Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

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

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

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

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

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

[nat]

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.

[nat]

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.

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by nat

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 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!

[steve B]

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.

[nat]

"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. 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.

[seanofjapan]

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.

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by nat

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.

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