Sadaharu Oh Tribute Part 2

Following up my post from the other day, here's some cards of Oh as Hawks manager.

1995 BBM #514, his first year as Hawks manager:


1996 BBM #539:


2000 BBM #513:


2002 BBM Giants #G114, showing Oh and Shigeo Nagashima during the 2000 Nippon Series, the "ON Series":


2003 BBM 1st Version #249:


2003 BBM Nippon Series #60:


2005 BBM 1st Version #37:


2008 BBM 1st Version #289:


2006 Upper Deck/Fleer World Baseball Classic Moments #CM-18, showing Oh as Japan's WBC team manager:



NPB Tracker has a link to a Sanspo photo retrospective of Oh's years as Hawks manager.

BBM Hawks 70th Anniversary set

I picked up the new BBM Hawks 70th Anniversary set the other day. It's a very cool set.

A little history on the Hawks: According to Japan Baseball Daily and their Wikipedia article, the Hawks started paly in 1938 as simply Nankai, named for the company that owned them. Their name changed a couple of times in the next few years to Kinki Nihon and then Kinki Great Ring until it settled on the Nankai Hawks in 1947. The Hawks joined the Pacific League when the two league system started in 1950 and won 10 league championships and two Nippon Series in the next 25 years. They played their home games in Osaka Stadium.

Following the 1988 season, Nankai sold the team to Daiei, who moved them to Heiwadai Stadium in Fukuoka and changed their name to the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. They moved into the Fukuoka Dome in 1993. They won an additional three Pacific League pennants and two Nippon Series championships before Daiei sold the team to Softbank after the 2004 season.

The set has 99 cards. There are six "History Of Hawks" cards, 66 cards of OB players (well, some current ex-Hawks are included), 18 cards of current Hawks players (including manager Sadaharu Oh) and nine cards of current Hawks players wearing turn-back-the-clock uniforms. Most of the players are wearing Nankai Hawks uniforms, but Toshiya Sugiuchi is shown in a Daiei uniform.

The OB players include most of the greats from Hawks history - Tadashi Sugiura, Hiromitsu Kadota, Kazuto Tsuruoka, Yutaka Enatsu, Joe Stanka, and Koji Akiyama as well as current MLB players Kenji Johjima and Tadahito Iguchi. Noticeably missing from the set, however, is Katsuya Nomura, who only hit something like 630 home runs for the Hawks between 1954 and 1977 as well as managing them from 1970 to 1977. The omission is really my only quibble with the set.

Here's some example cards. That's one of the "History Of Hawks" cards (#04 which I think is showing the final Nankai game in Osaka Stadium); the OB cards of Kazuo Horii (#09), Don Blasingame (#26), Hiroshi Fujimoto (#45), and Kimiyasu Kudoh (#67); the 2008 Hawks card of Tsuyoshi Wada (#77) and the "Turn Back The Clock" card of Hiroshi Shibahara (#99).

Sadaharu Oh Tribute Part 1

Last week, Sadaharu Oh officially announced his retirement as manager of the Hawks. As he is now 68 years old and has been recovering from stomach cancer for two years, it is expected that this is the end of his baseball career. Not being much with words, I felt that a baseball card tribute would be in order. Today, I'm just doing cards showing him with the Giants. In the next few days, I'll post pictures of him as Hawks manager.

1960 JBR6 Bromide (upper left):


1992 BBM ON Special #481. Nagashima is on deck with Oh batting:


1998 BBM 40 Years Of Shukan Baseball (#559) showing cover of May 8, 1972 Issue:


1975/76 Calbee (#1241):


1976 Yamakatsu showing him passing Ruth:


1995 BBM Untouchable Records subset (#319) showing him passing Aaron:


1978 NST (#58):


1981 Calbee (#2) as Giants coach:


1987 Play Ball (#2) as Giants manager:

Well, not really....

I was listening to the Rays-White Sox game on my XM Radio on my way home today and I heard the Tampa Bay broadcasters mention that Akinori Iwamura had "a lot of post season experience in Japan". The Swallows only made the Nippon Series once with Iwamura on the roster - in 2001 when they beat the Buffaloes in 5 games. Aki had a good series - he hit .450 (9-for-20) with 5 RBI's, good enough to be named an "Outstanding Player" for the Series. But I'm not sure 5 games qualifies as "a lot".

Here's his "Outstanding Player" card from the 2001 BBM Nippon Series set (#S59):

Card Of The Week September 28

The Carp played their last regular season game at Hiroshima Municipal Stadium (Hiroshima Shimin Kyujo) on Sunday against the Swallows (they could possibly play there again if they win the Central League Climax Series and play in the Nippon Series). They will move into a new ballpark next spring. There's a discussion of the new park and pictures here.

Here's the old ballpark's card from the 1992 BBM ballpark subset (#107):


This is the fourth ballpark in the 11 card subset that is no longer in use, joining Heiwadai, Fujiidera and Nagoya.

Update: I'd meant to include a link to Deanna Rubin's post about her visit to the ballpark also. Great pictures as always. Also, in this week's Pro Yakyu Weekly, Michael Westbay points out a couple of related links - one to Wayne Graczyk's Baseball Bullet-In column in the Japan Times dealing with the closing of the ballpark and to the Japanese Wikipedia entry on the park. The Japanese Wikipedia entry on the new park has photos of the model and of the construction.

Finally, here's the Google Maps view of the old park:


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1963 Nishitetsu Lions - Men Of Miracle

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I didn't know what the backstory of the Lions' 1963 Pacific League championship was. The Lions Memorial set had a six card subset for the "Men Of Miracle", but all I could figure out was that they had won the pennant by one game over the Nankai Hawks.

Well, I have some of the story now. Thanks to the Hanshin Tigers blowing a 13 game lead over the Giants this year, Michael Westbay's latest "Pro Yakyu This Week" webcast has a brief review of other epic collapses/comebacks in Japanese baseball history. In his summary of the webcast, he writes "In 1963 the Nishitetsu Lions were 14.5 games back on July 12 after which they went 49 and 26 (2 ties - .653) to take first place on October 8 and win the pennant." He also posted a list of the biggest comebacks in Japanese baseball history in this thread. The 1963 Lions were the second biggest comeback in history (and obviously the biggest when it happened) and the biggest that actually resulted in a pennant. Truly a miracle.

Thanks to Westbay-san for the information.

The card displayed in #37 from the Lions Memorial set.

Card Of The Week September 21

I mentioned the other day that I thought the Taiheiyo Club Lions uniforms were among the ugliest in history. I thought I'd try to back that up by showing the only two cards I have that show these uniforms:



The top card is of Don Buford and is from the circa 1975 JCM 15 menko set. The bottom card is of Jinten Haku and is from the 1975-6 JCM 58 Flag Front menko set.

I don't think either card does the uniform justice. Neither card shows the wide red stripe down the side of the pants.

Actually, while these were ugly, they were only worn from 1973-75. In 1976, the Lions topped themselves with this (from "The History Of Uniform"):


Now there are some fashion mistakes in Japanese baseball history. The wide stripes on the Swallows away uniforms in the 1990's, the solid blue pants of the Lions in the 80's and 90's, the Fighters rainbow-Astro wannabe uniforms of the 80's, the Hankyu Braves reverse pinstripe's of the early 60's (black uniforms with white pinstripes), the Hawks' green pinstripes, the Hawk-helmets of the late 80's and early 90's and some of the recent "interleague series" uniforms. Not to mention that stretch in the mid 70's when the Flyers wore different uniforms at different positions. But to me, nothing says beer-league softball team more than a solid maroon uniform with the number just as big on the front as on the back.

Or is that too insulting to beer-league softball teams?