In addition to his talents & accomplishments, Ichiro being the first Japanese-born player inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame later today has been frequently discussed. It got me wondering who the first Japanese-born American athlete with a sports card was, so I embarked on an exhaustive five-minute Google search. :-)

It seems that wrestler Sorakichi Matsuda (probably) has this honor with his inclusion in Allen & Ginter’s 1888 “The World’s Champions” set. Although his career in the US only lasted eight years before dying destitute in 1891, he accomplished enough to be recognized by Allen & Ginter and as a result is memorialized in one of the most iconic sports card releases of all-time - a much different, but still important, type of Hall of Fame…