Osamu Mihara
Mihara was a notable (indeed, hall of fame) manager in the post-war period. He holds the record for most games managed, and was nicknamed ‘Sorcerer.’ I’ve written about that part of his career
elsewhere. Today, I’ve got a pre-war Mihara card to share.
He was the first player to sign a contract with Yomiuri, upon their formation in 1934. Contrary to my expectations, however, this does not make him Japan’s first professional player. There was a short-lived professional team run by Hankyu in the 1920s, originally conceived as a way to encourage railway ridership (they figured folks would take the train to see a ball game). Hankyu’s team played local college teams and the like, but no one else started a professional team, and they folded in short order.
Unlike most American players of the time, Mihara grew up wealthy. His father had plans for him to get a high-ranking position in the government, but he enrolled at Waseda, was recruited for their storied baseball team, and that was that. And things with dad must have gotten even messier after that. Japanese colleges at the time did not approve of married students, but Mihara couldn’t wait, so he dropped out of college, tied the knot, and moved back home.
In college he played second base. After going pro he was an infielder, often at second, sometimes at third. Unfortunately, he had a parallel career, which would often get in the way of baseball: the military. He missed time in 1935, and again in 1937, when he was wounded fighting in China.
As with his college career, Mihara’s professional career came to an untimely end. Near as I can tell, his manager was trying to protest a call, and he chased after him trying to get him to stop, and was subsequently suspended for insubordination (and maybe for threatening the manager with a bat? the story isn’t so clear); he wasn’t one to take this lightly, and so retired from the team out of spite. Not that it mattered much: he was more-or-less immediately called up to fight in Burma. American players mostly got non-dangerous jobs, I imagine that the government didn't want the bad PR that would come with getting famous ball players killed. Japan was not so generous with their athletes, lots of them saw battle, and not a few were killed. Mihara, however, made it through. After returning from the war, he got a job with a newspaper.
Evidently he was remembered fondly in baseball circles (maybe the bat incident blew over by then) because the Giants hired him to manage the team starting in 1947.
Mihara’s tenure with the Giants was short, and ended in controversy. Giants management wanted to hire Shigeru Mizuhara, who had been Mihara’s rival since their school days, and there was an ensuring power struggle. Mizuhara won, and had Mihara promoted out of his way. Mihara became a vice president, with, apparently, no portfolio. Japanese Wikipedia (my source for most of this post) remarks that he spent his days playing Go and being very bored.
Fleeing Yomiuri, he took a job as a field manager for the Lions, and quickly built a powerhouse of a team. Since I’ve written about his managerial career before, I’ll skip over the remainder of it.
This card is from the JBR 71 set, issued in 1932. It originally came as an insert in the February 1932 issue of Yakyukai Magazine. The cards are fairly large – roughly postcard size – but thin (they are bromides after all). There are only three cards in the set. It was issued during Mihara’s college days, hence the ‘W’ on his cap. He’s playing for Waseda here.