lot of the 1999 season after dislocating a shoulder sliding while attempting to steal second.  His contract with the Giants was up after the 1999 season and he joined the Hanshin Tigers.  He didn't get a lot of playing time with the Tigers but he had a pinch hit home run in Game 7 of the 2003 Nippon Series off of Tsuyoshi Wada of the Hawks.  At 41 years and six months he was the oldest player to ever homer in the Nippon Series (not sure if he still holds this record or not).  It was his final at bat as he announced his retirement shortly after the Tigers lost the Series.  He ended his career with 1736 hits and 306 home runs.  He was an eight time All Star (1987-94) and was named to the Best 9 team four times (1988, 1990-91, 1993).  He lead the Central League in RBIs in 1991 and 1993 and in Game Winning RBI in 1990 and 1992.  He spent a couple seasons coaching for the Tigers in 2007-08 and has coached the Cambodian National team since 2011.  I believe he was the last active player from the 1984 Olympic team.

1996 BBM #33

Following the Olympics Akimitsu Itoh spent another year playing for Honda in the corporate leagues.  He declared for the 1985 draft and like Hirosawa the year before the Swallows beat out two other teams (Hankyu and Lotte this time) in the lottery for his rights.  He split time between the bullpen and the starting rotation in 1986 before going 14-11 as a starter in 1987.  He was pressed into service as the team's closer in 1988 and went 18-9 with 17 saves.  He was the first pitcher to ever lead the league in wins without starting any games that year.  He also made the All Star team that year for the only time in his career.  He moved back to the starting rotation in 1989 but a broken leg and shoulder issues limited him to only three games at the ichi-gun level in 1990 and none at all in 1991.  He came back strong in 1992 (going 7-5 with a 2.77 ERA to win the Comeback Player of the Year award) and went 13-4 with a 3.11 ERA in 1993.  He spent most of 1994 as a starter but his numbers declined some and he spent the next couple seasons switching between the rotation and the bullpen.  He suffered a broken right hand in 1996 and never really recovered from it, ultimately retiring following the 1998 season.  He had two separate stints coaching for the Swallows after retirement - 1999 to 2007 and 2011 to 2015.

2001 Upper Deck #91

Atsunori Itoh graduated from the Fukui Institute Of Technology in the fall of 1985, a year after the Olympics.  He spent the next two seasons playing for Kumagai Gumi of the corporate leagues before declaring for the 1987 draft.  He was taken by both the Fighters and Braves in the first round with Hankyu winning the lottery for him.  He was the final first round pick of the Hankyu Braves.  He threw a no-hitter with the ni-gun team in 1988.  With the ichi-gun team he split time between the rotation and the bullpen his first few seasons but he was used as a starter for almost the entire season in 1992, going 8-8 and making the All Star team.  He was traded to the Yokohama Baystars before the 1995 season but only got into 23 games with the top team over the next two seasons before he was traded to the Hanshin Tigers.  He had a bit of a career renaissance with the Tigers making over 50 appearances a year out of the bullpen over the next five seasons.  He especially excelled in 2000 and 2001 when he put up ERAs of 1.86 and 1.79 respectively.  He developed back issues late in his career that limited him to only 20 games in 2002 and he retired at the end of that season.  He was a coach for the Tigers from 2005 until he retired at the end of the 2019 season.

1994 BBM #406

At 26 Terumitsu Kumano was the oldest member of the Olympic team who went on to play in NPB.  He had been a third round pick of the Swallows out of Chuo University in 1979 but he decided to play for Japanese Musical Instruments (Nippon Gakki, later Yamaha) in the corporate leagues.  After five season with them he opted to declare for the draft again in 1984 and was taken in the third round by the Hankyu Braves.  His rookie season of 1985 was his best year as he hit .295 with 14 home runs and 21 doubles, making the All Star team and being elected Rookie Of The Year.  He had another pretty good year in 1987, hitting .291 with 11 home runs but his numbers declined and he started losing playing time to younger players in first seasons after Orix bought the team from Hankyu as he was now in his early 30's.  He was traded to the Yomiuri Giants for the 1992 season but had a dreadful year, hitting only .162 in 74 games, mostly as a pinch hitter and late inning defensive replacement.  He spent most of 1992 with the Giants' farm team, only getting into 8 games at the ichi-gun level and getting no hits.  He returned to Orix for the 1994 season but spent the entire year with the ni-gun team and retired at the end of the season.  He coached for Orix from 1995-96 and has been a scout for several teams since then.

1997 BBM #60

Kazutomo Miyamoto was drafted in the third round by the Giants in the 1984 draft just a few months after the Olympics ended.  He made his ichi-gun debut the following season, working exclusively out of the bullpen.  Following his rookie season he was mostly a starter but he usually still had a number of relief appearances each year.  He got the save in Game Seven of the 1989 Nippon Series when the Giants made an improbable comeback after being down three games to none to the Kintetsu Buffaloes.  He threw an "immaculate inning" in 1994, striking out Yusuke Torigoe, Hideki Satoh and Kazuyoshi Tatsunami of the Dragons on just nine pitches.  He suffered whiplash in a car accident the day after Opening Day in 1997 and retired after that season due to the injury.  He's had a bit of an eclectic career since retiring as a player.  He's been a TV personality and baseball commentator and released a single (or an album) called "All Or Nothing" with the help of his friend Natsuki Maeda of the band TUBE.  He became a coach for the Giants in 2019.

1991 BBM #95

Yoshihiko Morita had spent four years playing for the Kagashima Railway team in the corporate leagues by the time the Olympics rolled around.  He had had an opportunity to go to NPB in 1982 when he was drafted in the sixth round by the Nankai Hawks but he opted to remain with Kagashima.  He played an additional year for them before declaring for the 1985 draft.  He was taken by the Lotte Orions with the third pick and made his ichi-gun debut with them the following season.  He was primarily a utility infielder and split most seasons between the top team and the farm team.  He spent his last few seasons with Lotte at the ni-gun level and retired following the 1995 season.

1987 Takara Hawks #21

Yoshiaki Nishikawa was in his third year at Hosei University (and a teammate of Shinji Hata's) when he played on the Olympic team.  He was taken in the first round by the Nankai Hawks in the 1985 draft although he actually was not the Hawks' first pick - they had originally picked Kazuhiro Kiyohara (along with five other teams) but lost him in the lottery to Seibu so they settled for Nishikawa.  He had a promising rookie season in 1986, going 10-10 with an ERA of 3.89 and making the All Star team but that was the best year of his career.  He threw a no-hitter in the preseason in 1988 and then took a no-hitter into the eighth inning against Seibu on Opening Day before losing both the no-hitter and the game.  He was the starting pitcher in Nankai's final game in Osaka (well, Nankai's final game period) in October of that year.  He was traded to the Hanshin Tigers prior to the 1991 season and retired after spending the entire 1992 season with the farm team.

2015 Epoch Tigers Nippon Champions 1985 #23

Munehiko Shimada had the unique experience of being taken in the same draft by the same team as his younger brother.  The elder Shimada was the fourth pick of the Tigers in the 1984 draft while Akihiro was Hanshin's first round pick (beating out the Carp in the lottery for his rights).  Munehiko vied with Katsuhiko Kido for the Tigers' starting catcher job over the next few years but he lost out due to his poor hitting.  His big claim to fame was homering in a pinch hitting appearance in Game Three of the 1985 Nippon Series against Osamu Higashio.  He was the first rookie to homer in his first Nippon Series at bat.  As it turned out, that was his ONLY Nippon Series at bat as he pulled a Jim Mason.  Akihiro was a pitcher and the two brothers were the starting battery for a game in April of 1986.  Munehiko remained with the Tigers though 1992 before retiring although his final season was entirely with the farm team.  He coached for the Tigers after retirement and I believe is now the Dragons' official scorer.

1989 Calbee #79

Second baseman Kozo Shoda was the leadoff hitter for the Japanese Olympic team and was the second round pick of the Carp in that fall's draft.  He spent his first season or so with the Carp learning how to pinch hit and became the team's regular second baseman midway through the 1986 season, just in time to play in that fall's Nippon Series.  He won the Central League batting title with a .333 average in 1987, becoming both the first switch hitter to do it as well as the only winner to ever do it without hitting a home run.  He hit .340 to repeat as batting champion in 1988 and won the stolen base title with 34 steals in 1989.  Six of those 34 steals came in one game on October 15th as Shoda basically decided to steal enough in one of the final games of the season to pass Kenji Tomashino of the Swallows who had already finished the season with 32 steals.  Shoda remained the starting second baseman for the Carp until early in the 1997 season and he retired after the following season.  He was a five time All Star (1987-90, 1993), a two time Best 9 winner (1988-89) and a five time Golden Glove winner (1987-91).  He was chairman of the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association for three years from December of 1995 until December of 1998.  He's spent the time since his retirement as a player coaching for the Carp, Kintetsu, the Tigers, and Orix as well as SK, Hanwha and Kia of the KBO.

1992 BBM #282

Kazuaki Ueda was the fourth Tokyo Big Six player on the Olympic team.  He was in his final year with Keio and had hit 12 home runs during his collegiate career and won a Best 9 award.  He was the first round pick by the Giants in the 1984 draft (although like Nishikawa he was a consolation first pick after Yomiuri lost out on Mitsukuni Takeda).  He had a pretty undistinguished career with the Giants, hitting just .202 in 203 games between 1985 and 1993.  He retired following the 1993 season and spent some time coaching for the Giants in 2001-05 and 2011-12.

1999 Calbee #258

Yutaka Wada spent his entire 17 year NPB career with the Hanshin Tigers after being taken by them in the third round of the 1984 draft.  He made his ichi-gun debut in 1985 but it wasn't until 1988 that he became a regular with the top team.  Oddly enough he seems to have switched between being the Tigers' regular shortstop and second baseman several times throughout his career.  He led the Central League in hits with 161 in 1993.  He made the All Star team seven times (1989, 1992-1996, 1999), won two Best 9 Awards (1992, 1994) and three Golden Glove Awards (1992-94).  He retired at the end of the 2001 season with 1739 hits.  He was the last active member of the Hanshin Tigers Championship team of 1985 although he did not play in the Series that year.  He became a coach for the Tigers in 2001 while he was still playing and remained one after he retired.  He was manager of the Tigers from 2012 to 2015.  The highlight of his managerial tenure was the team's second place finish in 2014 when they beat the Giants in the Climax Series finals and went on to the Nippon Series where they lost to the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks.

1988 Takara Dragons #19

Akira Yonemura had graduated from Chuo University in 1981 and spent three years playing for Kawai Musical Instruments in the corporate leagues.  He was taken in the fifth round of the 1984 draft by the Chunichi Dragons.  He worked mostly out of the bullpen in his seven year career although he made 12 starts in 1988.  His most memorable feat came with the bat rather than on the mound however as he hit a home run in his first ever at bat, becoming the 21st player (and third pitcher) to do so.  He retired following the 1991 season and has spent time as a scout since then.

2013 BBM Tigers Legends #81

Yasuo Yoshida had already played four seasons for Mitsubishi Motors Kawasaki of the corporate leagues before playing in the Olympics.  The Giants apparently promised they would draft him in the first or second rounds of the 1984 but they didn't do it.  After the draft they attempted to sign him as an undrafted player but he refused and returned to Mitsubishi for another season.  He was taken by the Tigers in the fifth round of the 1985 draft.  He ended up having a 12 year career with the Tigers but he only appeared in 132 games with the ichi-gun team during that time.  Most of those games came in 1989 and 1990 when he competed with his Olympic teammate Munehiko Shimada for the backup catcher position.  He spent the entire season with the farm team four times during his career.  He retired following the 1997 season and coached for the Tigers until after the 2015 season. 

The 1988 games used the same tournament format that the 1984 games used.  Each team would play the other three teams in its division in the first round.  Following this round, the first place team of each division would play the second place team of the other division in the semi-final round.  The winners of the two semi-final games would play in the final game (the gold medal game although since it was a demonstration sport no "official" medals were actually awarded) while the losers would play in the "third place" (bronze medal) game.

Japan went undefeated in the first round, beating Puerto Rico 7-1, Taiwan 4-3 (in 12 innings) and the Netherlands 6-1.  They defeated South Korea 3-1 in the semi-finals to move to the final game - a rematch against 1984 silver medal finalist Team USA.

Team USA again was made up solely of collegiate players.  The roster included a number of future major leaguers including Robin Ventura, Tino Martinez, Jim Abbott, Andy Benes, Charles Nagy, Mickey Morandini, Ben McDonald, Scott Servais and Bret Barberie.  Stanford coach Mark Marquess was the coach of the team.  The US had gone 2-1 in the first round, defeating South Korea 5-3 and Australia 12-2 but losing to Canada 8-7, before beating Puerto Rico 7-2 in their semi-final matchup.  In the final game, Japan took an early lead with a single run in the bottom of the second but Team USA scored three runs in the top of the fourth (including a couple on a two run home run from Martinez) and added another in the top of the fifth to lead 4-1.  Japan cut the score to 4-3 with two in the bottom of the sixth but Martinez hit a solo home run in the top of the eighth to push the final margin to 5-3.  Abbott pitched a complete game for the victory.

13 of the 20 players on the team went on to play professionally in NPB.  Two of the players, Atsuya Furuta and Hideo Nomo, are in both the Japanese Hall Of Fame and the Meikyukai (Golden Players Club) while a third, Kenjiro Nomura, is only in the Meikyukai.  Here's a card and a write up on each of those 13 players:

2000 BBM Diamond Heroes "Golden Battery" #GB2

It was a bit of a fluke that Atsuya Furuta was on the Olympic team that year.  He had graduated from Ritsumeikan University in 1987 and was almost taken by the Nippon-Ham Fighters in that fall's draft but they ultimately decided against drafting him due to concerns about his eyesight.  So instead he spent two years with Toyota's corporate league team before the Swallows drafted him in the second round of the 1989 draft.  New Swallows manager Katsuya Nomura installed him as Yakult's starting catcher in 1990 and the rest was history.  Furuta was the regular catcher for the Swallows until he was named player-manager for the 2006 season.  In the meantime, he won two Central League MVP awards (1993 & 1997), made nine Best 9 teams (1991-1993, 1995, 1997, 1999-2001, 2004), won ten Golden Gloves (1990-1993, 1995, 1997, 1999-2001, 2004) and made the All Star team every year of his career (1990-06 plus he was a coach in 2007, his final year as Swallows player-manager).  He was part of four Nippon Series champions (1993, 1995, 1997 & 2001) and was Series MVP twice (1997 & 2001).  He won the batting crown in 1991, becoming just the second catcher to ever do so (and first to do it in the Central League) after Nomura.  He got his 2000th hit in 2005, again only the second catcher to do so after Nomura.  He retired as both player and manager after the 2007 season and was elected to the Hall Of Fame in 2015.

1992 BBM Nippon Series #S53

Like Furuta, Takehiro Ishii spent two years in the corporate leagues after graduating from college.  In his case his college was Hosei University (graduating in 1986) and the corporate league team was Prince Hotel.  He was the Lions 2nd round pick in the 1988 draft and made the ichi-gun team's bullpen out of training camp his first season.  He moved into the starting rotation the following year and put together his best season in 1992, when he went 15-3 with a 1.94 ERA, winning both the Sawamura Award and the Pacific League MVP along with making the Best 9 team and winning the Shoriki Award.  He topped off the year by throwing two complete game victories in the Nippon Series, winning Game Three 6-1 and Game Seven 2-1 in ten innings.  He won the Series MVP award.  He ultimately played in five Series with the Lions (1991-94 & 1997 - he was on the roster for the 1990 Series but did not get into a game when the Lions only used six pitchers to sweep the Giants).  He was selected for the All Star game three times (1990, 1992 and 1995) although he declined to play in 1995.  He was traded to the Fighters following the 1997 along with Hiroshi Narahara for Yukihiro Nishizaki.  The Fighters released him after 1999 and he joined the Taipei Gida of the short-lived Taiwan Major League (TML) as a player-coach.  He went 16-5 with a 1.74 ERA in 2000 which earned him the league's MVP award.  He retired after 2001 and became the team's manager for the 2002 season.  The league merged with the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) after that and he moved on to Korea, becoming the pitching coach for the Lotte Giants in 2003.  He returned to the Lions as a coach in 2004 and worked for them in a number of capacities ever since.

1993 Tomy #161

Terushi Nakajima was a teammate of Ishii's on the Prince Hotel corporate league team.  He had been a pitcher in high school and was a potential prospect for the 1980 draft but since his father had passed away the previous year his mother urged him to join the corporate league team instead to have a more stable path to professional baseball.  He ultimately spent eight years with the team.  He developed circulatory issues in his arm and converted to the outfield in 1984.  The 26 year old was the oldest player on the Olympic team roster who went on to play in NPB.  He was the first round pick of the Fighters in 1988 (he was also selected by the Hawks but Nippon-Ham won the lottery for him) and made the Fighter's Opening Day lineup in 1989.  He hit a 3 run sayonara home run to win that Opening Day (ruining the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks' inaugural game in the process) - he was only the second rookie to hit an Opening Day walk off shot (Yoshio Anabuki was the first in 1956).  Like Ishii, his best season was probably 1992 when he hit .290 with 13 home runs and made the All Star team.  After a couple poor seasons in 1994 and 1995 he was picked up by the Buffaloes on waivers.  He only hit .227 in 42 games with the ichi-gun team in 1996 and spent all of 1997 and 1998 with the farm team before retiring.  He was a coach for Kintetsu in 1999 and then spent the next nine years as a scout, first for the Buffaloes and then for the Fighters.  He returned to the coaching ranks in 2008 with a two year stint with the Fighters.  He joined the coaching staff of the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions of the CPBL in 2011 and ended up becoming the manager of the team when Lu Wen-sheng resigned due to a betting scandal.  He stepped down from that position in the middle of the 2013 season.  He became a coach for the Tokushima Indigo Socks of the independent Shikoku Island League in 2014 and became their manager for the next two seasons.  In addition he managed the All Star team that the league sent to play in the Can-Am League in North America in 2015 and 2016.  He moved on to be the hitting coach of the KBO's Hanwha Eagles in 2017 and was named the head coach of Kyoto Gakuen University starting this year.

1994 Takara Buffaloes #11

Obviously Hideo Nomo is the most well known player on this roster.  I've written a post on him recently so I'll just refer to that instead of writing something new here.  He was the first of I think four players who played in the Olympics for Japan as an amateur who later played in North America.  He retired in 2008, making him the last active player from the 1988 team.

2000 BBM #473

Kenjiro Nomura had been a star at Komazawa University.  He won four Best 9 awards and was the first player in the program's history to make the top team as a freshman.  He was the number one pick of the Carp in the 1988 draft and spent the 1989 season as a backup on the ichi-gun squad.  He was the starting shortstop for the Carp for most of the 1990's, during which time he led the league in steals three times (1990, 1991 & 1994) and hits three times (1991, 1994 & 1995), made three Best 9 teams (1991, 1995 and 1996), won a Golden Glove award in 1995 and made eight All Star teams (1990, 1991, 1993-1998).  He was the first left handed batter to achieve the "Triple Three" (.300 average, 30 home runs, 30 steals) in 1995.  Like Furuta, he got his 2000th career hit in 2005.  He retired after that season and was a baseball commentator for a couple years.  He managed the Carp from 2010 to 2014, finishing third and making the Climax Series in 2013 and 2014. 

1990 Lotte #32

Hirofumi Ogawa was the third Olympic team member from the Prince Hotel corporate league team.  He spent four years with the team after graduating from high school before he was taken in the second round of the 1988 draft by the Orix Braves.  Like Nomura with the Carp, Ogawa was the starting shortstop for Orix for most of the 1990's although he was nowhere near the star that Nomura was.  He made the 1991 Best 9 team, was selected to three All Star teams (1991, 1992 & 1994) and played in two Nippon Series (1995 & 1996).  He had an odd achievement of homering from every slot in the lineup, only the fifth batter in NPB history to do so.  He was part of a six player trade after the 2000 season - Orix sent him, Yu Sugimoto and Kazuyuki Maeda to the Yokohama Baystars in exchange for Kiyoshi Arai, Hisashi Tokano and Tatsuya Shindoh.  He retired after the 2004 season (a year spent entirely with the Shonan Searex, the Baystars' farm team in Yokosuka) and coached for both Orix and DeNA since then.

1997 BBM #291

Like Nomura, Takeshi Ohmori had been a big collegiate star.  He hit .356 with 17 home runs and 78 RBIs over 88 games at Keio University, making the Tokyo Big Six Best 9 team three times and winning just the sixth ever Triple Crown in the circuit's history one season.  The Giants took him in the first round of the 1989 draft.  Despite his numbers with Keio and his impressive numbers with the Giants' farm team (he led the Eastern League in home runs three times (1992, 1993 and 1996) and RBIs twice (1992 and 1996), he was never able to make much of an impact with the ichi-gun Giants.  He only managed to get in 123 games with the top team in eight years and his average never went above .200.  He was traded to the Buffaloes midway through the 1998 season for Shinichiro Minami and Yoshihiro Seo but suffered a shoulder injury that kept him on their farm team for all of 1999.  He retired after that and has been a scout for the Giants ever since.

1991 Calbee #28

At 19 years old, Tetsuya Shiozaki was the youngest member of the 1988 Olympic baseball team.  He spent three seasons playing for Matsushita Electric before he was drafted by Seibu in the first round of the 1989 draft.  He spent his first seven seasons working out of the bullpen as a setup man and was quite good in that role, making the All Star team in 1995.   He tied an NPB rookie record by striking out eight consecutive batters in a game against Orix in 1990.  He moved into the rotation in 1997, going 12-7 with a 2.90 ERA but moved back into the bullpen in 1999 and pretty much remained there for the remainder of his career.  He pitched for the Lions in eight Nippon Series over the course of his 15 year career - 1990 (he was one of the six pitchers and had a three inning save to end the deciding Game Four), 1991, 1992, 1993 (he won an "Outstanding Player" award after appearing in 5 of the 7 games in the Series and notching 2 saves), 1994, 1997, 1998 and 2002.  He retired at the end of the 2004 season and has either worked or coached for the Lions ever since.

1996 BBM #207

The Dragons and Giants both considered drafting Tetsu Suzuki in 1987 after he graduated from Keio University but he decided to play for the Kumagai Gumi corporate league team instead.  After two seasons with them he was taken by the Lions with their second pick in the 1989 draft.  He resisted signing at first but eventually relented.  He only got into 36 games with the Lions ichi-gun squad in his first four seasons and most of those were in 1991 when he went 4-6 in 20 games.  He made 14 starts that year and had two complete games and a shutout.  He made his only Nippon Series appearance that season, throwing two innings in relief in Game Four and giving up a home run to Takashi Osanai.  He was traded to the Carp for Yukihiro Ueda after the 1993 season and worked out of their bullpen for two seasons before being sold back to Seibu.  He retired following the 1997 season and has worked for the Lions ever since, doing scouting and other activities.

1994 BBM Late Series #586

Kenji Tomashino was the only future NPB player on the roster who was not taken in the first or second round of the draft - he was the Swallow's third round pick in 1988.  His older brother Seiji played for the Lions for 15 years from 1983 to 1997.  Kenji's best season was his first - he only hit .263 but he had 32 steals - good enough for the Central League lead until Kozo Shoda of the Carp (and member of the 1984 Olympic team) stole six bases on the last day of the season to pass him.  He ended up winning the Rookie Of The Year award.  His numbers and playing time diminished after his first season (although he did appear in both the 1992 and 1993 Nippon Series).  The Swallows released him after the 1997 season and he was picked up by the Carp where he ended up backing up Shoda at second base during Shoda's final season.  He retired following the 1999 season and coached for Hiroshima for the next three years.  He's been a baseball commentator since then.

1991 Q Card

The Seibu Lions ultimately drafted four of the seven pitchers (six who went professional) on the Olympic team roster.  Tomio Watanabe was the first of the four they drafted as he was their number one pick in the 1988 draft.  Watanabe had been a star pitcher at Ino Shogyo high school, leading them to the 1985 Spring Koshien tournament championship (the first time his school had ever made the tournament).  He beat powerhouse PL Gakuen (led by Kazuhiro Kiyohara and Masumi Kuwata) in the semi-finals of that tournament.  He had spent three seasons with NTT Shikoku after graduating.  He had elbow surgery about a month before the 1988 draft and I think he was treated by Seibu's doctor.  He made the Lions' starting rotation in 1989 as soon as he recovered from the surgery and went 10-7, then 13-7 in 1990 and 11-6 in 1991.  He won nine consecutive decisions starting in 1989 and ending in 1990.  He was another one of the six Lions pitchers in the 1990 Series - he threw a complete game shutout in Game Three, again beating Kuwata.  He also made appearances in the 1991 and 1992 Series.  He made the All Star team in both 1990 and 1991 (although he didn't actually appear in any of the games in 1991) and led the Pacific League in ERA in 1991.  He missed time in 1992 and 1993 with elbow and back issues.  After the 1993 season he was part of a blockbuster trade when the Lions sent him, Koji Akiyama and Tomoyuki Uchikawa to the Hawks for Makoto Sasaki, Katsuyoshi Murata and Takehiro Hashimoto.  He spent four injury-plagued years in Fukuoka before he was sold back to the Lions for the 1998 season.  After spending all of that year with the farm team he retired.  He's been a scout for Seibu ever since.

1990 Takara #8

20 year old Kunji Yonezaki was the youngest position player on the roster but he'd spent three years in the corporate leagues playing for Nippon Life after graduating from high school.  He was the number one pick of the Kintetsu Buffaloes in the 1988 draft.  A hamate bone injury in his hand caused ligament damage and prevented his NPB career from getting going.  He only appeared in 114 games with the ichi-gun Buffaloes in his five seasons with them, the bulk of those (70 games) coming in 1990.  He did make one appearance in the 1989 Nippon Series.  He was traded to the Hanshin Tigers after the 1993 season for Akihiro Shimada and spent five seasons with them although the last two were only with the farm team.  He retired following the 1998 season and opened a yakitori restaurant in his home town of Toyonaka, Osaka-prefecture.  Yonezaki spent his entire baseball playing career in his native Kansai as his high school, corporate league team and first NPB team were all located in Osaka and his second and final NPB team plays in nearby Nishinomiya.

1991 BBM #16

Shuji Yoshida spent two years with Hokkaido Takushoku Bank of the corporate leagues after graduating from high school.  He was the Giants' first pick in the 1988 draft (although he was really a consolation pick after they originally picked Kenjiro Kawasaki but lost him in the lottery to Yakult).  Surprisingly for a first round pick he only got into 45 games over the next five and half seasons with Yomiuri's ichi-gun team.  I'm not sure why he wasn't used more as he doesn't seem to have been injured and he put up respectable numbers, at least in his first two seasons.  I wonder if it had something to do with him announcing at the Giants press conference introducing the draft class of 1988 that while he was a Giant he was really a fan of his home prefecture Chunichi Dragons.  He was traded to the Hawks midway through the 1994 season for Katsuya Kishikawa.  He didn't pitch much with the top team his first couple seasons with the Hawks and when he did he didn't pitch particularly well but he eventually found his niche as a setup man in the bullpen.  He appeared in at least 49 games a season from 1997 to 2003, leading the Pacific League in holds twice during that time (1998 and 2001) and also made the All Star team twice (2000, 2002).  He pitched for the Hawks in three separate Nippon Series (1999, 2000 and 2003) to go along with his appearances in the 1989 Series with the Giants.  All those innings out of the bullpen caught up with him though and injuries kept him on the farm team for all of the 2004 and 2005 and most of the 2006 seasons.  The Hawks released him after 2006 and he was picked up by the Orix Buffaloes.  He had a decent 2007 season with Orix, appearing in 20 2/3 innings over 36 games and posting a 2.61 ERA, but was released at the end of the year.  He retired after not drawing anyone's interest after the 12 team tryout that fall.  He played for the celebrity club team Ibraki Golden Golds after retiring and later coached for the Hawks and Eagles.

I want to mention that despite never having appeared in NPB, one of the coaches and one of the other players have had baseball cards.

2011 BBM Legend Of Tokyo Big Six #105

Pitching coach Masatake Yamanka holds the record for most wins in the Tokyo Big Six with 48.  He after graduating from Hosei he spent seven years playing for Sumitomo Metal in the corporate leagues before moving into coaching positions.  He managed Sumitomo Metal from 1981 to 1984 and was head coach of Hosei from 1994 to 2002.  He was elected to the Hall Of Fame in 2016.

2017 BBM Infinity #044

Atsuyoshi Otake was a star at Waseda University before playing for Nippon Steel Hirohata.  He later managed the team (now renamed Nippon Steel Kimitsu) from 1994 to 2000.  He was also the head coach at Waseda from 2005 to 2010 and so appears on the back of the Waseda team cards in BBM's Tokyo Big Six sets from 2008 to 2010.

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version #24