Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Tsuneo Horiuchi pitched for the Giants from 1966 to 1983. This was exactly the right time to be a Giant - he got in right at the start of their nine consecutive Japan Series wins. He broke in at 18 and was great immediately. In his rookie year he won both the Rookie of the Year Award and the Sawamura Award. As might be expected from a teenager who was suddenly a huge star, Horiuchi was a bit cocky and immature. Tetsuharu Kawakami, the Giants manager who sailed a famously tight ship, sent him to the minors to teach him a lesson, even though he was the reigning Sawamura winner. (source) The exile didn't last long. As a 19 year old Horiuchi was 12-2 in 149 IP. It was a hard pace to keep up: his last really good year was 1974 (when he was 26), he pitched his last full season at 30, and hung around until 35. This is a problem faced by any professional athlete, but it's got to be hard to retire at 35 and then have to figure out what you're going to do with the rest of your life.

Anyway, Horiuchi did better with that than most. After retirement he was a coach with the Giants for years, and briefly their manager. And that's only the beginning. In 2010 he ran for parliament. Japan has a proportional representation system (like almost every democracy except the US): you vote for your party of choice, and then if, say, your party get 10% of the vote then they get 10% of the seats in the legislature. Horiuchi's party won 12 seats, but he was listed 13th on the party list. So he just missed out on getting a seat in parliament. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Hirohiko Nakamura, one of the members of his party who did win a seat, died while in office, and Horiuchi was named as his replacement. So he got a seat in parliament after all.

Here is a neat video of a game from 1966, Horiuchi's rookie year. He comes in as a relief pitcher at about 1:55, he's the guy wearing #21.

The card is from the 1973 Calbee set. This was their first foray into baseball cards. In Japan 1991 marks the line between vintage and modern cards, so 1973 is much longer-ago for the Japanese hobby (such as it is) than it is for American card collectors. Calbee almost had a monopoly on baseball cards through the 70s and 80s - and they're still making cards today. This is the set where it all began, the 52 Topps of Japan, if you will.