Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

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.