Identifying Japanese Bromides (Starffin, Kawakami et al)

[Frankish]

Hiroshi Oshita is my favorite ballplayer from the early postwar period in Japan. He debuted on the Senators. And if the fact that one of the eight teams making up the 1946 Japanese Baseball League was named the Senators doesn’t speak volumes about the odd relationship between Japan and the US during the early postwar/occupation period, I don’t know what does. Anyway, in his rookie season he hit .281 and set a home run record (20). In 1949 he would go on to bat .305 with 38 home runs and a .626 slugging percentage.

He was hugely popular and famously used a blue-painted bat (the other great hitter of that period, Tetsuhara Kawakami, played with a red bat). He had a lifetime batting average of .303 and hit 201 home runs. His career statistics might have been even more impressive if he hadn’t missed a prime stretch of playing years as an officer in the war.

This thirteenth page of the album is made up of nine Oshita cards. Five of the bromides picture him in his dark 1946 Senators uniform and are clearly what I would deem rookie cards from 1947 bromide sets (although "rookie" cards in Japanese sets can be tricky to define). The other four cards picture him the Tokyu Flyers uniform, presumably from the 1947 season. There are two very distinctive cards on this page. The center card may be from the pretty rare 1947 Marutsu Small Photo Set (JBR 152), while the card in upper left of the page bears a great deal of similarity but is as far as I can tell yet uncatalogued.

Ironically (or sadly or coincidentally…I don’t know), this all time Flyer great was actually training as a kamikaze pilot when the war ended.

I've attached some closeups of cards that I don't see very often and strike me as attractive....