Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Mutsuo Minagawa was a Nankai great. He pitched from 1954 to 1971, totaling a bit over 3000 innings, with a career ERA of 2.42. The early years of his career were a pretty low-offense environment, but even by their standards he was quite good. In 1958 he pitched 230 innings and posted a 1.83 ERA, which was exactly one run better than league average. Given that the league had a 2.83 ERA that year, his mark was only 65% of league average. That would be 2.92 in the 2019 MLB. He finished second in ERA that year, behind Inao.

But his most noteworthy season was at the other end of his career. In 1968 he threw 350 innings and had an ERA of only 1.61. Given the league average in 1968, that would be like putting up a 2.00 ERA in today’s MLB. (Or, well, 2019’s MLB. Who knows when or if we’re going to have a 2020 MLB.) It’s curious that, until 1968, he managed to avoid the abusive workloads so common at the time (he was often below 200 innings pitched). It’s also worth noting that after throwing 350 innings in a season, his innings pitched dropped off dramatically, he became increasingly ineffective, and his career was over three years later. But still, he did get one hell of a year out of those 350 innings. He led the league in ERA, wins (with 31; he was the last 30 game winner in Japan), and most other pitching categories. He was selected to the best nine, but took home neither the MVP (which went to another pitcher) nor the Sawamura award. The Sawamura award went to Yutaka Enatsu, who set a record with 401 strikeouts that year.

During his time with them, the Hawks were good. The won the Japan Series in 1959 and 1964, and lost it in 1961, 1965, and 1966.

Rather than blazing speed, Minagawa was known for his wide assortment of off-speed pitches. Word is that his best pitch was a screwball (or shoot ball). He had a side-arm delivery, which seems to be much more common in Japan than in the US. Minagawa didn’t live to see his induction into the hall of fame, but his wife and his long-time battery-mate, Katsuya Nomura, gave speeches on his behalf. Nomura said that he was the first pitcher to throw “cut balls” (apparently a kind of slider) and that they first tried the pitch out in an exhibition game against Oh, inducing him to pop out to the second baseman. Thereafter Minagawa worked the pitch into his repertoire.

This card is from the Kabaya-Leaf set of 1967. This set is very popular among American collectors, at least as these things go. It was jointly a product of a Japanese gum manufacturer, and the Leaf company familiar to American baseball card collectors. That probably explains why it has a fairly standard-for-the-US layout. It was originally distributed with chocolates and gum, but apparently the cards failed to move the product and quite a few cards were left over. Mel Bailey, who imported a bunch of Japanese cards into the US, bought the remaining stock and sold sets to American collectors. It is reportedly now easier to find in the US than in Japan. Strangely enough, my card comes from Japan (thanks Sean!), but also has writing on the back in romanji. PSA has a nice article about the set.

As you can see, this particular card has scrapbook residue on the back. I don’t know if Kabaya-Leaf cards can be soaked. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if no one has ever tried it.

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And that’s that. Mutsuo Minagawa completes my Japanese Hall of Fame collection. Not, that is, that I have all of the hall of famers. But I have everyone on my list: all of the post-war hall of fame players, all of the post-war hall of fame managers who also had substantial playing careers, and a (fairly arbitrary) assortment of post-war managers who did not have substantial playing careers. I’ll keep my eyes out for pre-war players, but they’re expensive and few-and-far-between, so I’m going to regard getting their cards as supererogatory rather than an essential part of the collection.

In total I spent $553.39 for the cards in the collection. It took me almost two years. There are 90 cards in this collection, so I paid an average of about $6 each for them, but that figure is somewhat misleading, as I have a bunch of BBM cards that cost only a buck, and I got a number of Calbee cards in trade, which pulls the average down. The average of the vintage cards was more than $6. The single most expensive card was the Wally Yonamine. I was tired of losing auctions for Yonamine cards, so I found one that I like and put in a big that would definitely win. It, um, it did. (The postcards were yet more expensive, but they don’t feature any hall of famers, so they’re not a part of this particular collection.)

Here’s the breakdown of the rarities of the cards in my collection:

BBM________11
NS Menko____2
R1 Menko____9
R2 Menko____10
R3 Menko____11
UNC Menko___7
Upper Deck___1
Calbee_______17
R2 Food/Gum__1
R3 Food/Gum__1
R4 Game______3
Yamakatsu_____2
R2 Bromide____3
R3 Bromide____2
R4 Bromide____1
R5 Bromide____1
UNC Bromide___8

All three game cards that I own are super rare. As are two of my bromides. I have many uncatalogued cards, both menko and bromide. It stands to reason that most of these are also quite rare, although that’s not certain. On Engel’s classification, R4 cards have fewer than ten copies known, and R5 cards have (IIRC) no more than three. I think that this can be regarded as only a guess, but that’s the ballpark that we’re talking about. You’ll notice that I have few “not-scarce” menko, and quite a few more of higher rarities. That’s mostly because I was attracted to the rarer ones, if you picked up menko cards at random you wouldn’t get that distribution.

I’ve never completed a collecting project before. Indeed, this is just my second one ever. As a kid I set out to get one playing-days card of every MLB hall of fame player; I started working on that project again a few years ago, but it's clearly a very long-term project. Ever completing it seems doubtful. The cards in my Japanese collection are displayed in a single binder – one on each page, with a 3x5 card cut down as backing (so you can’t see the card behind it). Each player gets his own little moment in the sun (as it were), as you flip through the binder.

Finally, here’s a list of the cards in the collection:
AKIYAMA, Koji ---------- BBM 93
AKIYAMA, Noboru ------ JCM 28a
Amachi, Shinichi -------- JGA16
AOTA, Noboru ----------- JCM 75
ARAMAKI, Atsushi ------- JCM 129
BESSHO, Takehiko ------- JGA16
BETTO, Kaoru ------------ UNC menko
CHIBA, Shigeru ---------- UNC menko
ENOMOTO, Kihachi ------ JF 23
ETOH, Shin-ichi ---------- JCM 13c
FUJIMURA, Fumio -------- UNC Bromide
FUJITA, Motoshi ---------- JCM 31e
FUKUMOTO, Yutaka ------ Calbee
FURUTA, Atsuya ---------- BBM
GO, Shosei --------------- UNC Bromide
Gondoh, Hiroshi ---------- JCM 55
HARA, Tatsunori ---------- Calbee
HARIMOTO, Isao --------- Calbee
HASEGAWA, Ryohei ------ JCM 33e
HIGASHIO, Osamu ------- Calbee
HIRAMATSU,Masaji ------- Yamakatsu
HIROOKA, Tatsuro -------- JCM 39
HIROSE, Yoshinori -------- JCM 13a
HORIUCHI, Tsuneo ------- Calbee
Hoshino, Senichi --------- Calbee
IIDA, Tokuji -------------- JCM 31b Type II
INAO, Kazuhisa ---------- JCM41
ITOH, Tsutomu ----------- BBM 93
IWAMOTO, Yoshiyuki ----- JBR 9
KADOTA, Hiromitsu ------- Calbee
KAJIMOTO, Takao --------- JBR 16
KANEDA, Masaichi -------- JCM 69
KANEMOTO, Tomoaki ----- Upper Deck
KARITA, Hisanori ---------- JRM 24
KAWAKAMI, Tetsuharu ---- UNC menko
KINUGASA, Sachio -------- Calbee
KITABEPPU, Manabu ------ BBM 91
Koba, Takeshi -------------- JCM 14c
Koichi, Tabuchi ------------- JCM 15a
Kondo, Sadao -------------- UNC Bromide
KOYAMA, Masaaki ---------- JCM 43a
KOZURU, Makoto ----------- unc menko
KUDO, Kimiyasu ----------- BBM 93
MATSUI, Hideki ------------ BBM
Mihara, Osamu ------------ UNC Bromide
MINAGAWA,Mutsuo ------- JF 4
Mizuhara, Shigeru --------- JBR 41
Mori, Masaaki -------------- JCM 39
MURATA, Choji ------------- Calbee
MURAYAMA,Minoru --------- JCM 138
NAGASHIMA, Shigeo ------- JCM 54
NAKAGAMI, Hideo ---------- JBR 73
NAKAJIMA, Haruyasu ------- uncatalogued bromide
NAKANISHI, Futoshi -------- JCM 12? 43?
NAKAO, Hiroshi ------------- JGA 19
NISHIZAWA, Michio -------- JDM 21
NOGUCHI, Jiro ------------- JCM 22
NOMO, Hideo --------------- BBM
NOMURA, Katsuya ---------- JCM 14g
OCHIAI,Hiromitsu ---------- BBM 91
O'DOUL, Frank ------------- JRM 7
OH, Sadaharu -------------- Calbee
OHNO, Yutaka--------------- BBM 93
OSHITA, Hiroshi ------------- JBR 109
OSUGI,Katsuo --------------- Yamakatsu
SAITOH, Masaki ------------- BBM 93
SANADA,Juzo --------------- JCM 124
SASAKI, Kazuhiro ----------- BBM
SEKINE, Junzo -------------- JCM 123
SHIRAISHI, Katsum --------- JBR 75
SOTOKOBA, Yoshiro --------- Calbee
STARFFIN, Victor ------------ JBR 53
SUGISHITA, Shigeru -------- UNC Bromide
SUGIURA,Tadashi ----------- UNC menko
SUZUKI, Keishi -------------- Calbee
TAKAGI, Morimichi ---------- JCM 71
TAMIYA, Kenjiro ------------- unc menko
Tatsunami, Kazuyoshi ------- Calbee
TOYODA, Yasumitsu --------- JCM 69
TSUBOUCHI,Michinori ------- unc bromide
Tsuda, Tsunemi -------------- Calbee
WAKABAYASHI, Tadashi ----- JCM 75
WAKAMATSU, Tsutomu ------ Calbee
YAMADA, Hisashi ------------- Calbee
Yamamoto, Kazuto ----------- unc menko
YAMAMOTO, Koji -------------- Calbee
YAMAUCHI, Kazuhiro---------- JCM 12d
YONAMINE, Kaname ---------- JCM 41
YONEDA, Tetsuya ------------- JCM 12e
YOSHIDA, Yoshio ------------- unc bromide

Now, I’ve still got a Meikyukai collection to work on. I started it to keep myself busy when the pace of hall of fame acquisitions dropped off, but I might as well finish it. So I’m not done with this thread (and of course they induct new hall of famers each year), but the main purpose for it has been completed.