Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Thanks for posting those Nomura cards! I especially like the bright red one.

The player I've got for you today is Isao Harimoto. Japan's all-time hit king. In total he collected 3084 hits, and is the only player to pass 3000. Nomura is second and Oh is third. The record is in no danger, the active leader (Takahiro Arai) is 1000 hits behind him and is 40 years old. Kaz Matsui (yes, that Kaz Matsui) is second among active players. He spent most of his career with the Toei Flyers (who play way up north in Hokkaido). He was with them from 1959 to 1972. After that he bounced around for a bit, before retiring in 1981. This card is from relatively late in his career - 1976 - when he was with the Giants. Unlike Pete Rose, Harimoto was a big slugger. He finished his career with 504 home runs. He hit .319 for his career and walked more than he struck out.

Harimoto's record is full of black ink. His .383 batting average was a Japanese record that stood for 16 years. He captured seven batting titles, and led the league in OBP nine times. Despite being fast (with more than 300 stolen bases) he as with many great offensive players, was not much of a fielder. Apparently he played a rather indifferent left field. Strangely he was only a one-time MVP (in the year that the Flyers won the Japan Series), but I suspect that the blame for this can be pinned on the fact that Japanese MVP awards, even more than American ones, tend to go to players on championship teams.

Each player is, of course, unique, but I find thinking about comparable players as a helpful shorthand, since I know so many American players so well. It gives you a general impression, which can then be filled in with the details of the particular player's career. All that said, I think that a fair American counterpart for Harimoto would be Stan Musial.

He is of Korean descent, and has worked as a commentator in the Korean baseball league. His parents moved to Japan while Korea was still a part of the Japanese Empire. Harimoto was five years old and living in Hiroshima when it was hit with an atomic bomb. He survived (his house was shielded by a mountain), but he lost a sister in the blast. On a related note, I've been fear-binging on this blog. It's written by a historian of science who studies the Manhattan Project, and it's both fascinating and terrifying.

The card is from the enormous 1976 Calbee set.

[paleocards]

This really is a fascinating thread, thanks for sharing all of this biographical information and the cards, almost all of which I've never seen. It seems like a real labor of love, and I can definitely relate to and respect where you're coming from.

[nat]

Originally Posted by paleocards

This really is a fascinating thread, thanks for sharing all of this biographical information and the cards, almost all of which I've never seen. It seems like a real labor of love, and I can definitely relate to and respect where you're coming from.

Thanks for the kind words! I've been having a lot of fun with it. Frankly, I've been having more fun with Japanese cards than with American ones lately. I recently picked up a 34 Goudey Jimmie Foxx, which is a big pick-up by my standards, but it just felt like checking off a box. Having an excuse to learn about a completely new world of baseball, with it's own records and legends and quirks and so on, has been a lot more enjoyable.

I'll post another update soon (probably tonight). And I've got several more cards on hand (and dozens more to get) so I plan to keep this going for a while.

[nat]

Tsuneo Horiuchi pitched for the Giants from 1966 to 1983. This was exactly the right time to be a Giant - he got in right at the start of their nine consecutive Japan Series wins. He broke in at 18 and was great immediately. In his rookie year he won both the Rookie of the Year Award and the Sawamura Award. As might be expected from a teenager who was suddenly a huge star, Horiuchi was a bit cocky and immature. Tetsuharu Kawakami, the Giants manager who sailed a famously tight ship, sent him to the minors to teach him a lesson, even though he was the reigning Sawamura winner. (source) The exile didn't last long. As a 19 year old Horiuchi was 12-2 in 149 IP. It was a hard pace to keep up: his last really good year was 1974 (when he was 26), he pitched his last full season at 30, and hung around until 35. This is a problem faced by any professional athlete, but it's got to be hard to retire at 35 and then have to figure out what you're going to do with the rest of your life.

Anyway, Horiuchi did better with that than most. After retirement he was a coach with the Giants for years, and briefly their manager. And that's only the beginning. In 2010 he ran for parliament. Japan has a proportional representation system (like almost every democracy except the US): you vote for your party of choice, and then if, say, your party get 10% of the vote then they get 10% of the seats in the legislature. Horiuchi's party won 12 seats, but he was listed 13th on the party list. So he just missed out on getting a seat in parliament. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Hirohiko Nakamura, one of the members of his party who did win a seat, died while in office, and Horiuchi was named as his replacement. So he got a seat in parliament after all.

Here is a neat video of a game from 1966, Horiuchi's rookie year. He comes in as a relief pitcher at about 1:55, he's the guy wearing #21.

The card is from the 1973 Calbee set. This was their first foray into baseball cards. In Japan 1991 marks the line between vintage and modern cards, so 1973 is much longer-ago for the Japanese hobby (such as it is) than it is for American card collectors. Calbee almost had a monopoly on baseball cards through the 70s and 80s - and they're still making cards today. This is the set where it all began, the 52 Topps of Japan, if you will.

[nat]

You guys probably know this guy. Kazuhiro Sasaki was one of the more successful Japanese imports into the American game (and he saved my fantasy team's bacon in 2002). He was a two-time all-star for the Seattle Mariners, but before (and after) that he was a relief pitcher for the Yokohama Bay Stars, for whom he was a 6-time all-star. Sasaki had a 2.41 ERA in 627 NPB innings, and a 3.14 in 223 American League Innings. Once in America he continued a Japanese training program, which is much more intensive than the American version, and didn't endear him to the powers that be in Seattle.

Sasaki isn't a great hall of fame choice. He was a dominant relief pitcher, but his career was short (by HOF standards), and he didn't pitch many innings. If you want an American to compare him to, I'll nominate Bruce Sutter. But then if it had been up to me they wouldn't have put Sutter in the hall either.

Outside of baseball Sasaki seems to be an interesting guy. He was married to a singer and left her for an actress. He appeared as a witness for the defense when his friend, and former ballplayer, Kazuhiro Kiyohara, was arrested for possession of drugs. Jay Buhner taught him a bunch of dirty words. And he is now the general manager of the D'Station Racing Team (they drive Porches).

But my favorite fact about Kazuhiro Sasaki is that he recorded and released a single of him doing vocals over canned electronic beats. It's terrible.

The card is from the 2005 BBM set, after he returned to Japan and just before he retired. It's one of the newest cards in my collection.

[nat]

Shigeru Sugishita was a pitcher for the Dragons from 1949 to 1958, and then for the Orions in 1961. He was a high-peak short-career pitcher, winning the Sawamura award three times, and in 1954 (a year in which he went 32-12 with a 1.39 ERA) he also won the MVP award and the Japan Series MVP award. Unlike many pitchers with this career shape (e.g. Koufax) he wasn't felled by injury: he just wanted to do something else. He retired from pitching after the 1958 season to manage the Dragons, when that didn't go well he pitched one more year before getting another managing gig (which also didn't go well), and then moved into broadcasting.

Despite having been a great pitcher, Sugishita is most famous for popularizing the forkball in Japan. (It's a kind of changeup where you mash the ball between your index and middle finger.) It's a pitch that isn't thrown much in America, but is popular over there. (Hideo Nomo made his name throwing it.)

Jim Albright ranks Sugishita as the seventh greatest Japanese pitcher of all time, and the 26th greatest player over all. I don't know what his methodology is (he crunched some numbers for this, it's not just personal opinion), so I don't know if I agree or not, but that's some indication of his standing. He also ranks him as the greatest member of the Dragons of all time. (Others may have been greater players, but spent smaller portions of their career with the Dragons.)

The card is a curious one. The front of the card is identical to the Sugishita card in the JCM 26 set, but the back of my card is blank. The JCM 26 set has a rock-paper-scissors symbol, a pillar with some writing, and a menko number at the bottom. Maybe my card is from the JCM 26 set but didn't get printed on the back? Maybe it's from a related set that's not catalogued? Hard to say.

[nat]

I haven't been posting anything lately because I'm on vacation, but such is my dedication to Japanese baseball cards that I've decided to ignore my wife rolling her eyes at me, and post something anyway.

Kouji Yamamoto was an outfielder for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp from 1969 to 1986. If you look at his raw stats you'll think that he had a late peak (in his early 30s), but what actually happened is that the league's offensive environment changed pretty dramatically during his career. In 1971 the Central League posted an OPS of .640, by 1978 (while he was at his apparent peak) it was up to .764. (For the sake of a comparison, the NL was at .748 in 2017.) That's a big jump, and probably explains why he was hitting twice as many home runs per year in his 30s as he was in his 20s. Even though he began playing in a relatively low-scoring environment, Yamamoto managed to knock in 536 home runs (4th all-time), and cleared 2000 hits easily.

In addition to being a great offensive player, he was a brilliant outfielder with a strong throwing arm. He won ten consecutive diamond gloves (the Japanese equivalent of the gold glove).

After his playing days were over Mr. Red Helmet (not the most imaginative nickname, but then neither is 'ARod', so Americans can't really complain) had a couple stints managing the Carp (which included winning the Japan Series with them) and a couple stints as an announcer for them. Yamamoto is also a local, having been born in Hiroshima in 1946 (although he was drafted from Hosei University in Tokyo).

The card is another one from the huge 76 Calbee set. To someone who grew up around Topps, Calbee cards often strike me as strange. This image isn't one that Topps would be likely to use for a card. There's another player featured prominently, it's weirdly cropped, it just looks like a strange image to use for a baseball card. But Calbee does this all the time. I may have mentioned this before, but Calbee cards often look to me like they're just stills from a broadcast of a game. There were a few Topps sets with unconventional image choices. 1973 Topps is one of my favorites, for precisely this reason. (Or at least half the set is. The other half is generic spring training pictures.) But the 73 Topps cards are cleverly unconventional, they're obviously carefully selected for their weirdness, whereas Calbee cards often strike me as just sort of random. This isn't to say that I dislike Calbee cards, far from it. Some are very well composed - like the Horiuchi card above. And as small of a thing as it is, I also appreciate it that Calbee uses high-quality card stock. I remember the first time I held a T201 and how I was surprised that anyone would print a baseball card on tissue paper.

[Rickyy]

Originally Posted by nat

Tsuneo Horiuchi pitched for the Giants from 1966 to 1983. This was exactly the right time to be a Giant - he got in right at the start of their nine consecutive Japan Series wins. He broke in at 18 and was great immediately. In his rookie year he won both the Rookie of the Year Award and the Sawamura Award. As might be expected from a teenager who was suddenly a huge star, Horiuchi was a bit cocky and immature. Tetsuharu Kawakami, the Giants manager who sailed a famously tight ship, sent him to the minors to teach him a lesson, even though he was the reigning Sawamura winner. (source) The exile didn't last long. As a 19 year old Horiuchi was 12-2 in 149 IP. It was a hard pace to keep up: his last really good year was 1974 (when he was 26), he pitched his last full season at 30, and hung around until 35. This is a problem faced by any professional athlete, but it's got to be hard to retire at 35 and then have to figure out what you're going to do with the rest of your life.

Anyway, Horiuchi did better with that than most. After retirement he was a coach with the Giants for years, and briefly their manager. And that's only the beginning. In 2010 he ran for parliament. Japan has a proportional representation system (like almost every democracy except the US): you vote for your party of choice, and then if, say, your party get 10% of the vote then they get 10% of the seats in the legislature. Horiuchi's party won 12 seats, but he was listed 13th on the party list. So he just missed out on getting a seat in parliament. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Hirohiko Nakamura, one of the members of his party who did win a seat, died while in office, and Horiuchi was named as his replacement. So he got a seat in parliament after all.

Here is a neat video of a game from 1966, Horiuchi's rookie year. He comes in as a relief pitcher at about 1:55, he's the guy wearing #21.

The card is from the 1973 Calbee set. This was their first foray into baseball cards. In Japan 1991 marks the line between vintage and modern cards, so 1973 is much longer-ago for the Japanese hobby (such as it is) than it is for American card collectors. Calbee almost had a monopoly on baseball cards through the 70s and 80s - and they're still making cards today. This is the set where it all began, the 52 Topps of Japan, if you will.

Thanks for posting this. Great looking card of a key member of those great Giants teams!

Ricky Y

[nat]

Yoshio Yoshida played shortstop for the Tigers from 1953 to 1969. He had good speed but limited power, and was known for defense and bunting. About what you expect from a shortstop. Given his speed, the Tigers usually used him as a lead-off hitter. He finished with around 1800 hits, and offensive records that are… okay. But his hitting isn’t the main reason that he was on the team. A comparable American player might be someone like Willie Randolph, positional differences aside. He was better-appreciated in his time than Randolph was, however, as he was a 9x best-nine selection. (SABR types sometimes say that Randolph should probably be given a closer look by the HOF, but that’s a much more tepid endorsement than being named the league’s best SS nine times.)

Yoshida came from a poor family, and was orphaned while he was still young. (He was raised by his older brother after his parents died.) Unable to afford tuition he didn’t plan on attending college, until his baseball prowess gained the attention of recruiters and he was offered a scholarship. He was scouted by the Braves, but a large offer from the Tigers convinced him to drop out of school and go pro.

The really interesting thing about Yoshida, however, isn’t what he did on the baseball diamond. After he retired he managed the Tigers on-and-off, but he also went to France to develop a baseball program. Yes, France. He said that when he arrived in France the level of play was abysmal, comparable to high school ball in Japan. But under Yoshida’s influence the French national team now participates in the World Baseball Classic, the European Baseball Cup, and other international competitions. In fact, France hosts an international competition (open apparently by invitation to a few European nations and Japan) called the “Yoshida Challenge”. Yoshida is an honorary member of the French Baseball and Softball Federation. He recently (c. 2014) arranged to have some French players train with Hanshin. The French national baseball team is now ranked 23rd in the world. Which might not sound very impressive, but it’s a lot better than high school ball.

As you might expect, thehanshintigers.com has a very good biography of Yoshida. Much better than what I’ve got here. You might want to go read it.

I'm not sure what set the card belongs to. It resembles JBR 17 and JBR 29. But it has a border. It could be from a related but uncatalogued set.

[nat]

Jiro Noguchi pitched for a few teams from 1939 to 1943 (the Japanese Wikipedia page seems to indicate just two teams that changed their names, but I'm not super confident about how I'm reading it), and for Hankyu from 1946 to 1952. The beginning of his career was the best part. As a rookie he posted a 2.04 ERA (against a league average of 2.50), and then proceeded to post sub-1 ERAs for the next two seasons (at ages 20 and 21). Pitching for Taiyo in 1942 he had his most remarkable season. Noguchi pitched 527 innings (!) and notched a 40-17 record. But his 1.19 ERA was only fifth in the league. At one point in 1942 he pitched a 28 inning complete game. In 1944 he was drafted and went to war. He wouldn’t have had an opportunity to pitch in 1945 even if he wasn’t enlisted, as the season was simply canceled. After the war he was still good, but declined quickly. Although he hung on for a couple years afterwards, he was essentially done at age 30.

The entire Noguchi clan was athletic. His older brother Akira was a star baseball player: he made four all-star teams and had one best-nine selection. Younger brothers Noboru and Wataru made brief appearances as professional ball players as well. To be fair, though, Noboru didn’t get much of a chance. He was drafted into the Army and died in the Philippines in 1945. Apparently someone made a television special about the family.

Jiro enrolled in Hosei University (one of the notable University teams in early baseball; maybe not equal to Waseda or Keio, but good). He did not finish his studies, however, as he was lured away by the Tokyo Senators. The Japanese Wikipedia page says that he was nicknamed “Astro Arm”. (I’m not 100% confident on this. I ran the Japanese Wikipedia page through Google Translate. It transliterated the hiragana, and then I ran the transliteration through Google Translate again. So who knows what it actually says. Unfortunately Noguchi doesn’t have an English Wikipedia page.)

In addition to being one of Japan’s great pitchers, Noguchi was a good hitter for a pitcher. Some seasons he was simply a good hitter, no “for a pitcher” required. For instance, in 1946 he posted a .708 OPS against a league average of .676. In fact, he was fourth in his team in OPS, among those who had a significant number of at bats.

The card is an early post-war menko card. It’s from the JCM 22 set, issued in 1947. This was the first year after the war that any baseball cards were issued. And it has definitely seen some play: the edges, especially at the top, are kind of squashed. It looks like it flipped over a fair number of cards in its day.