Japanese HOF Project

[Jeff Alcorn]

Hi Nat,

Thanks for continuing this series. The pink bordered cards were #325 - #396 of the 1975-76 series. The first 36 cards are the Pennant Race Stars and the next 36 are the Camp Series (training camp). Many of the series are given a theme name. If you notice on the back of the Higashio card, the line of text under the card number says Pennant Race Star in kana and a little kanji.

The kanji for Walk is not nishi, it is the kanji for the number 4- it looks similar to nishi, but the kanji for 4 does not have any lines extending outside of the box like nishi does.

The writing on the left side of Hideo Fujimoto's card says Chubu Dragons. Chubu Nippon is the full name of the company that owns the Chunichi Dragons, and they used it as the team name only in 1947.

Last name changes usually happen due to marriage and men can choose to use their wife's name instead of their own. This is done for some complicated legal and inheritance reasons, and there are a few players that have done this. HOFer Kazuto Yamamoto became Kazuto Tsuruoka after playing his entire career as Yamamoto. He was already managing when he changed his name to Tsuruoka.

Thanks again, this is the best series going on Net 54.

Jeff