Career
A catcher, he has been the Dragons" player-manager since 2014. Through 2015, Tanishige has played 27 seasons in NPB. Making his debut for the Taiyo Whales in 1989 at age 18, he played for the Whales/BayStars franchise for 13 years. Moving to the Dragons in 2002, through 2015 he has played for that franchise for 14 seasons.
Tanishge performed well in the 2004 Japan Series (which the Dragons lost 4-games-to-3 to the Seibu Lions), including hitting his first career grand slam.
In 2015, Tanishige broke the NPB record for games played, passing Katsuya Nomura with 3,018 — he has since extended the record. Tanishige is second on the career strikeout list with 1,838.