Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

I thought I was done.

In fact, I was pretty sure that I was done.

And now I'm pretty sure that I'm not.

Mutsuo Minagawa was the last player on my list.

Here's the card that I tracked down. It's of someone named 'Minagawa', so there's that. Now, vintage Japanese cards usually (always?) omit first names, so sometimes figuring out who you've got requires a little detective work, but it's often sufficient to figure out which team the guy is playing for. Mutsuo Minagawa spent his entire career with Nankai. There were only two Minagawas active during the period in which bromides were issued. The top line of kanji on this card says "Tokyo vs. Nankai". So I thought "great! I've got him!" And proceeded to buy the card. On top of it, I was excited because it's a really great action shot. Minagawa is sliding into home plate just ahead of the catcher's tag.

I realized yesterday that the other Minagawa played for the Flyers. The TOKYO Flyers.

Mutsuo was active 1954 to 1971. Sadayuki Minagawa played 1937 to 1951. While it's possible for a player to appear on a bromide in the mid 1950s, they were much more popular in the late 40 - early 50s era. And Mutsuo played sparingly his first two seasons. 1956 was his first really full-time season. So the years that they were active makes it more likely that this is a Sadayuki Minagawa card.

Comparing pictures of the guys, it also looks more like Sadayuki than like Mutsuo. I'm terrible with faces so I asked my wife, and she confirmed.

The only letter on his jersey that's clearly visible is an 'S', which doesn't help much. The one next to it you can sort-of see. It's not clear, and it could go either way, but it seems more likely to be an 'R' than a 'K'.

In short, this is probably a card of Sadayuki Minagawa, not Mutsuo Minagawa. It turns out that my yakyu dendo collection is not finished.

Rats.

And so, here's a quick summary of Sadayuki Minagawa's career. He was a shortstop who went pro shortly after the first professional league was founded. Considering that he was 17 as a rookie, I'm guessing he didn't have the option of signing up any earlier than he did. The Tigers were his first team, from 1937 to 1941. After that there was a long interruption in his career. Considering that he was a 21 year old athlete, I'm guessing some time in the military was involved. In 1948 he returned to baseball, joining the Flyers, for whom he played for the rest of his career. He retired from the Flyers after the 1952 season. For a while during the 1948 season he was a player-manager, and they had a good record while he was managing, but the team finished in 5th place and he never got another shot at it.

As a batter, I would characterize him as "extremely bad". Even by the extraordinarily low standards of the day, Sadayuki couldn't hit a lick. Presumably he was a good glove man, but I don't have fielding statistics from Japan in the 1940s, so I'm just going to assume that he couldn't keep his job as long as he did if he couldn't field. It sure wasn't the career 204/303/264 batting line that kept him employed. That on base percentage was okay given his context, but even in the JPBL and JPPL of the 40s and 50s, a .264 slugging percentage wasn't going to cut it.

Meikyukai - No : Hall of Fame: No

The card is an uncatalogued bromide. It's printed on thin stock with a glossy finish.

I'm at 98% on my project. If anybody's got a lead on a Mutsuo Minagawa card, let me know.