Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Masaaki Koyama was a great pitcher from 1953 to 1973. The first half of his career was spent with the Tigers, the second half with the Orions. The change in teams was the result of a blockbuster trade, he was dealt for Hirokazu Yamauchi, one of Japan’s great sluggers. He was a workhorse, throwing 4899 innings and winning 320 games. Both are extremely high totals for Japan. For his career he also posted a 2.45 ERA. The IP and win totals are 3rd all-time, as are his 3159 strike outs. He was an eleven-time all-star, and won the 1962 Sawamura Award.

Although he managed to get to the pros at 18, his career didn’t start exactly as planned. He was a walk-on at a tryout for the Whales, but didn’t make the team.

The teams that he played on weren’t bad exactly, he did make it to the Japan Series three times. But he lost each time. Perhaps the lack of post-season success might explain why he doesn’t have the same kind of standing that a guy like Victor Starfin has got? But then again, Starfin doesn’t have a near-Earth asteroid named after him, does he?

Albright ranks him as the 9th best pitcher in Japanese history, and compares him to a bunch of American hall of famers. One of whom is Robin Roberts, which presents an interesting comparison. They were both durable and dominant. In context, though, I think that Koyama was the greater pitcher.

And yet for some reason it took until 2001 to get him elected to the Hall. This baffles me. Koyama is obviously one of the greatest Japanese pitchers to have ever lived, why the delay? The American Hall of Fame has committed many (many many) errors of commission: Jim Bottomley, Highpockets Kelley, Jim Rice, Maz, and on and on and on. The Japanese Hall of Fame hasn’t done as much of that, but their errors of omission are equally striking. How can it take 28 years to get Koyama elected? How is Doi not in yet? These guys aren’t marginal figures, they’re obviously all-time greats. Not electing Doi is like not electing Frank Robinson. Waiting a quarter of a century to elect Koyama is like telling Christy Matthewson that you need a little more time to think about his case. /editorial

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I'll use this card as an excuse for a quick kanji lesson, since I've picked up a little bit of it after staring at hundreds of Japanese baseball cards for the past few months. The symbols:

投手

mean "pitcher". The latter symbols translates as "hand" (according to Google), but it usually (or always?) turns up in specifications of a player's position. If you're looking at a card and trying to figure out what the kanji means, the bit with that symbol in it probably tells you his position.

My card is a menko from the JCM 43a set. It’s a 1957 issue (so Koyama is still on the Tigers). Many sets very similar to this one were issued over a number of years, and it can be hard to pin down which set a particular card belongs to, but I think that I’ve got this one. I don't know what the back stamp means.