Japanese HOF Project

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Tokuji Iida was a Hawk and a Swallow over a 17 year career, from 1947 to 1963. He just missed collecting 2000 hits (no Golden Player Club for you, not that it existed when he retired). Iida was a slugging first baseman who played through Japan's deadball era. His raw home run totals don't look impressive (after 1955 he never even made it into double digits), but no one at the time was hitting home runs, or much of anything else. For example, in 1957 he slugged .417 against a league average of .329. Last year the National League slugged .423. Iida's slugging percentage was 88 points better than league average; you would have to slug .511 to top last year's average by 88 points. That's, basically, Anthony Rizzo. But raw comparison's aren't really the way to do this. In 1957 (a year in which he hit 9 home runs) Iida had a slugging percentage that was 27% higher than league average. To match that in last year's National League you would need to slug .537, exactly what Kris Bryant did. So one way to think about Iida is that, even in the years in which he was hitting home runs in the singe-digits, he was, in context, hitting as well as Kris Bryant.

Lest you think that maybe he was a one-dimensional power hitter (like, e.g., Rob Deer), note that his on-base percentage was 25% better than league average that year as well. Which is, again, a perfect match for Bryant.

So, basically, Iida was Kris Bryant, albeit at 1B rather than 3B, for 17 years. He won the 1955 MVP award, but he does not seem to be well-remembered. He doesn't even have his own Wikipedia page. People who follow Japanese baseball apparently regard him highly though - thehanshintigers.com ranks him as one of the Hawks' five best players, and Jim Allen ranks him as the second best defensive first baseman of all time. (Although seventy year old defensive statistics should always be taken with a pretty good spoonful of salt.) Allen also ranks him as the 60th greatest player of all time. He was famous for a long consecutive-game streak (this is basically the only thing that the Japanese Hall of Fame website says about him), but he missed a bunch of games late in his career, presumably with injuries. Maybe a day off now and then would have been a good idea.

I like to find video of the players that I write about, but youtube has nothing for Iida. If you search "Tokuji Iida" on youtube the only hit you get is from an old Japanese movie called "The Burden of Life", which sounds a bit heavy for a baseball message board.

The Iida card is from the JCM 31b (type II) set. I forgot to take a picture of the back, but I think you folks can deal with just a photo of the front.

Also, it's time to report some progress. I'm now 51% of the way to my goal! On June 1st I was at 25%, so I've picked up another quarter of the hall of fame (at least, those who are in as pro players, and so for whom there are probably cards) in the past 41 days. I'll call that progress. Surely it helps that most of my cards are low grade, but this remains a (relatively) inexpensive project. I still have a couple American cards that cost more than my entire Japanese collection.

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Manabu Kitabeppu pitched for the Carp for 19 seasons, 1976 to 1994. He broke in when he was just 18 years old. It's got to be crazy being that young and playing on the biggest stage. (Then of course there's Joe Nuxhall. I doubt anyone else had eight years between big league appearances.) Kitabeppu won 213 games with a 3.67 career ERA. I don't know of any website that has league ERA for ranges of seasons available; it's possible to calculate it from the data available for individual seasons, but that sounds pretty tedious. Suffice it to say that, looking over a bunch of years during Kitabeppu's career, 3.67 is a bit better than league average, but not super impressive. He's got a weird career shape. He was super good occasionally - he won an MVP award and a pair of Sawamura awards - but he mixed in a bunch of clunkers. Sort of like Zack Greinke, or, to take a much more extreme example, Steve Carlton. He was sent to the minor leagues for the first time in 1989, when he was 31 after a rough patch. He would post two more good years, but he was done at 36. Albright does not list him on his ranking of the top 115 (what a weird number to stop at) Japanese players. In all he's kind of an unexciting hall of famer. The Greinke comparison is probably a good one. They're both fine pitchers, if what's his name who is on the Phillies now hadn't gone bonkers in the second half Greinke would have two Cy Young awards also. But they're not the kind of guys whose starts I make it a point to watch.

On the other hand, Wikipedia says that he was one of the most popular right-handed pitchers ever. Now, it's possible that that was written by his mother, but it's also possible that he was a much more exciting pitcher than his statistics indicate.

YouTube doesn't seem to have any videos of him playing. Which is a surprise, given how recently he retired. It does have a short and boring interview with him from 2012, filmed a charity golf tournament. I'll spare you the link, but basically he tells kids that if they want to be good at baseball they need to practice every day.

The card is from the inaugural 1991 BBM set. Looking at his card I just noticed that the kanji for "strikeout" just means "three", which is commendably to the point. The symbol that they use for "walk" - Nishi - means "west". I guess home plate is to the north?

Eventually I'll probably end up with some more BBM cards, but I've now posted all of those that I've got on hand. It'll be back to menkos and bromides (and a few Calbees) for the near future.