Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Covered this guy already. Furuta is, for my money, Japan's second-greatest catcher. Trailing only his mentor, Katsuya Nomura. B-R says that he was voted (doesn't say by whom) the greatest catcher in Japanese history, which is absurd. But he was really good.

He qualified for the Meikyukai with his 2000th hit in 2005.

He was due to be drafted out of college (he was a business major) by Nippon Ham, but they backed out. Maybe because of his eyesight. Instead he began his pro career playing for Toyota in the industrial leagues, and was later drafted by Yakult. At Toyota he worked in human resources, with whom he planned "in-house recreation" for the company. (I'm guessing this means company picnics and such that HR thinks that employees like?)

Anyway, Furuta posts pictures of food on his Instagram account just like everyone else does. Among his hobbies he lists shogi (a board game), golf, and watching movies. His favorite band is U2. (Which, eh, at least War was a good album.)

Post retirement he has taken up marathon running, written a book, and made lots and lots of TV appearances.

Meikyukai: Yes - Hall of Fame: Yes

Perhaps it's excessive to buy a second card of a player just because he's in both the Meikyukai and the Yakyu Dendo. And clearly I don't spend enough money on baseball cards already. But anyways, I decided that a player doesn't count for the Meikyukai collection just because he's in the Yakyu Dendo collection. (They are in different binders after all.) So I've got more cards to post today.

The cards: 1993 BBM. I love the big stripes on the uniform. It almost looks like pajamas. The other is another 1999 Calbee prize card.

[Jayworld]

Originally Posted by nat

Covered this guy already. Furuta is, for my money, Japan's second-greatest catcher. Trailing only his mentor, Katsuya Nomura. B-R says that he was voted (doesn't say by whom) the greatest catcher in Japanese history, which is absurd. But he was really good.

He qualified for the Meikyukai with his 2000th hit in 2005.

He was due to be drafted out of college (he was a business major) by Nippon Ham, but they backed out. Maybe because of his eyesight. Instead he began his pro career playing for Toyota in the industrial leagues, and was later drafted by Yakult. At Toyota he worked in human resources, with whom he planned "in-house recreation" for the company. (I'm guessing this means company picnics and such that HR thinks that employees like?)

Anyway, Furuta posts pictures of food on his Instagram account just like everyone else does. Among his hobbies he lists shogi (a board game), golf, and watching movies. His favorite band is U2. (Which, eh, at least War was a good album.)

Post retirement he has taken up marathon running, written a book, and made lots and lots of TV appearances.

Meikyukai: Yes - Hall of Fame: Yes

Perhaps it's excessive to buy a second card of a player just because he's in both the Meikyukai and the Yakyu Dendo. And clearly I don't spend enough money on baseball cards already. But anyways, I decided that a player doesn't count for the Meikyukai collection just because he's in the Yakyu Dendo collection. (They are in different binders after all.) So I've got more cards to post today.

The cards: 1993 BBM. I love the big stripes on the uniform. It almost looks like pajamas. The other is another 1999 Calbee prize card.

Really enjoying the thread, Nat. Probably my favorite thread here at Net54. Also appreciated this one for two reasons: (1) Furuta is one of my favorite Nippon League players, and I do have several of his cards over the years, and (2) The Yakult Swallows are my favorite team. Why? Well, although I've collected Japanese cards since 1980, I've only been collecting them "hot and heavy" since 2013, and I realized to better appreciate Japanese baseball I needed to pick a "favorite" team and start following them, so I picked the Swallows because of Furuta and because of their excellent uniforms from about 1978 - mid 1990s (now, not so much with the lime green road unis). They remind me a lot of the Atlanta Braves unis worn from 1976-79. Keep up the great posts! (By the way, I wonder how many Net54 members are Japanese baseball card collectors? 6? 7?)

[nat]

Glad you enjoy the thread Jay! It never occurred to me to pick a favorite team, but that does seem like a great way to learn more about the game over there. One reason (besides getting bored waiting for the HOFers that I still need) that I decided to chase the Meikyukai too is that it's an excuse to learn about modern Japanese baseball. I could tell you a lot more about Japanese baseball from the 1950s than I could about it from the 2010s, reading up on some of the active players who are Meikyukai members should help with that. Not the same as actually following a team, but it's a start. Let's see your favorite Swallows card, if you've got a scan handy! They've had some pretty good players over the years; aside from Oh, Kaneda may have had the most impressive career of any NPBL player.

It's true that Japanese baseball is a niche interest on Net54, but I don't know of anywhere better to put these posts. At least the folks here are guaranteed to be interested in baseball cards. And besides, even if the number of active collectors is relatively small, somebody is interested, this thread has got plenty of views.

Also: it's time for another card.

Here's another guy that I've written about before. Manabu Kitabeppu was a star pitcher for the Hiroshima Carp for many years, although a very inconsistent one. Some years he was great, others, not so much. He qualified for the Meikyukai with his 200th win in 1992.

I don't have much to add to what I wrote before, so I'm going to leave you with a few fun Kitabeppu-related links.

He has his own website. He's got a Facebook page. And he has his own blog. All of foregoing are in Japanese, so English monolinguists (or at least non-Japanese speakers) will want to run them through the translator in Chrome or something similar. (Which will give you something that looks a little bit like English. They've still got a ways to go on the computer translators.) Post retirement, Kitabeppu spent a while as a pitching coach, and has been a media personality since c. 2005. He also grows vegetables and posts about it on his blog.

Meikyukai: Yes - Hall of Fame: Yes

The card is a part of the "Gold Card" subset from BBM's 1993 issue. (Or maybe 92? It's says 1992 on the front but has a 1993 copyright date.) Apparently this particular subset has no premium attached to it, since I picked up this card for a dollar or two. I'm not really a fan of subsets (old school all-star cards excepted), but that probably just shows that I'm getting to be an old stick in the mud.

[nat]

Takahiro Arai was a 3B/1B who played for Hiroshima, Hanshin, and then back to Hiroshima, from 1999 through 2018. He had one year (2005) in which he displayed some terrific power, but was mostly more like an above-average power threat. In total he had 321 home runs and 388 doubles, which should give you the right idea. For his career he had a .339 on-base percentage, which was right around average. And he had no speed to speak of: 22 career triples, 43 steals at a very poor rate. You know this sort of player. I’m guessing the Carp used him as a cleanup hitter, as he cleared 100 RBIs a few times, despite the relatively short season. Arai was often in the top ten in offensive categories, but rarely led in anything.

He was 30 and still good when he went to Hanshin as a free agent. His return to Hiroshima followed his age 37 season, which was catastrophically bad. Ordinarily you’d think that a 37 year old’s career would be over after a season like that, but Hiroshima took him back, and while the age definitely showed, he had another year or two of productively (and a little while just hanging on) left in him. Arai qualified for the Meikyukai in 2016 as a 39 year old. He was a local boy, maybe he was a fan favorite which gave them some extra reason to bring him back. Arai was born in Hiroshima and went to high school there; although admittedly he left for college (Komazawa University in Tokyo, which, according to its website, was founded in 1592. Not Oxford old, but that’s pretty impressive).

Apparently he wasn’t much of a prospect. As a college player he managed only two home runs, and the Carp didn’t select him until the sixth round. (I don’t know how many rounds there are in the Japanese draft, but given the small number of minor league teams, I’m guessing “not very many”.) Among players who managed 2000 hits, Arai was drafted in the second-lowest spot in the draft (Yutaka Fukumoto). (Hat tip to the B-R bullpen for a lot of this information.)

In 2008 he took over as head of the Japanese player’s union. A position that, a few years earlier, had been held by Atsuya Furuta (for more on whom, see above). The union is rather weak (much weaker than the American counterpart), but they do have some victories, most notably when the owners tried to contract a team.

Although he is a pretty stand type of player, I’m having trouble finding a close American match. My first thought was Matt Williams, and while there are some similarities, power was a bigger part of Williams’ game. Ditto Scott Rolen. Gary Gaetti is a tempting name to throw out there, but Arai was just a better all-around player than he was.

Arai was a 2x best-nine player and a 1x MVP. He took home the MVP award in 2016 when the Carp won the pennant. Even ignoring Japan’s tendency to give the MVP to a player on the championship team (something the Americans are also guilty of, but not to the same extent), this was an absurd choice. Pick an MVP from the stat lines below (AVG/OBP/SLB, SB, position):

335/404/612, 16, OF
291/389/481, 23, OF
300/372/485, 0, 1B

The last one is Arai, and he’s the one they gave the MVP award to. The other two are Seiya Suzuki and Yoshihiro Maru, outfielders for the Carp. He was the third-best position player on his own team. And Kris Johnson had a heck of a season on the mound, too.

Digression time: I know that this is a post about Arai, but I want to talk about Seiya Suzuki for a minute. He was 21 when the Carp won the pennant in 2016 and was the best player on the team after being a part-timer since he was 18. He followed up that performance with a 300/389/547 line in 2017, 321/439/625 in 2018, and so far this year he’s hitting 313/438/572. The Carp seem to have got their own Mike Trout. I have a feeling that I’ll be writing about him in a few years.

Arai is either unpopular, or has a bunch of friends who really like to mess with him. During one interview fellow star Kanemoto walked in, asked him why there are so few reporters talking to him (compared to an interview that he, Kanemoto, had given earlier), left, and then returned with photographers, explaining to them that Arai is a star and that they should take pictures of him. Later on, Arai was answering questions on a radio show, including questions about which team he liked playing for the most, and why he tends to drop easy fly balls. Turns out Kanemoto called in with the questions. And it’s not just Kanemoto. When it was announced that Arai was retiring, Kenta Maeda (another former teammate) appeared in television with a shirt that had a picture of Arai on it, along with his career totals in strikeouts, errors, and double plays.

But anyway, interviewed in 2011 (while he was on the Tigers), Arai was asked about his goals for the season. His response was, I think, just right: “I’d like to win a championship and spray beer all over the place.”

Meikyukai: Yes - Hall of Fame: No

The card is from the 2013 BBM “Crosswind” subset. They do a cross-something subset pretty frequently.

[nat]

Kenjiro Nomura was Hiroshima’s shortstop from 1989 to 2005. As a young man he had good power, good speed, a healthy OBP, and played pretty much every day. Sort of Alan-Trammell-like. Age 31 was his last really good year, after that he missed lots of time every season for the rest of his career, retiring after his age 38 season. Nomura’s best season was 1995, in which he hit 32 home runs (double the figure that is his career high otherwise), stole 30 bases (three off his career high), and slashed 315/380/560. While playing shortstop. The HR total was second in the league, as was his batting average, and he was third in slugging percentage. In total he was an all-star eight times and was selected to three best-nines. Albright regards him as Japan’s 9th greatest shortstop.

Nomura really wasn’t a good player in his 30s, he lost his SS job to Eddy Diaz and age quickly caught up with him. But he did hang on long enough to qualify for the Meikyukai with his 2000th hit in 2005. Replacing Nomura was kind of weird. He went downhill quickly, but he was still a star when he lost his job. Diaz was not immediately an improvement. He had two iffy seasons, one season that matched Nomura’s 1995, one decent season, and then he was off to Korea.

After retiring he coached the Carp and spent five seasons managing them. Traditionally the Carp have been a second-division team, but under Nomura they managed to improve pretty steadily. Nevertheless, his tenure was for only those five years. As of 2016 he was a member of the Kansas City Royals’ baseball-ops team in Japan. I presume that means scouting. And in 2017 he enrolled in the Hiroshima University’s MA program in “Coaching Science and Sports Psychology”, saying something about how he expects it to be useful in his second career. Which makes it sound like he wants to get back into managing.

Meikyukai: yes - Hall of Fame: no

My card is from the 1994 BBM set. Over time (probably due to hanging out on a pre-war baseball card message board) I have developed a casual distaste for standard, post 1956 American-style baseball cards. And that means BBM cards. That said, the design on their 1994 offering is pretty nice. If we should have learned anything from 1953 Bowman, it’s that less (usually-I’ll admit to a certain affection for Delongs) is more on baseball cards. And, except for the logo, the 1994 BBM set is nice and clean.

[nat]

My policy is that I get a copy of a player's card for each collection that he's a part of. Hall of fame collection =/= meikyukai collection, so I need a second card for each player who is a member of both.

Hence today's post.

Masaji Hiramatsu was a great pitcher for the Whales. I said rather more about him in the piece just linked than I will say here.

Hiramatsu was elected to the hall of fame by the experts committee - which has jurisdiction over players who have been retired for at least 21 years. Sounds a lot like the Veteran's Committee here. There is also a player's committee, which is basically a guy's first shot at election, and special committees that elect umpires, guys who published baseball's rule book (I'm not kidding, check out Mirei Suzuki), and so on.

Japanese starters have always pitched more in relief than American starters do, but here's a fun fact about Hiramatsu: he has almost exactly the same number of complete games as games finished. 145/146, respectively.

One thing that I find curious about Japanese baseball is how seriously they take the Koshien tournament. It's the high school baseball championship, and it's a huge deal. This comes to mind at the moment because Hiramatsu's team won the tournament, and whenever someone is writing about him that fact always gets mentioned right next to the fact that he won the Sawamura Award, which, to an American mind, would seem to be a much bigger deal.

Meikyukai: Yes - Hall of fame: Yes

Round menkos are best known for dominating the early post-war menko scene. Basically, menko cards from the late 1940s to early 1950s are either round or relatively narrow pillars. There are many sets of each, but the round sets tend, in my observation, to be more common. Round menko cards (of baseball players at least) then disappeared for a couple decades. There was a sort of mini-revival in the 1970s. This card is from the JRM 10 set, issued in 1976. It's a common and inexpensive set (I paid more for shipping on this card than I did for the card itself).

[NVPackFan]

Hello and thank you for your posts. Very educational as I'm just now starting to learn about vintage Japanese cards. I have some questions though that I can't seem to find answers to so thought maybe you all can help.

First, can you explain the "JCM..." set name system? it appears that there are the same numbers but for different years. Then, when I look on eBay, I see these two cards of Sadaharu Oh listed that look virtually identical but one is "JCM12e" but the other one is "JCM12b." I honestly can't see what the difference is but can you tell me how they differ?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

-Damon

[Rickyy]

Originally Posted by nat

My policy is that I get a copy of a player's card for each collection that he's a part of. Hall of fame collection =/= meikyukai collection, so I need a second card for each player who is a member of both.

Hence today's post.

Masaji Hiramatsu was a great pitcher for the Whales. I said rather more about him in the piece just linked than I will say here.

Hiramatsu was elected to the hall of fame by the experts committee - which has jurisdiction over players who have been retired for at least 21 years. Sounds a lot like the Veteran's Committee here. There is also a player's committee, which is basically a guy's first shot at election, and special committees that elect umpires, guys who published baseball's rule book (I'm not kidding, check out Mirei Suzuki), and so on.

Japanese starters have always pitched more in relief than American starters do, but here's a fun fact about Hiramatsu: he has almost exactly the same number of complete games as games finished. 145/146, respectively.

One thing that I find curious about Japanese baseball is how seriously they take the Koshien tournament. It's the high school baseball championship, and it's a huge deal. This comes to mind at the moment because Hiramatsu's team won the tournament, and whenever someone is writing about him that fact always gets mentioned right next to the fact that he won the Sawamura Award, which, to an American mind, would seem to be a much bigger deal.

Meikyukai: Yes - Hall of fame: Yes

Round menkos are best known for dominating the early post-war menko scene. Basically, menko cards from the late 1940s to early 1950s are either round or relatively narrow pillars. There are many sets of each, but the round sets tend, in my observation, to be more common. Round menko cards (of baseball players at least) then disappeared for a couple decades. There was a sort of mini-revival in the 1970s. This card is from the JRM 10 set, issued in 1976. It's a common and inexpensive set (I paid more for shipping on this card than I did for the card itself).

I saw him pitch against the Giants when I lived as a kid in Japan. Famous as you mentioned in the original link.... shuuto pitch. It was often called Kamisori shhuto (like Japanese razor blade).

Ricky Y