Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Here is my other recent pick up. It’s another postcard. The image is obviously generic, so no hall of famers here. The person that I bought it from thinks that it was originally included in a magazine. And it does appear to be perforated along one side. The printed text along the bottom says that it is a “secondary education postcard”, for whatever that’s worth. I haven’t found anyone who has been able to read the handwriting.

But what is really interesting about this card is the date. On the back is a 15 sen stamp that dates from the 1880s to 1890s. Now, companies were not permitted to produce postcards in Japan until the Postal Act of 1900 was passed, which creates a little bit of a mystery. But I think that the answer is this: this isn’t, legally speaking, a postcard. It’s a (part of) a page from a magazine – which just coincidentally happens to be the size and shape of a postcard, to be perforated for easy removal, and to say ‘postcard’ on it. But that’s all – the publisher could insist – just a coincidence. And if the reader of the magazine wants to rip out the page and mail it, well, that’s their business. Anyway, since the card was postally used, we can date it quite precisely. The postal cancellation says: June 1, Meiji 24. That’s 1891.

This is very early for Japanese baseball. Horace Wilson introduced baseball to Japan only about 20 years before this card was mailed. It postdates the establishment of Japan’s first organized baseball team by only 13 years. So at this point baseball in Japan was, if not in its infancy, at least in its toddlerhood. American teams wouldn’t start visiting Japan for about another 15 years after this.

This is the earliest piece of Japanese baseball-themed ephemera that I’ve ever seen. The earliest known baseball menko card dates from 1897, and all of the other postcards that I’ve seen are from after the turn of the century. I asked Robert Klevens about it, and he says that, while he has books with woodblock prints that predate this, none of his cards do. Now, whether or not postcards “count” as baseball cards is a fraught and kind of pointless question. We know what they are and we know what they’re not. If you want to count them as baseball cards, then this is likely the earliest known Japanese baseball card. If not, then it’s not, but it’s still a memento from a very early period of Japanese baseball history.

[nat]

I am not, I would like to be clear, a patient man. When I started going for the Japanese hall of fame, I managed to find something that I needed, basically every other day. Lately I’ve gone, well, rather more time between pickups.

This does not please me.

But the fact is that among the post-war hall of famers – so, the one’s that I’m actively chasing – there just aren’t very many left to find. I’m at 94% on my project and only need five more players. But obviously the last ones to get will, on average, be the hardest ones to find. And they have been the hardest ones to find.

So I decided to set out on another project. Something to keep me busy while those last five stragglers find their way into my collection. As noted up-thread, Japan has two halls of fame. There’s the yakyu dendo, which I’ve been chasing. It’s the one that people vote on, and they’ve got a museum in the Tokyo Dome. It is, in many respects, like the one in Cooperstown. But there’s also the Meikyukai, AKA The Golden Player’s Club. The Meikyukai is Masaichi Kaneda’s club. He founded it in 1978. Eligible players are those born during the Shōwa period (1926-1988) who have either 2000 hits, 200 wins, or 250 saves. Membership is more-or-less automatic. Or, at any rate, once a player hits the relevant milestones, he’s in unless he doesn’t want to be. The only players who are eligible but not in the Meikyukai are Kihachi Enomoto and Hiramitsu Ochiai. (Turning down Meikyukai membership was very on-brand for Ochiai.) Statistics accumulated outside of Japan count, but only so long as the player appeared in professional Japanese baseball before he accumulated them.

There are many reasons that the automatic qualifications are poorly chosen. They're arbitrary, they're poor measures of player skill or value, and they don't take context into account. The point that I’m trying to make is that if you’re trying to measure career quality, using wins, saves, and hits as proxies is a terrible way to do it.

Nevertheless, anyone who can hang around long enough to hit the milestones is probably a pretty good player, even if the milestones themselves are a poor way to evaluate them. And the Yakyu Dendo has some peculiar omissions, some of which, like Masahiro Doi, the Meikyukai does better with.

Meikyukai players are overwhelmingly recent players. Some of them are still active. So, fair warning: there are a lot of 2.5x3.5 cards with various amounts of foil embossing on the way.

Let’s start with this guy. This is Tomonori Maeda, an outfielder who played for the Carp for ages. And I mean ages. He had a 23 year career, and that doesn’t even count the 2009 season, which he missed completely. He’s in the Meikyukai on the strength of 2119 hits which go with a 302/358/484 slash line, over the years 1990-2013. Maeda had moderately good power – 295 home runs for his career, 20ish a year when he was playing full years (he had many partial seasons) – and little speed. His best season seems to have been 1993, when as a 22 year old he hit 27 home runs on the way to a 317/392/553 line.

The partial seasons were due to injury. Baseball-reference compares him to Eric Davis, due to the fact that they’re talented outfielders who were frequently injured and played for teams that used the same logo. That’s not a good comp though. Davis, at least when young, was amazingly fast. Seriously, check this out, in 1986 Davis hit 27 home runs and stole 80 bases. If he could have cut down on the injuries he could have been a modern-day Ty Cobb. (Some batting average aside.)

Maeda made the best nine four times, but the Carp are a traditionally weak team, and he managed to play in only one Japan Series. (They lost in seven to the Lions.)

The internet tells me that this is a clip of Maeda interviewing players (including Trout) about their swings.

This is a clip of the Carp against the Dragons in what looks like Maeda’s final game.

And here’s a compilation of a bunch of Maeda’s home runs. (Warning: the music is terrible.)

The card is a 1998 Calbee.

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by nat

Here is my other recent pick up. It’s another postcard. The image is obviously generic, so no hall of famers here. The person that I bought it from thinks that it was originally included in a magazine. And it does appear to be perforated along one side. The printed text along the bottom says that it is a “secondary education postcard”, for whatever that’s worth. I haven’t found anyone who has been able to read the handwriting.

But what is really interesting about this card is the date. On the back is a 15 sen stamp that dates from the 1880s to 1890s. Now, companies were not permitted to produce postcards in Japan until the Postal Act of 1900 was passed, which creates a little bit of a mystery. But I think that the answer is this: this isn’t, legally speaking, a postcard. It’s a (part of) a page from a magazine – which just coincidentally happens to be the size and shape of a postcard, to be perforated for easy removal, and to say ‘postcard’ on it. But that’s all – the publisher could insist – just a coincidence. And if the reader of the magazine wants to rip out the page and mail it, well, that’s their business. Anyway, since the card was postally used, we can date it quite precisely. The postal cancellation says: June 1, Meiji 24. That’s 1891.

This is very early for Japanese baseball. Horace Wilson introduced baseball to Japan only about 20 years before this card was mailed. It postdates the establishment of Japan’s first organized baseball team by only 13 years. So at this point baseball in Japan was, if not in its infancy, at least in its toddlerhood. American teams wouldn’t start visiting Japan for about another 15 years after this.

This is the earliest piece of Japanese baseball-themed ephemera that I’ve ever seen. The earliest known baseball menko card dates from 1897, and all of the other postcards that I’ve seen are from after the turn of the century. I asked Robert Klevens about it, and he says that, while he has books with woodblock prints that predate this, none of his cards do. Now, whether or not postcards “count” as baseball cards is a fraught and kind of pointless question. We know what they are and we know what they’re not. If you want to count them as baseball cards, then this is likely the earliest known Japanese baseball card. If not, then it’s not, but it’s still a memento from a very early period of Japanese baseball history.

Wow, that is a really interesting find.

Just FYI, it is addressed to someone named Kimura who lived in Nagano Prefecture. The pink lettered "K Miyashita" on the front in Roman letters seems to be the name of the sender, the name also appears (in kanji) as the sender on the flip side. I tried but couldn't make out what the pink lettered writing on the top says.

Also glad to see you have the Meikyukai posts started, I'm still going through my doubles to see what I can send you!

[nat]

Kosuke Fukudome is an outfielder (converted from shortstop early in his pro career). He broke in with Chunichi in 1999 and played for the Dragons until coming to America in 2008. He signed a deal with the Cubs at made the all-star team as a 31 year old “rookie”. (This is a settled issue by now, but guys with long and successful careers in Japan counting as rookies always struck me as a bit absurd.) Fukudome spent three and a half years with the Cubs before being traded to the Indians and signing a one-year deal with the White Sox. After the 2012 season he returned to Japan, roaming the outfield for the Hanshin Tigers. He spent 56 games with Hanshin this year, but was really bad. B-R reports that he spent two games with Hanshin's minor league team in the Western League. Since Fukudome is a 42 year old who has apparently washed out of NPB, I’m guessing this is curtains for him.

Still, it’s a career to be proud of. Over sixteen seasons in Japan he collected 1855 hits, had a healthy on-base percentage, and slugged nearly 500. His time with the Cubs was not as successful: he posted a 258/359/395 line. The on-base percentage is okay. You’d want more power from an outfielder unless he was a real speedster, which Fukudome wasn’t. In MLB he went 29/58 in stolen bases. Which isn’t good. The big difference between his Japanese production and his American production was the power. In Japan he was a real slugger, with slugging percentages in the high 500 to low 600s, with one great season around 650. Granted, this was in his late 20s, which is traditionally a player’s prime. He was past that when he went overseas, so that explains part of the drop off, but not nearly all of it. Especially since he got to call Wrigley Field home, and Wrigley is noteworthy for being homerun friendly.

It’s really hard not to conclude that it’s harder to hit for power over here. Hideki Matsui is the only Japanese player to manage to be a power hitter in America, and even he lost a lot of power when he came over. Albright helpfully has a table with dimensions of Japanese parks. His website is a bit old, so it might be out of date, but it’s convenient and will give us the general idea.

Using his data, here are the average dimensions:
LF Line 315
LF Gap 372
Dead C 395
RF Gap 373
RF Line 315

This guy has MLB dimensions. I’m not completely certain that its current either, and it is definitely incomplete, but we’re just after the general idea here. We want, if you’ll forgive a pun, to get a number that’s in the right ballpark.

Let’s compare:
LF 331
LF Gap 369
Dead C 405
RF Gap 374
RF 331

American parks are a little bigger, but not by a huge amount. And the LF/RF differences could just reflect measurement differences. The site with American dimensions doesn’t say “LF Line” like the Japanese one does. So the stadia seem like they’re about the same size. Even if Japanese players are, on average, smaller than Americans, if the stadia are the same size, that shouldn’t account for the difference. Do Japanese pitchers like to work up in the zone more than Americans do? Are lineups more balanced, and hence pitchers have less of an incentive to work around power hitters?

Anyway, when he returned to Japan Fukudome might have gotten a little of his power back, but not much of it. That, I think, can be explained by age. He was 31 when he came to America, but 36 when he returned. While 31 isn’t 21, it’s not all that old, exactly. You might still, if you’re lucky, be in the prime of your baseball career at 31. At 36… not so much.

Prior to going pro, Fukudome played briefly in the industrial leagues. He was apparently a first round pick by the Buffaloes, but he played industrial ball rather end up with Kintetsu. He’s also a 2x Olympian, taking home bronze and silver medals. In Japan he was a multiple gold glove winner (including a win at 38, making him Japan’s oldest gold glove winner), a 1x MVP, and a 4x member of the best nine team.

As is so often the case with star players on Hanshin, thehanshintigers.com has a nice biography for Fukudome.

Meikyukai: Yes - Hall of Fame: No

My card is from the 2013 BBM (first version) set, after his return to Japan.

[MRSPORTSCARDCOLLECTOR]

Great thread. Learned some new stuff.

[nat]

Hiroki Kokubo was an infielder who spent a plurality of his time at 3B, but also played a significant amount of first and second base. He spent most of his career with the Hawks, with a three year break on the Giants (and missed 2003 after injuring his knee in a collision at home plate). As you might expect, he slid down the defensive spectrum as he got older, beginning in the middle infield, shifting to third about 2000, and then became a full-time first baseman in his old age. At his peak Kokubo was a huge slugger. He managed 44 home runs in 2001 in just 138 games. (That’s a 50 HR pace over 162 games.) The peak didn’t last long though. He showed flashes of it in his mid-20s, but inconsistency, some injuries, and problems with the tax authorities, prevented him from being the dominant force that he could have been. It was in his early 30s that he really came into his power, but he lost one season to injury, lost about 50 games (to a broken thumb) in 2006, and was never the same after that.

Despite a relatively short peak and frequent injuries, Kokubo is one of Japan’s better home run hitters. He managed 413 for his career, which puts him 16th all-time. In MLB Mike Schmidt is 16th all-time (with 548).

Kokubo spent three years with Yomiuri. The trade was for literally nothing. They just gave away a star player. This did not go over well with the fans, and he was re-acquired (by the now rebranded Fukuoka Softbank Hawks) shortly thereafter. This “trade” was peculiar, to say the least. The best that anyone can seem to do is guess that the Hawks, despite having just won the Japan Series, were strapped for cash and looking to unload a contract. But it’s weird that they’ve got a star player and wouldn’t even ask for anything back in return.

Tuffy Rhodes managed to upstage Kokubo in his best seasons. In 2001 Kokubo hit 44 home runs on the way to a 290/364/600 line. You would expect the slugging numbers at least to lead the league and for Kokubo to be front-page news. (At least in the sports section.) But Rhodes, playing for Kintetsu, managed 55 home runs and a 327/421/662 slash line. Just miles better than Kokubo. 2004 was also a very good season, in which he hit 41 home runs. Rhodes hit 45. Kokubo at least bested him elsewhere (despite the home run lead, Rhodes had a lower slugging percentage than did Kokubo), but Rhodes took the top line number. Oddly, the only year in which Kokubo led the league in home runs was 1995, when he hit a relatively pedestrian 28.

About that tax fraud thing. Ten Japanese players were caught evading income taxes in 1994. Kokubo was the highest-profile of them. He pleaded guilty to evading $215,400 in taxes. I haven't been able to figure out how this led to missing most of a season. The most obvious explanation - prison time - you'd think would leave evidence on the internet, you know, articles about how a big sports star ended up in prison. Since I haven't found any of those, I'm guessing that that wasn't it.

He was a 3x best nine, and 13x all-star (appearing in 11 of those games), but never won an MVP award.

Meikyukai: Yes - Hall of Fame: No

Two cards this time: the first is from the 2002 BBM set. It appears to be part of an all-star subset. The other is a 1999 Calbee prize card. Sometimes in a bag of chips you’d find (I don’t know if they still do this) “winner” cards, which can be mailed back to Calbee for some sort of premium. Which premium you get depends on how many prize cards you send back. In 1999 five prize cards got you a special set of a dozen cards on premium card stock with lots of foil coating. There were at least a couple sets issued. I’ve got one of them. And while I plan on trading it (most of the players I don’t need), I figure that I’ll post them while I’ve got them.

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by nat

Kokubo spent three years with Yomiuri. The trade was for literally nothing. They just gave away a star player. This did not go over well with the fans, and he was re-acquired (by the now rebranded Fukuoka Softbank Hawks) shortly thereafter. This “trade” was peculiar, to say the least. The best that anyone can seem to do is guess that the Hawks, despite having just won the Japan Series, were strapped for cash and looking to unload a contract. But it’s weird that they’ve got a star player and wouldn’t even ask for anything back in return.

Great post, as always!

There were two factors that contributed to the odd Kokubo-for-nothing trade. One is that after his 2003 injury he went to the US for treatment (expensive treatment), which the team refused to pay for, which broke down the relationship between Kokubo and management (who had disagreed with him going to the US in the first place). So Daiei wanted to get rid of him despite him being a key player.

A second point is that the parent company Daiei was in a financial crisis at that time, having to slash its costs which would ultimately lead to its selling the team a year later as part of its restructuring. In the early 2000s Daiei was a major supermarket retailer across Japan, but the result of that crisis is that its now a minor subsidiary of one of its former rivals and the brand is almost non-existent today.

So it can also be seen as part of a fire sale by sinking ownership. By the time Kokubo came back to the Hawks they were under new ownership that invested heavily in the team and turned it into the powerhouse of the Pacific League that it has been ever since.

[nat]

Covered this guy already. Furuta is, for my money, Japan's second-greatest catcher. Trailing only his mentor, Katsuya Nomura. B-R says that he was voted (doesn't say by whom) the greatest catcher in Japanese history, which is absurd. But he was really good.

He qualified for the Meikyukai with his 2000th hit in 2005.

He was due to be drafted out of college (he was a business major) by Nippon Ham, but they backed out. Maybe because of his eyesight. Instead he began his pro career playing for Toyota in the industrial leagues, and was later drafted by Yakult. At Toyota he worked in human resources, with whom he planned "in-house recreation" for the company. (I'm guessing this means company picnics and such that HR thinks that employees like?)

Anyway, Furuta posts pictures of food on his Instagram account just like everyone else does. Among his hobbies he lists shogi (a board game), golf, and watching movies. His favorite band is U2. (Which, eh, at least War was a good album.)

Post retirement he has taken up marathon running, written a book, and made lots and lots of TV appearances.

Meikyukai: Yes - Hall of Fame: Yes

Perhaps it's excessive to buy a second card of a player just because he's in both the Meikyukai and the Yakyu Dendo. And clearly I don't spend enough money on baseball cards already. But anyways, I decided that a player doesn't count for the Meikyukai collection just because he's in the Yakyu Dendo collection. (They are in different binders after all.) So I've got more cards to post today.

The cards: 1993 BBM. I love the big stripes on the uniform. It almost looks like pajamas. The other is another 1999 Calbee prize card.