Card Of The Week January 21

I picked up a card of an obscure Japanese Hall Of Famer this past week - Shinji Hamazaki.  Hamazaki is best known for having held the records for oldest player to both win a game and appear in a game in Japanese professional baseball for 60+ years until both records were surpassed by Masa Yamamoto.  He's also well known for being one of the shortest players in professional baseball history - he was right around 5 foot, one inch in height.  But there's more to Hamazaki's story than just being old and short.  

He was born in Kure in Hiroshima prefecture in 1901 and played baseball at Hiroshima Commercial school.  He and his school took part in the 1917 National High School Championship tournament - the tournament that would later be referred to as "Summer Koshien" but Koshien Stadium hadn't been built yet - but they lost in the first round.  He dropped out of school in 1919 and went to work for (and played baseball for) the Kure Naval Arsenal.  Later that year he went back to high school, enrolling at the Kobe Commercial School.  He again played in the National High School Championship in 1922 (which was still not at Koshien yet - it was played at Naruo Stadium), only this time his team made it all the way to the final.  Hamasaki was the starter for Kobe in the final and took a 4-0 lead into the late innings before Wakayama High School took advantage of several Kobe errors and scored five runs in the eighth and three in the ninth to win 8-4.  He is one of only a handful of players to take part in the National High School Championship for more than one school.

After graduating high school, he joined the Diamond Club, a group of former Keio University players living in the Kansai region.  He enrolled at Keio in 1923 and played baseball there until he graduated in 1929.  He then joined the South Manchuria Railway corporate league team and remained with them until the war.  As a star pitcher in the corporate leagues, he was recruited to play for the All Japan team for the 1934 US All Star tour and made seven appearances including one start.  On their face, his numbers for the tournament look really bad - giving up 33 hits (including nine home runs), 14 walks and 37 runs (only 27 earned) in 26 1/3 innings with only 10 strikeouts (for an ERA of 9.23) but it's not like any of the pitchers on the Japanese staff put up good numbers against the US lineup which featured five Hall Of Famers (Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx and Earl Averill).

When the war broke out he joined Manchuria Films in a position to promote sports to the company's employees.  At the war's end he was still living in Manchuria which was occupied by the Soviets and I think he ran a restaurant specializing in tonkatsu (pork cutlets) before returning to Japan in 1947.

After considering a return to the industrial leagues, Hamazaki instead joined the Hankyu Braves as both player and manager and made his professional baseball debut on September 28th at the age of 46, starting against Nankai at Korakuen Stadium.  He gave up a home run to the first batter he faced - Kamikazu Yasui - but he pitched six innings, giving up only one other run and got the win in the Braves' 6-2 victory.  He ultimately got into four games that season, going 1-0 with a 4.41 ERA.  He pitched in 17 games the following season, going 3-3 with a 2.52 ERA.  

He didn't pitch at all in 1949 but the Braves had one of the best finishes Hamazaki would have as a manager, going 69-64-1 and finishing second in the Japan Baseball League's final season (although it was a distant second - 16 games behind the pennant winning Giants).  He made nine appearances at age 48 in 1950, going 1-2 with a 7.07 ERA.  He got the victory in relief in the Braves 7-6 walk off victory against the Tokyu Flyers on May 7th (although if that box score is accurate, I don't understand why he got the victory as opposed to Yoshio Tenba).  He made his final appearance on November 5th, starting the game against Yoshio Yuasa, the 48 year old manager of the Mainichi Orions who was making his first and only playing appearance in professional baseball.  Mainichi got the win with Yuasa going four innings and only giving up two runs despite walking six.  Hamazaki took the loss.

Hamazaki would manage the Braves for three more seasons.  Hankyu had the best record of any of Hamazaki's teams in 1953, going 67-52-1 to finish in second, four games behind Nankai, but he resigned at the end of the season, falling on his sword after not finishing first after six seasons.  He took over the "expansion" Takahashi Unions in 1954, leading them to a sixth place finish with a team that was expected to finish last (the Pacific League had eight teams that season).  His son, Masaru, who had joined Hankyu the previous season, followed his father to Takahashi and played in 68 games.  He only hit .113 though and he retired from baseball after that season.  It is believed that the Hamazaki's were the first father-son duo to play professional baseball in Japan.

The bottom fell out in 1955 with the now Tombo Unions going 42-98-11 to finish dead last, 57 games out of first and nine games out of seventh place.  The highlight of the season was future Hall Of Famer Victor Starffin getting his 300th career win although he went 7-21 in his final season.  Hamazaki wasn't around for the full season, however, resigning from the team in late September with 15 or so games left to play.  The Unions would have one more disastrous season in 1956, going 52-98-4 to again finish last.  They merged with the Daiei Stars to become the Daiei Unions in 1957 which merged with Mainichi to become the Daimai Orions in 1958 (and reduce the number of teams in the Pacific League to the current six).

Hamazaki did some baseball commentary for various newspapers, TV and radio outlets after leaving the Unions.  He also coached for Mainichi in 1957 and the Yomiuri Giants in 1960.  He returned to the dugout as manager of the Kokutetsu Swallows for the 1963 season, leading the team to a 65-73-2 record and a fourth place finish.  He stepped down after the season and went back to being a baseball commentator.  He was elected to the Hall Of Fame in 1978 and passed away in 1981 at age 79.

Hamazaki had a number of cards in various menko, bromide and game sets in the late 1940's - TCDB lists 13 cards for him.  To the best of my knowledge, he has never had a modern card in any BBM or Epoch OB set.  I didn't have any cards of him until I got that one last week - his 1947 Hoshi Gangu (JCM 47) card.  Here's the front and back of it: