Card Of The Week January 28

I was rereading all of the late Roger Angell's baseball books a while back and came across a passage in Late Innings that piqued my curiosity.  The essay "Walking into the Picture" is centered around spring training in 1979 and Angell's has a page or two talking about a game he witnessed in Sun City, Arizona between the B team for the Milwaukee Brewers and the Yakult Swallows.  The Swallows did spring training in Yuma, Arizona from 1978 to 1999 and various other NPB teams have also spent at least part of their training schedule in the US over the years (most recently the Fighters from 2016-19).  I think this is the only time Angell mentions seeing a Japanese team play in all of his essays but I may be forgetting something (there was a reference to the Nippon-Ham Fighters in a bit about Walt Williams in one earlier essay).  Since Angell mentioned several players by name, I thought I'd share cards of each them.  In a couple cases, he didn't get the name quite right but I was able to figure out who he meant.

Angell realized he was sitting in the stands near Brewers' infielder (and future Baltimore Orioles emergency catcher and Chiba Lotte Marines coach) Lenn Sakata's wife Darren when she cheered loudly for him hitting a double.  But as they talked "the Swallows pitcher - a right-hander, with 'Kurata' on the back of his uniform - had suddenly whirled and thrown to his shortstop, who tagged Lenn Sakata out at second."  The Kurata in question was Makoto Kurata, who had a 16 year career with the Giants and Swallows from 1965 to 1980.  I don't have any cards of him with Yakult so here's one of him with Yomiuri:

2014 Epoch Giants V9 Glorious Victory #13

He goes on to add that "A few minutes later, the Swallows catcher, Yaebashi[sic], picked another Milwaukee runner off second, with a fine peg."  Angell is talking here about Yukio Yaegashi, who had a 23 year career with Yakult (as both the Atoms and Swallows).  He was mostly a backup catcher to Akihiko Ohya until taking over the starting role in the mid-80's, winning a Best 9 award and making the All Star team a couple times.  He eventually lost the staring role to first Shinji Hata and then Atsuya Furuta and he retired after the 1993 Nippon Series:

1993 BBM Nippon Series #S12

He has this comment about the Swallows pitchers: "Their pitchers - Kurata, who was a curveballer and his successor, Tetsuo Nichi[sic] - weren't exactly overpowering, but they mixed up their pitches, and everything they threw seemed to be around the edge of the strike zone."  He meant Tetsuo Nishi, who had an 18 year career with Yakult, Lotte and Chunichi from 1970 to 1987.  This is the only card I have of him:

2022 BBM Swallows History #15

Angell mentions one last Swallow:  "the largest player on the squad, an outfielder named Suiguru[sic], did crack a two-run, wrong-field triple off the left-field wall".  I'm pretty sure he means Toro Sugiura here, the somewhat chubby first baseman-outfielder for Yakult from 1971 to 1993 (like Yaegashi, he retired after the 1993 Nippon Series):

1979 TCMA #22

The Swallows won the game 8-4.  Angell mentions that after the game, a couple of the Yakult players went over to shake hands with Brewers first base coach Frank Howard and get their photo taken with him.  He writes this in a way to imply that the Japanese players are fascinated by how big the six foot, seven inch, 300 pound Howard was.  I'm guessing Angell was unaware that Howard had briefly played in Japan and that at least one of the 1979 Swallows - Kunio Fukutomi - was a teammate of his with the 1974 Taiheiyo Club Lions.  It wouldn't have been the first time Howard posed with some Japanese players:

2010 BBM Lions 60th Anniversary #83