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Old 11-09-2018, 10:15 PM
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Default Lefty O'Doul

Lefty O’Doul needs no introduction on a website dedicated to pre-war baseball cards. You folks know who this guy is, so I’ll keep this entry short and sweet.

In many ways O’Doul was a baseball renaissance man. He pitched for the Yankees, won batting titles for the (New York) Giants, managed the San Francisco Seals for twenty years, taught or mentored Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and others, was good friends with Joe DiMaggio, served as a baseball instructor at the Big Six universities in Japan, led numerous baseball tours of Japan and the far East, scouted Wally Yonamine for the (Yomiuri) Giants, supervised the construction of the (Yomiuri) Giants’ stadium, and founded an iconic bar/restaurant in San Francisco. Many times I’ve heard people complain that Lefty doesn’t have a plaque in Cooperstown. But the part with the bronze on the wall is actually a pretty small part of the hall of fame; and while he didn’t have the kind of career that the (American) hall of fame tends to honor (he is, of course, in the Japanese hall), he absolutely had the kind of career (and life) that the museum it’s attached to likes to feature. It’s been 20 years since I visited the hall of fame, but I can only hope and assume that they have an exhibit on Lefty.

The tours of Japan started in the early 1930s, and continued regularly until they suffered a geopolitical interruption. O’Doul is said to have taken the attack on Pearl Harbor as a “personal affront”. Nevertheless, he returned to Japan after the war and continued his involvement with Japanese baseball into the 1950s.

He was instrumental in founding professional baseball in Japan. It was with in consultation with O’Doul that the original professional teams (and, in particular, the Giants, who are named in honor of O’Doul’s old MLB team) were founded. I think it would be fair to say that O’Doul is the patron saint of Japanese baseball. His American counterpart (if you will) would be someone like Harry Wright, although I get the impression that O’Doul is (or was) adored or revered in a way that Wright was not.

I’m going to leave it with that. There are many more resources, all over the internet, giving details of the various tours. They’re comprehensive enough, and easy enough to find, that I don’t think I can do anything to add to them.

Here’s a promotional video that the PCL shot in 1946. They’ve got Lefty taking some swings at around 2:40.

I've (mostly) restricted this project to people who were great Japanese players, but I couldn't resist including O'Doul. My card is from the JRM 7 set, issued in 1949 in conjunction with a tour of Japan by the San Francisco Seals. And here are a bunch of other cards, curtesy of our own members.
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File Type: jpg odoul2.jpg (75.5 KB, 247 views)
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