First 2018 Baseball Autograph: Iori Miura

It's not the first autograph to be added to my collection this year. I couldn't tell you for sure what that actually was.

It's not my first baseball autograph of the year, either. I've posted lots of signed cardboard over the past six weeks or so.

It's not my first 2018 product autograph. I posted those yesterday.

But it is my first autograph on a 2018 card featuring a baseball player.

Even though it's ... a woman!

 Iori Miura is one of two baseball players in the Shining Venus set this year. As such, I had to add her autograph to my collection. This one has her in her Kyoto Flora uniform, as she plays in the JWBL (Japan Woman's Baseball League). She's also a member of the Japan National Team.

It's numbered lower than some of the other regular autographs; this is #77/79.

Miura is one of the best hitters in the league, with a career average over eight seasons of .381. She led the league in batting average twice, last in 2014 - when she went 52 for 104. That's a .500 average.

That's even more impressive when you realize that she turns 26 this year, meaning that she's been playing since she was 18.

I don't get to many JWBL games... in fact, I don't get to many baseball games at all. But I'm going to try again this year - depending on where I'm working, I'm going to try for a bunch of NPB games and look into some of the industrial and minor league games. Maybe I'll see Miura play in person!

Until next time..