Japanese HOF Project
 

I've decided to take my collection in a different direction. My new goal is to get one playing-days card of each Japanese hall of famer. It's been exciting so far, as it provides an opportunity to learn not just about new sets of baseball cards, but an entirely new world of baseball.

Anyhow, I'd like to document this project. We have pick-up threads, but this is different enough that I thought it might merit its own thread. The plan is to post a picture of each card and a little bit of history about the player pictured to give you, dear reader, an idea of who this guy is and his place in Japanese baseball. The tread is on this side of the board because professional Japanese baseball didn't start until 1936, and although there are pre-war Japanese cards (which I'll have to track down eventually) they are very rare.

We'll start with these two guys.

On the right is Kazuhisa Inao. He pitched from 1956 to 1969 for the Nishitetsu Lions. All Japanese teams are owned by corporations, and they are identified by the name of the company that owns them and then their nickname. Nishitetsu is the national Japanese railroad. The team plays in Fukuoka, down on the southern end of Japan. Inao had a relatively short career, but few were better than he was at his peak. He's sort of the Japanese Sandy Koufax. He won 42 games in 1961, pitching more than 400 innings. He surpassed 30 wins several other seasons. He set a record with a 1.06 ERA as a rookie and won 20 consecutive games in 1957.

On the left is Takehiko Bessho. Bessho played from 1942 to 1960, taking a couple years out for the war. He spent most of his career with the Yomiuri Giants. It's hard to over-state how dominant the Giants were up until the 1980s. They were like the Yankees only more so. At one point they won the Japan series nine consecutive years, and have won the series 22 times in total. (It was first held in 1950.) He won 310 games, fifth all-time according to Baseball Guru (although parts of their website are out of date and this one may be as well). He wasn't quite as good as Inao, but he had a longer career and was one of the greatest pitchers in Japanese history.

The card itself is a menko card. Menko is a card-flipping game. The idea would be familiar to American kids, although menko has been around for centuries. You can find menko cards featuring all sorts of things, athletes, animals, cars, and many others. Menko cards tend to be colorful with lots of designs that are intended to appeal to kids. Early menko cards had these designs on the fronts of the cards, by the 1950s the designs were relegated to the back. The set is catalogued as JCM 28a and was issued in 1957 (so this is Inao's rookie card). There were hundreds of sets of menko cards made, but relatively few of each one (either that or they didn't survive at a very high rate). Gary Engel, who literally wrote the book on Japanese baseball cards, says that this set is relatively uncommon, with around 100 to 250 examples of each card known.

I'll post more cards later.

I love the casual note for Bessho where he took a couple years off for the war....TO TRY AND KILL US!!!!!!
:D

Nice!!! I am starting to get interested in Japanese cards...and have a few I have acquired over the years. I grew up in Japan until I was 10 yrs old and it was during the glory days of Oh and Nagashima's Giants so I got to actually seem them play as a youngster. Didn't collect them though (except for some menko cards) until I came to the US and discovered MLB cards.

I don't know if you can get one of all HOF... I'm not up on all of the cards issued, but if you can find one of Eiji Sawamura of the Yomiuri Giants. that will be something. I don't believe there is one. He was killed in WW2, and at age 17 of course he gained fame when struck out Babe Ruth and Gehrig at an exhibition game. The Japanese Cy Young Award equivalent is named in his honor.

Ricky Y

Noburo Akiyama
 

Well, to be fair, Bessho was stationed in China, and then re-deployed to the home islands.

And yes, I realize that this goal is probably impossible. (Although if you get a lead on a Sawamura card let me know.)

But, eh. It's still an ideal to shoot for.

Anyway, next up is Noburo Akiyama. Akiyama was a good pitcher on a bad team with a short career. He pitched for the Taiyo Whales from 1956 to 1967. This card is from the same set as the last one, so this is also his rookie card. He was a workhorse early in his career, reportedly throwing 1000 pitch training sessions in college. He was certainly a good pitchers (career ERA 2.60, although I'm pretty sure in a lower run-scoring environment than we're used to), but only briefly a great one. And he managed just under 3000 IP for his career. Sort of a peculiar choice for the hall of fame - it would be sort of like electing Roy Oswalt - but the American hall of fame also has plenty of questionable inductees.

Awesome cards!

I live in Japan and collect Japanese vintage cards too (I'm more of a set builder, working on stuff from the 70s mostly these days). Its nice to see others are collecting them too!

Menko are amazing, its one of the vintage card collecting areas where Japan has something totally unique in comparison with the US.

If you need any help tracking stuff down let me know (not sure I can always help but might be able to!)

(Also a minor correction - Nishitetsu is not the national railroad, it is a private railroad that runs in Fukuoka. I lived in Fukuoka for four years and used to take their trains all the time!)

Awesome card!

Ricky Y

I checked out your link. Looks great! I am trying to slowly track down some cards...esp the early 70's Kalbee's of some of my favorite players. Is there check lists for those issues? I know some sets are huge.

Ricky Y

Hi,

I have been collecting Japanese cards since the late 1970s, and it is very enjoyable to learn about their players, teams and history. Ricky- if you need help with Calbee checklists just let me know, I have them all. Sean- thanks for getting me that 1976 Calbee Matty Alou "Lions vs. Braves" card and sending it to our friend Jay Shelton.
Nat- your knowledge of Japanese cards and baseball sounds pretty good for someone just starting out.

If any of you need help or information, just let me know. I love to share my knowledge and learn from others.

Jeff

Hi,

Thanks!

If you register on Sports Card Forum (https://www.sportscardforum.com/private.php) some of the complete Calbee checklists from the 70s are available there, the guy who does Clyde's Stale cards did all the work on those a while ago (https://clydes-stalecards.blogspot.jp/)

And yeah, the sets from the mid-70s are huge. I'm working on the 1975-76 Calbee set right now and it has 1472 cards! And some series of it were only issued in single cities (two series in Hiroshima, one in Nagoya) so they are extremely hard to find, (kind of like if part of the 1972 Topps set was only sold in Cleveland and another only sold in Denver). Its got to be one of the most difficult sets in the world to put together (though fortunately prices don't reflect this for the most part).

Hi, Jay is great, we've been trading back and forth for a couple years now, he sends me Expos card, I send him Japanese stuff!

I love that Alou card, glad you like it too!

Bessho and Nakanishi
 

First, I'd like to start by recommending Sean's blog. It was one of the first things that I encountered when I started getting interested in Japanese cards.

Second, do you folks read kanji? I took Japanese in high school years and years ago, but (1) it's pretty rusty at this point, and (2) I never did learn to read kanji. One of the most challenging things about collecting these cards has been trying to figure out who is on them. (Sometimes sellers will tell you, sometimes not. Often they just provide the last name.) I've been doing it through a combination of drawing kanji in google translate, checking baseball-reference to see if the player that I'm looking for was on the team he's shown with on the card, and checking Engel's book (which sometimes only lists last names). It's slow going, especially the google translate bit.

Third, here's another card. Same set as the first two. Bessho is again on the left, next to him is Futoshi Nakanishi. I get the feeling that after they took the picture of Bessho with Inao the photographer just grabbed Nakanishi for another shot. Nakanishi played 1952 to 1969 with the Lions. He was a third baseman who, when he was young, looked like he was going to be one of the best ever. A slugging percentage over .600 for a 20 year old is pretty impressive. He led the league in home runs for four straight years. When this card was issued he was at the top of his game, a hugely successful slugging third baseman, his team had just won the Japan series, and he had just gotten married - to his manager's daughter. But it wasn't to last. In 1959 he suffered the first of a string of injuries from which he never recovered. He never played a full season again, although he did take over managing his team when he was just 29.

domo arigato for the information Sean! I will check it out.

Ricky Y

I can understand a little... if you have any that need translating I maybe able to help!

Ricky Y

Takao Kajimoto
 

Moving on from menko cards for a while. This is a bromide. Bromides were sold as baseball cards, one at a time. It's printed on thin stock, and is, maddeningly, very slightly too large to fit into a binder page. The set is catalogued as JBR 16, and Engel says that it is fairly rare: only double digits of each card known to exist. The backs are blank, but mine has a stamp on it. Google translate tells me that the stamp says "one piece", which doesn't make any sense, so anyone with more insight is welcome to fill me in.

The player is Takao Kajimoto, who has got to be unique in that he both (1) is a pitcher in the hall of fame and (2) has a losing record for his career. Just barely, I grant, but 254-255 is still a losing record. He played for the Hankyu Braves from 1954 to 1973. He did win the pennant at one point, but, as you might expect, the Braves were pretty bad for much of his career. He was a 12-time all star, and the first Japanese pitcher to clear 2000 strike outs.

Masaki Saito
 

And now, as Monty Python would say, for something completely different.

In 1991 Baseball Magazine decided to issue American-style baseball cards. Their sets would be of a design and composition familiar to Americans, and sold in packs, like American cards. They were (and are) a hit.

I'm not usually a fan of shiny modern cards - check out my avatar for my favorite era of American cards - but there's no way to get around it for modern players. Kids just don't play menko like they used to. This is a Masaki Saito from the 1993 BBM set. Unlike the earlier cards that I've posted, these are very very very common. This one cost me $1. Saito was a first-round draft pick, pitching for the Giants from 1984 to 2001. He was inducted into the hall of fame in 2016. He began his career as a reliever/swing-man, but over time transitioned into one of the great pitchers of the 1990s. He won the Sawamura award three times, tying a record. (The Sawamura award is given to the best pitcher in the league, although they reserve the right to not award it in any given year if they think that no one is up to their standards that year - which has happened a couple times.) He was also, apparently, a very good fielder, winning several gold gloves. You wouldn't think that pitcher fielding matters a whole lot, but ask the 2006 Tigers about that.

Just looking at his career numbers, Saito looks like an odd hall of fame choice. 2300 innings isn't much. Roy Halladay, who will probably get elected but who is an interesting test-case for short-career pitchers in America, got up to 2700 innings. I suspect that I need to spend more time with Japanese record books to get a better feel for the context. Maybe in the modern Japanese game 2300 innings isn't so bad.

Thanks!

I can read kanji, but I've lived here for almost 20 years and it took some work.

With player name recognition it is best to concentrate on the learning the kanji in last names since (with some exceptions) they tend to use more common ones (中、山、西 etc) while first names are way more idiosyncratic and use a lot of obscure ones with weird readings. I can definitely help with reading names if anyone has questions about them.

One potential shortcut which I have found helpful (sometimes I don't know how to read the kanji on a player's name since they have multiple readings) is to use the Japanese wikipedia page which has the list of players for each team. So if you get a card of a player from the Hawks for example (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/福岡ソフトバンクホークスの選手一覧 ) , you can scroll through and look for the kanji (easiest way is to just look for the first kanji in the name), click on the player's name when you find it, then click over to the English Wikipedia page and you've found your guy!

One thing with career stats is that owing to the shorter season Japanese stars usually have lower totals in comparison with their American counterparts (which makes Sadaharu Oh's career home run total so insane). So 2,000 hits is the de facto standard for HOF consideration rather than 3,000, etc. Not sure if that was the case with Saito, he had a sort of Sandy Koufax like period of brief but exceptional dominance in the late 80s-early 90s.

Nat:
As posted above, I'd definitely recommend Sean's blog site, as well as Dave's blog site here:
http://japanesebaseballcards.blogspot.com/

Both Sean and Jeff Alcorn can certainly translate for you. Jeff is a good friend who is one of the "pioneers" of Japanese baseball card collecting here in the U.S. His knowledge is vast and highly recommended.

Collecting Japanese baseball cards is a lot of fun, both in the hunt and history. Picking up Gary Engel's books are a definite must (although better used as a history guide and checklist instead of card valuation prices). Robert Klevens is also a great resource and owns Prestige Collectibles and is also a member here on the forum.

I started collecting Japanese baseball cards in 1980 when a mutual friend brought back some 1978 Yamakatsu cards for me from Japan (I have since finished the set).

Koji Akiyama
 

Koji Akiyama played outfield for the Lions and the Hawks over a 20 year career. He surpassed 2000 career hits as well as 400 home runs. He also spent one season, very early in his career, with the San Jose Bees, at the time an unaffiliated class A team. He was a flashy and dramatic player, doing, among other things, a backflip onto home plate after hitting a key home run in the Japan Series. He was also fast, turning in three 30-30 seasons. Superficially his statistics look like those of a young Jose Canseco, but this probably sells him short. For one thing, he was always better at getting on base than Canseco was.

The Lions were the dominant team of the late 80s and early 90s. The won the pennant many times. After an off year at age 31 (albeit one in which he still slugged >.500) he was traded to the Daiei Hawks.

Edited to add: I have Engel's book on vintage cards. It's really good as a guide and checklist, but you're right, the prices are... not helpful. I know about Prestige Collectables, but haven't bid in any of their auctions. I'll look into the next one.

Akiyama is great, he was also the best manager in NPB (IMO) for several years, though for some reason he retired quite young. I lived in Fukuoka when he was the Hawks manager (taking over after Sadaharu Oh retired) and watching his teams play was the most exciting time I've ever had as a baseball fan as they were constantly dominating the PL and won the Japan Series in his final season.

He also arguably had the best hair of any player to ever take the field.

I'm not a BBM collector but I have to admit to liking the colorful designs of that 1993 set.

Tsutomu Ito
 

It's great having people around who have actually seen these guys. To me they are names on a baseball card (or a list of stats), but I would certainly have liked to have seen them play.

One more BBM card and then we'll go back to vintage.

This is Tsutomu Ito. He had a very long career, and so managed to accumulate some respectable career numbers, but he really wasn't much of a hitter. A career slash line of 247/319/363 does not strike fear into the heart of opposing pitchers. He was a great defensive catcher, however, and his defense got him sixteen all-star selections. I don't think that someone like this would make the American hall of fame. We do have hall of famers who are there primarily for their defense, but the only one who was consistently below-average as a hitter was Bill Mazeroski, and he (1) was the greatest defensive player ever at his position, (2) had a really famous home run, and (3) was such an embarrassing mistake that they reformed the veteran's committee afterwards to make sure that a mistake like this doesn't happen again.

Also, I don't have any idea what 'affluent nineteen' means.

That is a reference to the text on the back of the card, which is entirely about how much money he gets paid (I think this must have been part of a subset). The top text in the text box says 100 Million Yen Player and it goes on to say that he was the first catcher in NPB history to be paid 100 Million yen per year.

That is about 900,000 US$, so even by 1993 standards the players here weren't getting quite the insane MLB rates, but I think he can definitely be called affluent!

Sadaharu Oh
 

Sadarahu Oh

868 HRs. 9 MVPs. 13 consecutive HR titles.

His autobiography is dedicated to his hitting coach.

Originally I wrote a rather lengthy summary of Oh’s career, and made an attempt to explain, in so far as I understand it, what he means (and doesn’t mean) to Japanese culture. I mentioned how he is half Chinese and still holds a Taiwanese passport. I mentioned how he was a pitcher in high school, and how he hid a blistered pitching hand from his manager so that he could pitch a crucial game. And how, once he turned pro, he wasn’t any good, until he developed his famous “flamingo” batting stance. But I deleted it, because it is all, in a way, beside the point. There is one essential fact about needs to be conveyed, and it is this:

Sadaharu Oh was the greatest player in the history of Japanese baseball.


The card itself is from the enormous 1975/76 Calbee set that Sean is working on. (Sean, if you need this one I’ll trade it for another Oh card.) Menko/bromide production tailed off significantly in the late 1960s. Through the 1970s and 1980s Calbee was, basically, the only show in town. Calbee cards were inserted into envelopes and attached to the outside of bags of potato chips. Calbee also makes little toasted veggie snack things that my wife loves.

I'll play.

Here's a 1958 JCM29 Inao:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...958%20Inao.jpg

IMO one of the nicest looking Japanese sets, 1964 JG2 Nomura:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...a%20Nomura.jpg

Nagashima:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...0Nagashima.jpg

Oh:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...inaga%20Oh.jpg

I've got nice cards of Kawakami (nickname "The God of Batting"), Harimoto (only 3,000 hits member), and Victor Starrfin somewhere.

here's a bromide of Lefty O'Doul from the 1949 SF Seals goodwill tour:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...%20OquDoul.jpg

and from the 1951 tour with Joe D:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...our%20card.JPG

This postcard depicting Lefty and Japanese HOF manager Shunichi Amachi has a commemorative postmark dated 11/7/51 from Narumi Stadium, where the Seals played that day:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...r%20PC%201.JPG

and I have a really spiffy 1950 tour 8 x 10 bromide of Dom DiMaggio somewhere too.

Great cards Adam! The quality of the images on the JG2s is excellent, but I especially like the O'Doul/DiMaggio card.

Eventually I'll need to decide whether a Goudey O'Doul counts for this project, or whether I'll need to get a Japanese one. (With similar issues about Nomo, Matsui, etc.)

well, when in Rome, er, Tokyo. There are Japanese O'Doul cards so I think you have to go that route. That's free advice and it is worth every dime you pay for it.

Awesome card! Thanks for the offer, though I already have that one. I haven't counted but Oh appears in probably 80 or 90 cards in that set (which is another thing to like about it!) I recently sorted my set and found I had a few Oh doubles if you (or anyone) is interested in a trade!

Adam - those cards are beautiful!

About O'Doul, I only have one Japanese card of his which is from a menko set issued during the Seals 1949 tour of Japan. The art is pretty crudely drawn but as an uncut sheet the set as a whole is kind of visually appealing. They aren't too expensive either:

https://baseballcardsinjapan.blogspo...francisco.html

Is that O'Doul/DiMaggio card supposed to have cut corners?

I have one, but I thought it was trimmed...

Thanks,
Sean

I don’t have much to add but seeing as I’m a big Lefty O’Doul fan, here ya go...

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...767072a6c1.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sachio Kinugasa
 

Kinugasa is most famous for his consecutive games-played streak. He didn't miss a game for 17 years. He began his career (in 1965) at first base, and moved to third in 1975. (Moving up the defensive spectrum is quite unusual.) He spent his entire career with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, retiring in 1987. Amazingly, when he retired his consecutive games-played streak was still intact. He surpassed Gehrig, although Ripken would later pass him. Kinugasa rarely led the league in anything, and didn't make any best-nines until late in his career (since he was usually blocked by Oh or Nagashima). He was, however, often among the league leaders in many offensive categories, and places in the top 10 or so in many career statistics. His style was aggressive; he was a big slugger (504 career home runs) famous for a max-effort style of swing.


Inevitably mentioned in (western) Kinugasa biographies (of which this is one, so here's the mention), Kinugasa's father was an African American service man. He left the family when the future ball-player was young, and he was raised by his mother.


Kinugasa's nickname was 'Ironman'. One would think that the reasoning behind it was obvious, but the ever-reliable Wikipedia claims that it was taken from a manga.


He died less than a month ago.


This is also a Calbee card, although somewhat newer than the Oh posted above. This one is from 1982. Calbee cards tend to be slightly smaller than American cards, but for a while in the 80s they made them very small. This one is Goudey-sized or smaller.

I've only seen them with corners cut. I have no idea, though. Mine was pasted to notebook paper too.

Great card. As a posthumous tribute to him, NHK Japan recently re ran his documentary from the time he was pursuing his ironman streak. Along with Koji Yamamoto he was the mainstay of those great Carp teams.

Ricky Y

Yutaka Ohno
 

Let's continue with the Carp.

Ohno was Kinugasa's teammate for about ten years. He's another lifetime Carp, pitching for them from 1977 (when retired only one batter but gave up five ER) to 1998.

He's got an absurd winning percentage: .597. Just for some perspective, an American team with a .597 winning percentage would end up with a record of 96-66. Pretty good. He was a Sawamura award winner and 10-time all-star. I'm not sure why, but in 1991 the Carp decided that he should be a relief pitcher, and he started striking out everybody and their brother. His K/9 rate jumped from an already-respectable 8.5 to 11.3. In 1995, as a 39 year old, he returned to being a starting pitcher. His career, therefore, has something like the shape of John Smoltz'.


I just noticed, look at that grip. Did Ohno throw a knuckleball?

Also, let's talk about intellectual property for a minute here. I realize that Cincinnati and Hiroshima are a long distance apart, but surely the Reds have a lawyer filing lawsuits any time the Carp try to sell gear or licensed merch over here. Admittedly this doesn't happen much, but I had a Kintetsu Buffalos cap when I was a kid, so I imagine there are some Carp hats out there somewhere.

What about Wally Yonamine the First American / Japanese to be in the Japanese HOF The card is one of his 1951 rookie cards

They might. Trademarks are territorial so its not a problem for the Carp to use the same logo as the Reds in Japan, but if they sell that in the US they would run afoul of Cincinnati's TM. I'm guessing they might have some sort of arrangement worked out to avoid disputes (and also to sell Reds stuff in Japan, where it could be in breach of the Carp's trademark).

A lot of the older teams here have uniforms, etc obviously modelled off of MLB teams (Tigers, Giants, Dragons) but its only the Carp which has the same initial as their US counterpart!

Shigeo Nagashima
 

Lou Gehrig:Babe Ruth || ? :Sadaharu Oh


They were teammates for years, and played for the most successful team in history during it's most successful period in history. Forever linked as a part of the ON-Cannon. Nagashima was a gold-glove third-baseman (and in that was different than Gehrig), who hit 444 home runs and collected close to 2500 hits. He is probably a top-5 player all-time in Japan. Jim Albright ranks him 3rd over all. He was a five-time MVP and a best nine player every season of his career. (So, in context, he was better than Gehrig.) The Giants of the 1960s were just beyond belief.

The place where the Gehrig analogy really breaks down is in their respective roles in the broader culture. Oh was the better player, but not the bigger star. It's worth noting that the #1 (and #2, and #3, and so on) cards in the inaugural Calbee set were all of Nagashima. He is Japan's most beloved baseball player. He played for the Giants from 1958 to 1974, and took over managing the team after his retirement.

The card is from the JCM 54 menko set. It's a 1958 issue, which should make this one of Nagashima's rookie cards. (I don't know if that designation carries any weight or interest in Japan. The Japanese baseball card hobby is much smaller than its American counterpart, and it may have evolved in different ways. Which may be commendable, caring more about a player's first card always seemed a bit odd to me.) I'm a big fan of menko cards, and I think that I like the ones with the solid color backgrounds best of all. They're a bit artistic, sort of like 1949 Leaf (my favorite set). Engel gives this set a rarity designation of R3, indicating that 10 to 99 copies of each card are known. I wonder how he knows that. The back of the card says:

Who am I?
Team: Giants
Position: third
Number: 3
pitch right hit right
Weight 73 kg
Height 1 meter 79
School Ritsudai

I had a friend read it for me, but at this point I've encountered it often enough to know what 巨人 means.

Kimiyasu Kudoh
 

I'm more interested in the older cards, but Kudoh is also a hall of famer, so he gets his moment in the sun (I'm sure he's thrilled by the honor).

Kimiyasu Kudoh was a star pitcher for a bunch of teams from 1982 to 2010. That's right, 29 years. If I lived in Japan, I suspect that he'd be one of my favorite players. I love players who have strange careers, and a 29 year career counts. Kudoh appeared in the Japan Series 14 times, and although he won an MVP award he never won the Sawamura award. He first rose to prominence with the Seibu Lions, leaving in 1994 as a 31 year old. He would return in 2010 to pitch his final season (well, his final six innings) at age 47. I suspect that this was a sentimental, "retire as a Lion" sort of thing. Despite the exceptionally long career, he accumulated only about 3300 innings pitched (fewer than Smoltz pitched, even though Kudoh's career was eight years longer). In part this is due to the shorter Japanese season, and in part to the fact that he spent both the beginning and the end of his career as a reliever. He was a good fielder (and gold glove winner) but a hilariously inept batter. He was 22 for 272 for his career, a .081 batting average. 224-142 W/L record more than makes up for it though.

Funny thing growing up as a kid in Japan, we flipped menko cards all the time with both Japanese kids and American kids (who lived in and around the US military base) and I don't recall Japanese bb players on them at all. Most if not all had cartoon characters on them. Both square and round ones.

Ricky Y

As near as I can tell they stopped making baseball menko cards in the 1960s. If you were growing up after that point there wouldn't have been any. Baseball menko cards were a late-40s to 1960s thing.

Kudoh - he is the second player you listed after Koji Akiyama who went on to be a great manager of the Hawks (he is their current manager and led them to the Japan Series in 2 out of his first 3 seasons).

About menko, that is cool that you have memories of playing with them as a kid Ricky. Most of them don't have baseball players on them, anime characters are much more common to find on them (hence your childhood recollection!)

I might buy some menko for my kids to see if I can get them into them. I have some vintage ones but have never played with them (well, I'm not going to give those to the kids, but you can still buy generic new ones pretty cheap at some shops).

There are menko like cards all across Asia. I have similar boxing cards from Malaysia and the Philippines (where they are called TEKS). Plus Bruce Lee cards from Thailand and China.

Oshita, Wakabayashi, and Aota
 

Three hall of famers in this post.

Starting in the upper left we have Hiroshi Oshita. Oshita played for several teams from 1946 to 1959. The last half of his career he spent with the Nishitetsu Lions. Oshita grew up in Taiwan, but was recruited to play for Meiji University, one of the early powerhouses of Japanese baseball. During the war he attained the rank of second lieutenant, and, according to Wikipedia he trained as a kamikaze pilot. (I have not been able to confirm this report from any other sources, and Wikipedia is not, in general, to be trusted.) Anyway, Oshita quickly became one of Japan’s biggest sluggers. He famously used a bat that was painted blue, although he once went to bat with a stick of bamboo and was fined 100 Yen for it. His 20 home run season in 1946 set a record, although one that would not last long. (He himself nearly doubled that mark just three years later.) He also boasted strong on-base skills, hitting .383 in an abbreviated 1951 campaign. (My guess is that an injury was involved.) Rob Fitts reports that he was something of a bon vivant, with a taste for sake and women. Oshita tried his hand at pitching early in his career, but it didn’t go well. He tried his hand at managing late in his career, and it went worse. (The Flyers posted a 30-46 record before he was relieved of his duties.) His career .490 slugging percentage looks good-but-not-great to American eyes, but one must remember that context is everything. In 1949 he slugged .626 against a league average of .398. By comparison, the American League slugged .414 last year and, except for 2014, hasn’t had a league-wide slugging percentage below .400 since 1992. I would really really really like to find historical context-neutral statistics for Japanese baseball, even if it’s just OPS+ and ERA+. I’d even be happy to calculate them myself, but I haven’t been able to locate park factors, nor the home-vs-road splits that would be necessary to calculate park factors. You can compare a player’s OPS (or whatever stat you want) to the league average (which is available), but given the significance of park effects, this leaves out a lot of information and can be very deceiving. (For example, comparing Todd Helton’s OPS to league average doesn’t tell you much of anything at all.)

Next to Oshita you will see Henry “Bozo” Tadashi Wakabayashi. He pitched from 1936 to 1953, missing 1945 and 1952. He pitched for Hanshin, Osaka, and Mainichi. He’s pitching for Hanshin on this card, as it helpfully has his team name given in English. I don’t think I’ve seen any other Japanese cards this old (or even close to this old) with English on them. The writing is almost always in Kanji. Wakabayashi had a career 1.99 ERA, which is certainly impressive, but, as noted above, context is important. If the league is slugging below .400 it’s easier to post a low ERA. Wakabayashi was born in Hawaii and was one of the first members of the Japanese baseball hall of fame. Okay, he was 16th, but that’s pretty good. Grover Cleveland Alexander was the 16th member of the American hall. In fact, if you’re looking for a fair comparison with an American player, Alexander wouldn’t be your worst choice. Both relatively early pitchers with long and successful careers, although overshadowed by some of their contemporaries. (Matty, in Alexander’s case, Starffin for Wakabayashi.) He was of Japanese descent, and was recruited to play college ball in Japan when one of his teams in Hawaii visited to play the local teams. Incredibly, video of him pitching still exists. He apparently threw sidearm and had a crazy windup.

The third hall of famer on this sheet is Noboru Aota, on the lower left. Aota was an outfielder who played from 1942 to 1959. He hit .355 in an abbreviated debut as a 17 year old with Tokyo. After the war he spent a couple season with Hankyu before spending the bulk of his career with the Giants and the Whales. He was a slugger with a little bit of speed; basically the same kind of player at Oshita. Indeed, there were off-field similarities too. Like Oshita, Aota had a reputation for hard living. He missed time for the war, serving in the Japanese air force, but he did not see combat. At his retirement Aota held the all-time record for home runs (265), although it would be eclipsed just four years later.

The fourth player is Takeshi Doigaki. He’s not in the hall of fame, but he was a standout catcher in the post-war period. When I was a kid I always like cards of catchers – with all their armor they looked like maybe they were part insect, or part baseball-playing robot. Anyway, lots of Doigaki cards show him in his full catcher gear, unfortunately this one has only got him with his glove. Offensively he was somewhat better than average, with a Yogi Berra-like ability to avoid striking out.

These cards are catalogued as JCM 75. They were issued in 1947. Engel calls them Menko cards, although I don’t really believe it. To begin with, they have neither a menko number, nor a rock-paper-scissor symbols. That may not be dispositive evidence, but it’s pretty good. On top of that, these cards are made of very thin stock. Almost a rough paper. It’s hard to imagine these flipping over once they were on the ground, and it’s even harder to imagine that anything would flip over if hit with one of these. I think it’s best to simply think of them as trading cards. The catalogue doesn’t mention the Tarzan back on the Wakabayashi card. I’ve seen two uncut sheets, however, and in both cases Wakabayashi has this back and not a “Base Ball” back, so I suspect that it’s not an unusual variation or anything. I’ve never encountered single cards from this set, only the uncut sheets, which is probably explained by the fact that the cards are very flimsy. Any that were distributed to kids would have been destroyed pretty quickly.

I like the immediately post-war cards. One of the nice things about baseball cards is that they provide a connection to world that can be very different than the one that we live in. For example, Goudey cards were issued during the depths of the great depression. There’s every possibility that the Jimmie Foxx that sits comfortably ensconced in your PSA holder was some kid’s prize possession in 1934; pennies were hard to come by back then. I’m not an historian, and can’t tell you how extensive the war damage was to Japanese industry, but it was pretty extensive. Cards like these might have been the first toys produced after the fighting stopped, and one of the first signs of life getting back to normal.

Makato Kozuru
 

Makoto Kozuru was an OF/1B-type-player who played pro ball from 1942 to 1958. In the early part of his career he changed teams with some frequency. In 1953 he joined Hiroshima and spent the rest of his career there. (Baseball-reference’s bullpen section says that Carp fans took up a collection to raise money to sign him). Kozuru’s case for the hall of fame is obviously one based around peak performance. In 1950 he became the first Japanese player to hit 50 home runs in a season, and his marks in total bases (376), runs (143), and RBI (161) are still Japanese records. By contrast his career totals are rather mediocre (at least, for a hall of famer). Jim Albright ranks him as the 50th greatest player in Japanese history. He was a member of the all-star team that played against the Seals on their 1949 tour through Japan.

This is my first die-cut menko card. The shape is very common for a die-cut card, and I’d always assumed that it was intended to look something like a person. But, on the other hand, I’ve seen military menko with images of battleships and the like in the same shape, so who knows. The set is not catalogued, although it bears obvious similarities to a number of late 40s sets. Fortunately it is possible to date it quite precisely, as Kozuru is wearing a Stars uniform, and 1949 was the only season that he played for them.

Here are a few more some repeats Hiroshi Ohshita Kaoru Betto Wally Yonamine from the 1952 Yamaktasu and Tadashi Wakabayashi

Wow, those are great cards! I love the round glasses that seem to have been super popular in Japan in the 40s and 50s.

I still don't have a Yonamine card. He's really popular (at least by the standards of vintage Japanese players), although I'm not 100% sure why. He was certainly good, but it's not like he's noticeably (or even: any) better than Oshita, or a number of other contemporary players. Is it that he was also a pro football player? That he was American probably helps explain his popularity with Americans, but it's not like he was the first. Wakabayashi, for example, pre-dated him.

My opinion about Wally Yonamine is that his style of playing baseball was made known by Rob Fitts in his book and also being an American along being associated with the 49er's in football

Hiromitsu Ochiai
 

Hiromitsu Ohiai was the best player of the 1980s. He was a fearsome slugger who clobbered 510 home runs on the way to putting up a 311/422/564 slash line. Over 20 years he played for Lotte, Chunichi, Yomiuri, and Nippon Ham. (An aside: I know 'Nippon Ham' is the company's name and 'Fighters' is the team nickname, but it's still my favorite team name.) Ochiai had some truly amazing seasons. In 1985, for instance, he slugged .763. For some perspective, that season would rank 9th all-time in America, sandwiched between Ruth’s 1923 and Hornsby’s 1925. The only Americans to have ever posted a higher slugging percentage are Ruth, Bonds, and Gehrig. (Although, as always, context is important.) He is 12th all-time in Japan in runs scored, and 5th in RBIs. Ochiai is an all-time great.

He was, however, a late bloomer. He dropped out of college and went to play in the industrial leagues, from which he was drafted by the Orions. He was not a regular until age 28, but he caught up after his late start. Ochiai was a 3-time triple crown winner (1982, 85 and 86). Here he is hitting an opposite-field home run.

Beyond his great performances, Ochiai was known for his rejection of traditional Japanese baseball culture. He would skip workouts (which are notoriously rigorous in Japan), refuse coaching help, show up late to warm ups, that sort of thing. This was, apparently, something of a scandal in Japan. I think that Americans would write it off; obnoxious, sure, but we almost expect a star to be a bit of a prima donna.

This card lists him as an “infielder” which is a bit generous. He started his career at second and quickly switched to third. But by 1991 he was a full-time first baseman, and would never again appear at another position. In total he played about 1500 games at 1B and 650 at third.

The card is from the inaugural BBM set, in 1991. By contemporary standards it looks pretty plain, but this set was the first Japanese set to be modeled on American baseball cards, and it kicked off a period of intense innovation (with all of the parallels, inserts, etc., that you find in American cards) in the Japanese card market. YMMV on the merits of these developments. Personally I like the old menko cards the best.

Progress
 

There are many people in the Japanese hall of fame. Most of them were not players. I didn't actually keep track, but a shockingly high percentage of the members of the Japanese hall of fame were executives. The Americans also induct executives, but not nearly to the same extent that the Japanese do. If you were vice president of the Giants for more than couple weeks, you are probably in the hall of fame.

Anyhoo, I went through the list of hall of famers and sorted out those who were not primarily players. Now, the Japanese hall of fame recognizes people for play as amateurs as well as professionals, so there are some members of the hall who were stars in college but who didn't play professionally. There are some early menko issues that feature amateur players, but not many. I've never seen one. There are plenty that feature amateur teams, but that's another matter. If I can get cards of the amateur hall of fame players, that's great, and I'll buy them if I see them (and if they exist), but I'm going to treat them as extra credit. So I sorted out these folks as well. That left 87 hall of famers who are in the hall primarily for their play as professionals. Almost all of these guys played post-war (although many began their careers before the war started). These guys are my targets.


Of those 87 I currently have 22 in hand (as well as several more in the mail from Japan, but I'm not going to count them until they're here). That's a little bit over 25%. I've been at this for a month and a half. Oldest cards are from 1947, and my newest are from 1993. It's nice that Japanese cards are so much less expensive than American ones. I mean, it's true that last month I went way over my regular baseball card budget, but I've still spent more on single American cards than I've spent on 1/4th of the Japanese hall of fame.

My understanding that there are two Japanese Hall of Fames the Meikyukai the Golden Players Club and the Yakyu Dendo the Japanese Hall of Fame

That's right. My focus is on the Yakyu Dendo. A complete list of its members is here. The Meikyukai is only for players. (Here is the membership list.) Membership in the Meikyuaki is determined by whether or not a player has reached certain statistical milestones (ex 2000 hits), provided that they were born between 1926 and 1988. The Yakyu Dendo has its own problems (basically the same ones as the American hall of fame), but the hard in/out line on the basis of these particular milestones doesn't make sense to me. Ted Williams didn't get 3000 hits (the American version of this milestone), but he did have 2600 hits plus 2000 walks.

The exception to the hard in/out line is actually the last guy that I posted: Ochiai. He hit the necessary milestones, but decided that he didn't want to be inducted.

Thank You for explaining the differences between the two Hall of Fames

Tatsuro Hiroka
 

Tatsuro Hiroka played from 1954 to 1966 for the Giants, primarily at short stop. Frankly there's not much to say about this guy. He had a hell of a year as a rookie, but for his career he was offensively just sort of "meh". Given that he's in the hall of fame, I assume that he was a great defensive player, although defensive statistics for Japanese baseball in the 1950s either don't exist or I was unable to find them in a cursory internet search (or both). His one mark of real success for which documentation is available is as a manager. In 1976 Hiroka took over managing the Swallows and in two years they won the Japan Series. After leaving the Swallows he took over managing the Lions with whom he captured three pennants and two championships over four seasons. And then he was fired. Tough line of work. After leaving the Lions he moved into the front office, eventually becoming general manager of the Marines.


In some ways Hiroka reminds me of Dave Concepcion; they were both light-hitting shortstops for powerhouse teams. Of course there are ways in which the two are disanalogous too; Hiroka's career was quite short, and he missed he heart of the Giants' great runs. He won the Japan Series four times as a player (and lost it four other times), so obvious he played for a great team, but he retired just as the O-N Cannon was gearing up for its historic run in the late 60s and early 70s. Concepcion is not in the hall of fame. He has his supporters, but it's hard to imagine him even having an argument for the hall if he had played only 13 seasons. I suspect that Hiroka's induction was something of a life-time achievement award. He was a player on a successful team, he had a successful (if short) managing career, and then he became an executive. I'm not sure that I'd put someone in the hall of fame for that, but it sounds like a pretty good life in baseball.

Hisashi Yamada
 

Hisashi Yamada spent 20 years pitching for the Hankyu Braves, 1969 to 1988. Despite Japan's abbreviated seasons, he recorded very respectable amounts of innings pitched (peaking at 270 in 1971) and a very nice 3865 for his career. Given the sheer volume of his workload, it's no surprise that he had a large number of decisions. In a league where 200 wins is a hall-of-fame-worthy accomplishment, Yamada managed 284 wins. He was not merely a complier, though, Yamada also performed at an incredible level at his peak. He won three consecutive MVP awards. (I wonder if Japan has the same bias against pitchers winning the MVP award as MLB does? If so, this is an even more astonishing accomplishment.) Perhaps his longevity is due, in part, to having an easy submarine motion. You can see him pitching here. You should watch the video, it ends with a dramatic match-up between Yamada and Sadaharu Oh. It's hard to get the velocity expected of professional pitchers when throwing underhand, but if you can manage it it's a great way to relieve stress on your shoulder.

Incidentally, I've always had a soft spot for guys with a delivery like this. Years ago I was a big fan of Jeff Innis, and now I always like seeing Darren O'Day warming up.

The card is from the 1984 Calbee set. It's another one of the under-sized cards that Calbee produced in the 80s. Was there are reason that they made them so small? To package them with smaller bags of chips? Because it's cheaper? One interesting thing (to an American who doesn't know about these things) about this card is that it lists his last name (山田) before his first name (久志). This is, of course, common with Korean names, I didn't know that they do it this way in Japan as well.

Michinori Tsubouchi
 

Michinori Tsubouchi began his career in 1936 - the first year of professional Japanese baseball - and he retired after the 1951 season. In the early years Japan had split seasons - spring and fall. During the split seasons Tsubouchi played for Dai Tokyo and the Tokyo Lions (with whom he remained after they switched to a single baseball seasons each year). He spent the early 1940s playing for Asai, and then played for the Stars and Dragons in the late 40s.

He was a contact hitter and a speedy leadoff-style batter. He struck out just 299 times in his career (in 6301 plate appearances), against 546 walks. While speed was his game, power was not. He had only a single season in which he made it into double-digits in home runs (barely: he hit 10) and hit an average of only two per year. On the surface his offensive statistics appear to be anemic, but early Japanese ball was a very low offense affair. In 1941 (to pick one season from his career at random) the league as a whole had a .201 batting average, a .299 on base percentage, and a .248 slugging percentage.* There were 26000 plate appearances that year, and yet the league managed only 549 doubles, 108 triples, and 100 home runs. In that context Tsubouchi's 237/343/294 line, with 10 doubles, a triple, and two home runs, looks pretty good. He made the first best nine in 1946.

As for this card: I have only a guess as to what it is, and I'm not even sure that it's Tsubouchi. The seller that I bought it from listed it as Tsubouchi, and I've bought plenty of things from him with no problems, so I'm inclined to take his word for it. But I really don't know how he knows who it is. There is no writing on the card at all (besides the number 4 stamped on the back). You can't tell which team the player is on, and his face is hard to make out. Basically all you can tell about him is that he's wearing the number 1. My best guess is that it's a JBR 37 card, from the 1949 "Marusei Home Run Batter" set. Engel says that these cards usually, but not always, have text specifying the team and player. Here's his description of the Tsubouchi card from this set: "RHB, knees up, #1". Not much to go on. I don't know what 'knees up' means, but he is a RHB wearing #1, and it's possible that this is one of the JBR 37 cards without text on it. That's my best guess. If anyone has any better ideas, please let me know. I also might message the seller and ask how he knows that this is Tsubouchi.

*An aside about on-base percentage and slugging percentage: it's very rare for someone to have a slugging percentage lower than their on-base percentage. Since any hit contributes to both, and any extra-base hit contributes a lot more to slugging than to on-base percentage, in order to pull this off you need to be a batter who takes lots of walks but who has no power at all. Brett Butler was the first guy that I thought of, and sure enough he pulled it off a few times, but it's pretty unusual. Tsubouchi's entire league did this. Curious to see if it's ever happened in MLB, I looked through the dead ball years, and found only one season. In 1918 the AL had an OBP of 324 and a SLG of 323. I'm pretty sure that's the only time an entire league in the US has done it. So the 1941 JPBL was like the dead ball era, except much more extreme.

1948 Tetsuara Kawakami and Noboru Aota
 

Thought I’d share a lttle old school round Menko. A two for one HOFer card ! My “collection” is more of a type set, with an occasional complete set, usually of older die cut or round menko. Love the schoolboy drawing illustrations. Color works for me.

This particular disc is from 1948 and is part of the JRM 26 “Pinwheel” set. This disc is 3 1/2 inches in diameter, with all others in the set being 2 3/4. Like most other round menko, the disc is blank backed. The set is fairly common, with between 100 and 249 copies of each player disc assumed to be available.

The Engel Chcklist is invaluable for a guy like me. I am terrible at languages and I rely on the guide to identify a card and player.

P S... how can you have a slugging percentage lower than your on base percentage? Breaking my brain on that one!

My own theory is that there is a parallel to how Topps transitioned from its big size cards to the modern, smaller sized ones in 1957 when it no longer faced competition from Bowman.

In the 70s Calbee had some competition, mainly from Yamakatsu which also produced sets. In 1979 Yamakatsu started making small cards and in 1980 left the market, which freed Calbee from competition (and showed them that small sets were feasible) from 1980 on. It wasn’t until Lotte and BBM entered the market that they went back to bigger card sizes.

Nat,

Concerning the JBR37, my thoughts on trying to specify a card in a bromide set is to first, measure the card. I usually place the card in a semirigid holder to flatten and protect the card. I then measure the card and compare that to the set definitions I am considering. I do not pretend to be an expert but at least the use of research clues provided by the Engle guide is reasonable. Another comment: knees up, to me, may mean the photo shows the player only from knees up.

I suspect the card may be from the JBR 74 or 75 set. Measuring may help define the card as the JBR 37 and 74/75 sets have a slight difference in their sizes.

Wow! This is a spectacular collection interest.

Curious if there are any cards of Victor Starffin?

Starffin (1916-1957) was an ethnic Russian baseball player in Japan and the first professional pitcher in Japan to win three hundred games. With 83 career shutouts, he ranks number one all-time in Japanese professional baseball. In 1960, he became the first player elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

In 1940, as xenophobia increased in Japan, Starffin was forced to change his name to Suda Hiroshi. Later, during World War II, wartime paranoia resulted in Starffin being placed in a detention camp at Karuizawa with diplomats and other foreign residents.

1957, Starffin was killed in a traffic accident when the car he was driving was struck by a tram in Setagaya, Tokyo. The exact circumstances of the incident are debated to this day, with speculation ranging from a simple accident to suicide or drunk driving.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/61/cd...25ba3080b6.jpg

Pinwheels and bromide speculation
 

Thanks Keith. I think the pinwheel menkos are really attractive cards. Some of them are really common, but I've never seen that particular one before. Perhaps the rarity varies within the set. I just bought my first Kawakami card, so I'll have a write-up about him once it arrives from Japan.

Regarding my "Tsubouchi" card. Turns out it is slightly too large to be JBR 37. It measures 2 and 1/8th by 2 and 3/8th inches. That's within the margin of error for JBR 74 (approximately 2 and 3/16ths by 2 and 5/16ths). JBR 75 is listed as approx. 2 1/16th by 2 3/16ths, although I imagine late 40s Japanese baseball card production wasn't exactly a precisions affair.

I guess it could be the JBR 74 "full body" card - but the fact that there's no writing on the back tells pretty strongly against it.

The 75 card description is given as "RHB full body, end of swing, legs crossed", which is fine except that his legs aren't crossed. It also doesn't have any writing on the card (despite the description given for the JBR 75 set), on the other hand the example card that Engel provides also doesn't have any writing on it. So one possibility is an uncatalogued JBR 75 card; and Engel explicitly says that his list is incomplete. He says that he suspects the set has about 500 cards in it, but that he's catalogued only 209. So an uncatalogued JBR 75 card that was cut a little large sounds like a possibility.

And for anyone who is interested, I found a nice quick history of Japanese baseball here.

Kenjiro Tamiya
 

Nice Starffin. Thanks for letting us see that one. I don't have any of his cards yet.

But I do have Kenjiro Tamiya and he's the subject for today's post. He played 15 seasons, from 1949 to 1963, mostly with Osaka. He was a pitcher as a rookie, and a bad one. Surprisingly, it wasn't his terribleness that ended his pitching career, it was a shoulder injury. After that he converted to the outfield, although he still pitched a few innings here and there for the next several seasons. As a batter he had strong on-base skills and moderate power. From his stat line he looks like a "double into the gap" kind of guy, and he was reasonably fast, often among the league leaders in SB. Although he was a 7-time all-star and made five best-nine teams, his career totals are not especially impressive. If I needed an American player to compare him to, I come up with someone like Enos Slaughter, although that's probably not fair to Slaughter, as he missed what would have been some of his best seasons for the war.

The card obviously belongs to one of a bunch of very similar menko sets released in the late 1950s. This one is probably from 1959, but I'm not sure which set it's from. None of the candidate sets has Tamiya paired with 90001 as a menko number. My guess is that this is an uncatalogued card from one of those very similar and (as far as I can tell) very common late 50s sets. It has a back stamp, but I don't know why. Sets that were imported to the US often were stamped on the back, and some sets similar to this one were imported, but I had this card shipped directly from Japan, so that's not it. Sometimes back stamps were part of a contest - if you got a stamped card you would win a premium card. That could be what's going on here, but it's really impossible to know.

Atsuya Furuta
 

Atsuya Furuta was one of Japan's greatest catchers. He was a two-time MVP, a nine-time best-nine, and a 17-time all-star. He played 18 seasons with the Yakult Swallows. Despite the long career, he actually got a relatively late start. He was undrafted out of college, and went to play for Toyota's team instead. He did well enough in the industrial leagues that Yakult drafted him in the second round in 1990. He appeared in 106 games that year. Furuta excelled at every aspect of the game (well, except running, he was a catcher after all), winning a batting title and topping 30 home runs in a season (and more than 200 for his career). He was mentored by the great Katsuya Nomura, about whom more later.

In addition to his work on the field, Furuta was both a manager (indeed, a player-manager) and the head of the Japanese Player's Union. He led a strike against the proposed merging of the Kintetsu Buffalos and the Orix Blue Wave. The merger went through, but the players got the owners to agree to add a new team to the league (and so not eliminate any roster spots). The length of the strike: two days.

The card is from the 1992 BBM set. I don't care for the design: the brown border makes it look like 1987 Topps (one of my least favorite), but it's not even faux wood, it's brown with little bits of text saying 'BBM'. Anyway, this was close to the beginning of Furuta's career, he wouldn't retire until 2007.

Katsuya Nomura
 

Katsuya Nomura is probably Oh's strongest competition for the greatest-of-all-time crown. He was a catcher who played 26 seasons, amassing 2901 hits, 657 home runs, and a 277/357/508 slash line. Did I mention that he was a catcher. I'm pretty sure that those hit and HR totals would be all-time records in America for a catcher. He walked almost as much as he struck out. His career lasted from 1954 to 1980, and was mostly spent with the Nankai Hawks. (Who play in Osaka, on the Pacific coast sort of on the southern half of Honshu.*) Nomura led the Pacific League in HR for eight consecutive seasons. Now, the impression I get is that the Pacific League is the Central's little brother, but eight in a row is damn impressive. Imagine Ralph Kiner, but have him lead the league in HRs another year, then make his career two-and-a-half times longer than it was, and then make him a catcher. That's Nomura.

In addition to all that, he also had a long career as a manager. He took over managing Nankai when he was 35, and managed them until he left the team in 1977 (at age 42). He seems to have been retired through the 1980s, but in 1990 he took over managing duties at Yakult, moving on to Hanshin, and finally managing the Ratuken Golden Eagles until 2009, when he was 74. Nomura has a reputation as a difficult manager, and his teams' winning percentage is just about .500.

*Funny note: I was looking around Google Maps and found that Google will let you review pretty much anything. The island of Honshu, yes the whole thing, has an average review of 3.9/5.

The set is JCM 14g. The JCM 14 sets (there are many variations) get called the "Japanese T206", but I don't think that the nickname is very apt. They're really quite similar to many of the other 1960s menko sets, and don't have the iconic appeal of the T206 set. That's not to knock them, really. They're nice cards, with good color photographs (or at least colorized photographs, I'm not 100% sure).

Regarding the project: I'm 35% of the way there, after picking up six new players today, so I'm running a bit behind on keeping this updated with my progress.

Nice Nomura card!

He is also interesting due to his family - his wife Sachiyo Nomura (who passed away a few months ago) was very famous as an outspoken TV personality in Japan. She actually sunk his career as a manager with Hanshin - he had to resign after she was arrested (and later convicted) for tax evasion in 2001. She is also the mother of the agent Don Nomura who brought Hideo Nomo to the US (though Katsuya Nomura is his stepfather, not his biological father).

A couple Nomura cards for your consideration
 

The first card is from the 1963 JCM 14f collection. It can be tough to figure out what card is from what set, looking for clues like border or no border, color or tint of stock, text or no text on front, location of text, etc. And then there is the back of the cards. I must admit the backs got me interested. Kinda like dealing with the different back combos of the (in)famous T206 set which drove me batty for a few years before I came to my senses and moved on.

The second card is of both Nomura and player number five with his back to Nomura, the runner. I understand the player is Katsuya. But I could easily be wrong about that. From the 1958 Doyusha Team Name Back borderless, catalog JCM30a. Love the color on this card, such a menko thing to do for a card.

Perspective:

In 1963 I was an eleven year old (terrible) little leaguer in San Bernardino, CA. Our field had a fence but zero grass. The field got sprayed once a year with asphalt oil to keep the dust down between the rocks.


I hated playing the infield.

In 1958 I was six playing on a homemade field in an empty lot, El Centro CA. It was toooooooo hot to wear shoes, and worse not to wear them. You could find me out there every day I was not in school.

Isao Harimoto
 

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.

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.

Tsuneo Horiuchi
 

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.

Kazuhiro Sasaki
 

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.

Shigeru Sugishita
 

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.

Kouji Yamamoto
 

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.

Fumio Fujimura
 

Fumio "Mr. Tiger" Fujimura was one of the first stars of Japanese professional baseball. Fujimura was extraordinarily versatile, beginning his career as a pitcher and playing a non-trivial number of games at every position except for SS and C. (And a trivial number of games at SS.) He had been a star pitcher in high school - famously striking out Kawakami three times in three at bats in one game - who led his team to the high school championships several years in a row. (High school baseball is a much bigger deal in Japan than it is in America. The finals of the Koshien tournament draw huge crowds.) He went pro rather than go to college, allegedly despite his own inclinations. Word is that his father signed his contract for him. Anyway, he was pitching for Osaka at 19 in 1936. Originally Japan split it's pro season in two: a spring and fall season. In the fall season of 1936 Fujimura had a slightly better than average ERA (2.54 to 2.84), but was a monster of a hitter, posting an OPS of .878 against a league average of .592. He also led the league in home runs, with two. Over the next several seasons Fujimura gradually transitioned into a position player, although he continued to pitch occasionally, and mostly in a relief capacity. Fujimura's career was interrupted twice for war; he served in the military from 1939 through 1942 (inclusive), and the 1945 season was canceled outright. He pitched 107 innings in 1946, but afterwards he would appear on the mound infrequently.

It was in the post-war period that he found his greatest success. In 1949 he set a single-season HR record (since eclipsed) and the following year set a single-season hits record (again, since eclipsed). As his career was winding down in the late 50s he became a player-manager, and although posting a very good record (he has a career .584 winning percentage as a manager) he resigned in favor of Tadashi Wakabayashi.

In addition to being a great player, Fujimura was a character and a fan favorite. He used an extraordinarily long bat (36 to 38 inches), and did his best to make a show of the game, by, e.g., making pickoff attempts at second base by throwing between his legs.

For a more complete bio of Fujimura (from which this one, in part, borrows), see the one at thehanshintigers.com.

The card is obviously a bromide, but it's not listed in Engel. There are a number of sets with a similar appearance, but it doesn't measure right to fit any of them. Presumably it is from the late 40s or early 50s, which would put it right around the peak of Fujimura's career. The back is blank.

Shinichi Eto
 

Shinichi Eto was a 1B/OF and occasionally a catcher who played for the Dragons, Orions, Whales, and one season with the Lions, from 1959 to 1976. Offensively he was a solid all-around player, eclipsing 2000 hits (by a small amount), hitting 367 home runs, and posting a career line of 287/358/484. His career began in the industrial leagues, but it was only two years before Chunichi drafted him. It was a good choice, he went on to be an 11x all-star, a 6x best-nine, and a 3x batting champion. Albright ranks him as the third-greatest player of the 1960s (after Oh and Nagashima), and regards him as tied for the 27th greatest player of all-time.

Eto was, in some ways, a difficult person. His departure from the Dragons was a result of a dispute with his manager, Shigeru Mizuhara. After their run-in Eto retired (I guess out of spite) but changed his mind during the off-season. The Dragons, however, decided that their star was more trouble than he was worth, and traded him to the Lotte Orions. After he retired (for the second time) Eto ran a youth baseball academy, struggled with alcoholism, and died of liver cancer at the age of 70.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the card is from the JCM 13c set. It's a pretty ordinary 1960s menko set. This card, however, is a good excuse for a little rumination on my part, so please bear with me. Grading, for better or for worse (okay: for worse) has a place in our Hobby. I wouldn't buy a 52 Mantle or a Goudey Ruth unless it was in a holder. But I'd like to be clear that I did not send this card in for grading; it, like all of my graded cards, was bought that way. Now, grading menko cards is preposterous for reasons that extend even beyond the ordinary problems with grading cards. This card was originally cut with scissors; whether in the factory, by a sales clerk, or by a little kid, I don't know, but menko cards are all hand cut. And there is simply no chance that a card which was cut with scissors half a century ago (and which subsequently found its way over the Pacific Ocean) has those edges. It's obvious that what happened here is that someone found a 1963 JCM 13c card of a hall of famer with wide borders, and took an exact-o knife and a T-square to it with the intention of submitting it for grading, in order to get a high grade and thus increase its value. (Didn't work: I paid less than $10 for this card.) I like baseball card collecting as a hobby, but I dislike everything about it that makes it a Hobby. And although it certainly looks nicer than it must have when it had wide borders and ragged edges, I like this card a lot less than I would have had I owned it in its original state. Every time I look at it I think that someone who was looking for a quick buck mutilated this card. I've even thought about cracking it out of it's case and scuffing up those perfect corners, but that wouldn't help any, I'd just remember that I was the one who had done that. So in its plastic tomb it stays. Most of my cards are in binders, but my handful of graded cards are on display (since they won't fit in binders). Having a Japanese card on display makes for a nice conversation piece. Now, anyone who is likely to be a guest at my house is already aware that I'm a dork, but this card will confirm for them that I'm at least a cosmopolitan dork.

I agree about the photography, its way different from what Topps used but I much prefer it to the spring training posed shots that dominated in the 70s.

The weirdest one from that 75-76 Calbee set is probably Oda Yoshihito's card, which has him standing in a line of 6 other players and would be impossible to tell which one he is without the card saying "Third Guy from the Right" under his name:

http://baseballcardsinjapan.blogspot...from-left.html

Another interesting thing is that in the 1988 Calbee set there are several cards on which the picture is literally just a picture staff took of a game being played on TV. They didn't have photos of a few players and were in too much of a hurry so they just pointed the camera at the TV screen and used what they got from that on the cards. The Bill Gullickson card is one of them and the image is so blurry its insane:

http://baseballcardsinjapan.blogspot...kson-with.html

I am in 100% agreement with you on graded cards. One thing I do like about the Japanese hobby is that almost nobody here gets their cards graded, as evidenced by the sparse populations of graded cards from the classic sets on PSA.

Another reason it makes so little sense with regard to Menko is that those cards were specifically designed to be damaged by kids throwing them at the ground!

So the menko cards were all hand cut?

The very few I have were bought all together as a flea market lot, and they all seemed factory cut to me. I wouldn't have even thought they were cut by hand.

"So the menko cards were all hand cut?"

As far as I know, yes, they are, but I'm certainly open to being corrected on this point. (Sean?) All of mine are hand cut (I assume that's what 'H/C' refers to on the Eto flip); and uncut strips and sheets are pretty common. Now, all of the menko cards that I've seen are from the 60s or before, maybe they started factory cutting newer ones? (Not that they made many baseball menkos after the 1960s.)

Sean: I took a look at your blog links. So they literally took stills from TV broadcasts. :eek: That's really amazing. And they'd been at this for 15 years at that point, you think that they would have a regular source for photos lined up by then.

No new cards for today, but what I do have is a map with the location of each of the current Japanese teams marked on it. Central League teams are at the top, Pacific League teams below. I hope that the color coding is clear enough. There are some exceptions here*, for instance, the Fighters occasionally play "home" games in Tokyo. In fact, you'll notice that a LOT of teams call the greater Tokyo metro area home. Which, I suppose, makes sense given the population density. Japan has 127 million people (so, a bit under half of the US population) squeezed into 145 thousand square miles (roughly the size of Montana, a bit smaller than California). AND, the middle of the county is full of mountains. That makes for a lot of people all in the same place.

*The Buffaloes have two home fields. They're close together, but I've marked them both.

Yeah, it’s pretty crazy that they went so far as using TV screen shots. You could almost make a hobby solely out of cataloging odd photo choices by Calbee!

About the Menko, I have come across more recent (1980s) ones that were factory cut, but I am pretty sure most or all of the vintage stuff pre 70s were sold as sheets and then cut by hand. I can’t say for sure that all were as there might have been the occasional exception, but that was definitely the standard practice.

Morimichi Takagi
 

Morimichi Takagi had a 21 year career playing for the Dragons. He was a second baseman with some power and some speed, but no on-base skills. Takagi started out as a lead-off type hitter, stealing 50 bases as a 21 year old in 1963, but over time his speed dropped off and power developed. (This is pretty normal as players age.) But he never did develop a lot of power, topping 20 HRs in a season only twice. Seven times he was selected for the best-nine, which is a record (shared with Chiba, more on him in a future post) for second basemen.

After retiring he managed the Dragons on-and-off, posting a total winning percentage of .524, and retiring for (I assume) the last time in 2013.

Here is some video of Takagi. It's been ages since I took Japanese, so I don't know what they're saying (beyond the occasional 'so desu ne', which is a kind of positive-but-non-committal thing you can say), but the Dragons player wearing #1 is Takagi. (The caption underneath the video says that it's about Takagi and somebody else.)

The card is an uncatalogued menko. It has the same size and shape as the "pillar" menkos that were popular in the late 1940s, but this card is obviously much newer than that. (Not least because Takagi didn't start playing until 1960.) The guy I bought it from thinks it's from the 60s; I suppose that's a good guess, if for no other reason than not many baseball menko sets were made in the 1970s.