Brazilians in NPB
I'm afraid that I only have 2002 data entered for Tamaki and Matsumoto, and they only played in 10 and 52 games respectively at 1-gun.
You'd done such good homework, I checked for past season data on each in my Record Books, but came up empty. It looks like this was both players' first year at 1-gun. Hopefully we'll see them some more.
Wish I had more info.
Naturally I think of soccer when I think of Brazil, I didn't know they even played baseball there. Is it big?
Mind you, I suppose anywhere there's a decent sized ground and 18 people you can always play baseball. Possibly except in New Zealand. Ironically, softball is quite big in NZ - both the men's and women's teams have won the world championships on occasion - but baseball is alien.
NZ did, however, produce one baseball player. His name is Travis Wilson, and he was with the Braves' organisation last I heard, but has yet to make it to the top flight.
Brazilian Baseball is essential amateur. Our sport began among the Japanese descendents in the 30's. Today, everyone plays it in a very harmonious community. The CBBS - Brazilian Baseball and Softball Confederation, has about 50 teams affiliated.
My children play on the Guarulhos team, where Semanaka and Anderson Gomes played before. Another Brazilian from Guarulhos, Tiago Caldeira, made a tremendous job at 2002 Koshien; we heard he's also going to NPB.
Yakult of Brazil provides financial support to CBBS to maintain a great Baseball complex near S
For an "amateur" sport, it seems that Brazilian baseball has produced a number of promising players.
Apparently Semanaka is a big hitter; I look forward to seeing what he can do in NPB.
Anyway, if he could have been a star, it would have been a huge boost to Brazilian baseball. He might have done for baseball what Gustavo Kuerten did for tennis in Brazil.
Henrique Shigeo Tamaki (Brazilian-Japanese descendants also have a Portuguese names) has been on the Carp's roster for a few years. I have a card and will post his last stats here as soon as possible.
Morioka (#1 draft pick - Dragons) was born in Brasilia DF, Brazil and returned with his parents to Nihon at 10 years of age. He never played baseball in Brazil.
Anderson Gomes was not reported to us to be naturalized. He is in our academy right now working with our coach, Orlando Santana, a famous Cuban ballplayer in the 70's and World Champion as a coach with the Brazilian boys (age 15-16).
Andre T. Dielle
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Interested as to whether there were other Brazilians in NPB, I trawled the archives of this site, and found threads like this one.
Can anyone tell me if there have been any Brazilians to really "make it" in NPB? Any 1-gun regulars? Any stars?