Japanese Baseball Cards: Study Abroad - Yomiuri, Miami and Visalia

The Yomiuri Giants were another team that sent players to play in the North American minor leagues in the 1980's. The Giants sent a total of 13 players over between 1987 and 1989. The first two years of this period the Giants sent their players to the Miami Marlins who were an independent team in the Class A Florida State League (remember that the MLB Marlins wouldn't start play until 1993). During the final year of this period the Giants apparently had some sort of working agreement in place with the Minnesota Twins as their players spent the season with the Twins' Class A California League affiliate in Visalia, California - the Visalia Oaks.

There were team sets issued for all three teams and almost all the Giants players had baseball cards. The Marlins sets were issued by ProCards (1987) and Star (1988). The Oaks had two sets in 1989 - Cal League and ProCards. I have images of the front and back of all the cards issued - I got them either from TradingCardDB.com. COMC, Ebay and my own collection.

Here's a summary of the 13 players and their NPB careers:

Name	Teams	Draft	NPB Career
Shuji Inagaki	1987-88 Miami	1982 outside draft	Giants 1983-89
Yasushi Matsubara	1987 Miami	1985 outside draft	Giants 1986-1991, Lions 1992
Hideto Matsuo	1987 Miami	1982 outside draft	Giants 1983-89
Mamoru Sugiura	1987 Miami	6th round 1985	Giants 1986-91?
Masahito Watanabe	1987 Miami	3rd round 1985	Giants 1986-2000
Masao Kida	1988 Miami	1st round 1986	Giants 1987-97, BlueWave 1998, Tigers 1999-2000, BlueWave 2000-01, Dodgers 2003-04, Mariners 2004-05, Swallows 2006-09, Fighters 2010-12, Ishikawa 2013-14
Mitsuru Ogihara	1988 Miami	1987 outside draft	Giants 1988-92
Motokuni Sano	1988 Miami	3rd round 1977 (Kintetsu)	Buffaloes 1978-84, Giants 1985-89
Kanenori Tarumi	1988 Miami	4th round 1986	Giants 1987-89
Kenji Fujimoto	1989 Visalia	6th round 1984	Giants 1985-93
Koichi Ozawa	1989 Visalia	4th round 1987	Giants 1988-94
Kiyoshi Sagawa	1989 Visalia	3rd round 1988	Giants 1989-92, BlueWave 1993, Fighters 1994-95
Minoru Yojo	1989 Visalia	4th round 1988	Giants 1989-95, BlueWave 1995-98, Baystars 1999

Shuji Inagaki is the only one of the players to have spent two seasons in the US. Inagaki has an odd background - if I'm understanding the Google Translation of his Japanese Wikipedia page, he dropped out of high school and played for the Tanaka Soil Basic Research Laboratory which I assume is a corporate league team. He went undrafted in the 1982 NPB draft and ended up signing with the Giants afterwards. He played in the Giants organization from 1983 to 1989 but never played for the ichi-gun team. The only Japanese card of him that I know about is from the 1983 NST set and I don't have it.

1987 ProCards #722

1988 Star Miami #12

Yasushi Matsubara went 2-2 with a 3.53 ERA in 10 games with Miami in 1987. He joined the Giants as an undrafted player in 1985 from Takasaki Shinkin Bank - it's not clear to me from the translation of his Japanese Wikipedia article if the bank had a corporate league team or he was simply working for them. He got into nine games with the ichi-gun Giants in 1988-89 and was traded to the Seibu Lions for Hirokazu Okada after the 1991 season. He got into five games with the ichi-gun Lions in 1992 before retiring at the end of the season. He's the only one of the Giants players who did not have a card in the 1987 ProCards Miami team set. The only Japanese cards I know of for him are Takara issues from 1989-1992.

1991 Takara Giants #58 (Yasushi Matsubara)

Hideharu Matsuo got into 32 games with the 1987 Miami Marlins and went 4-4 with a 2.81 ERA. Like Inagaki he signed with the Giants as an undrafted player in 1982, although he was signed after graduating from Yokohama Municipal Totsuka High School. Also like Inagaki he spent his entire career on the Giants' farm team and retired after 1989. And one more parallel to Inagaki - his sole Japanese baseball card is from the 1983 NST set - but this one I actually have:

1983 NST #237 (Hideharu Matsuo)

1987 ProCards #731

I don't know much about Mamoru Sugiura - he doesn't have a Japanese Wikipedia page. From doing some looking around I've found that he was drafted in the sixth round of the 1986 draft and he played with the Giants at least until 1991. He got into 66 games with the Marlins in 1987 and hit .200 with 2 home runs. He never played for the ichi-gun Giants and I don't think he ever had a Japanese baseball card.

1987 ProCards #NNO

Masahito Watanabe spent 15 seasons in the Giants organization. He was drafted as a pitcher in the third round of the 1985 draft out of Hoyang High School and made four starts with the 1987 Marlins, going 1-0 with a 3.57 ERA. After he hurt his arm in the early 90's he converted to being a position player. He finally debuted with the ichi-gun Giants in 1997 after 11 years in the organization and eventually got into 13 games with the top team over the next four seasons. Baseball-Reference has his NPB stats on a separate page than his Miami stats. He had a handful of Japanese cards that I know of - a 1991 Takara card plus BBM Giants team set cards from 1997-98 and 2000.

1997 BBM Giants #G84

1987 ProCards #721

Maso Kida is the biggest name of all the players the Giants sent to the US. Kida was a workhorse for the 1988 Miami Marlins, going 7-17 with a 3.99 ERA. His 27 starts were the most for any pitcher on the team. Kida was the Giants top draft pick in 1986 out of Nichidai Meisei High School. I did a post on him when he retired a few years back. He played professionally for 28 years including two stints in the majors with three different teams (Tigers 1999-2000, Dodgers 2003-04, Mariners 2004-05) and couple years with the Ishikawa Million Stars of the independent Baseball Challenge League. He has had many Japanese baseball cards.

1992 BBM #111

1988 Star Miami #14

Mitsuru Ogihara is another player who the Giants signed outside of the draft. He joined the team in 1987 after graduating from Tokai University. I think he had arm surgery his senior year which is why he wasn't drafted. He got into 45 games with the 1988 Marlins, going 1-4 with a 6.29 ERA. He spent five seasons in the Giants organization but he only made two appearances with the ichi-gun team - both were 1992, his final year. As far as I know he never had a Japanese baseball card.

1988 Star Miami #17

Most of the players that the Giants sent to the US were in their late teens to mid-twenties. But Motokunki Sano was 30 years old and had 10 years of professional baseball under his belt when he played for Miami in 1988. Sano was a third round pick of the Kintetsu Buffaloes out of Yokohama High School in the 1977 draft and made his debut with the ichi-gun Buffaloes in 1979. With Masataka Nashida and Shuzo Arita splitting the catching duties for the Buffaloes at this time, Sano spent most of his time with Kintetsu's farm team - he only got into 18 games with the top team between 1979 and 1984 and only had eight plate appearances in those games (and no hits!). He was traded to the Giants after the 1984 season for Shoichi Shimanuki but his playing time didn't increase a whole lot - he only got into nine ichi-gun games between 1985 and 1986 although he finally got a handful of hits. He got into 40 games with the Marlins and hit only .105. He retired following the 1989 season and spent time as coach with Taiyo (1990-92) and the Giants (1993-96, 1998-00). I only know of one Japanese card of him from his playing days - a 1985 Takara card - and one card of him from his coaching days - a 1998 BBM Giants card. I don't have either of those but he also appeared in all three of BBM's sets for the "The Premium Malts" Old-timers games and I have all of them.

2009 BBM Premium Malts #51

1988 Star Miami #23

Kanenori Tarumi was a fourth round pick of the Giants in the 1986 draft out of Yanagawa High School. He spent three seasons with Yomiuri - all with the farm team. He 3-5 with a 3.36 ERA in 35 games with the Marlins in 1988. I don't know of any Japanese cards for him.

1988 Star Miami #11

Kenji Fujimoto got into 60 games with the Visalia Oaks in 1989. He hit .209 with one home run. He was the Giants' sixth round pick in the 1984 draft out of Tokaidai Sagami High School. His father Kensaku pitched in one game for the Giants in 1960 and later worked for the organization. The younger Fujimoto played with the Giants from 1985 to 1993 and got into 48 games with the ichi-gun team between 1987 and 1991. His only Japanese card that I know of is from the 1988 Takara set.

1988 Takara Giants #64 (Kenji Fujimoto)

1989 Cal League #116

1989 ProCards #1432

Koichi Ozawa hit .286 with one home run in 24 games with Visalia in 1989. He was drafted by Yomiuri in the fourth round of the 1987 draft from the Mitsubishi Motors Mizushima industrial league team. He was in the Giants organization from 1988 to 1994 but only got into one game with the ichi-gun team (in 1993). I don't think he ever had a Japanese baseball card.

1989 Cal League #114

1989 ProCards #1422

Kiyoshi Sagawa was the Giants third round pick in the 1988 draft out of Akita Prefecture Kinpoku Agricultural School. He got into 15 games with the Oaks and went 0-0 with a 7.59 ERA. He spent four seasons in the Giants organization (1989-92), one with Orix (1993) and two with the Fighters (1994-95) but never got promoted from the farm team for any of the teams. I don't think he has any Japanese baseball cards.

1989 Cal League #103

1989 ProCards #1434

After Masao Kida, Minoru Yojoh probably had the most successful career of any of the players the Giants sent to the US. Yojoh was the Giants fourth pick in the 1988 draft (out of Mitsubishi Motors Kawasaki of the industrial leagues) and spent eleven years in NPB. He played in 64 games with Visalia in 1989 and hit .209 with no home runs. He got into 144 games with the ichi-gun Giants between 1990 and 1993. He was traded to the BlueWave in April of 1995 for Akiyoshi Sasaki and had his best season in 1996 where he hit .261 in 108 games. He got to play in the Nippon Series that season and was on the field as a defensive replacement for first baseman Doug Jennings when Orix won the Championship over the Giants. Orix released him following the 1998 season and he spent the 1999 season with the farm team for the Yokohama Baystars before he retired. He has more than ten Japanese baseball cards including Takara cards in 1991, 1993, 1994, 1997 and 1998; BBM "flagship" cards from 1993, 1994, 1997 and 1998 and a 1996 BBM Nippon Series card.

1994 BBM #317

1989 Cal League #115

1989 ProCards #1424

In addition to the 13 players, the Giants sent coaches to the US as well. They may have sent them all three years (and in fact I assume that they did) but I only know who the coaches were for 1987 and 1989 and that's only because the minor league team sets for those two years included cards of the coaches. The 1988 Star Miami set did not include cards of any coaches. The two coaches were both members of the Giants V9 teams - the teams that won the Nippon Series nine straight years between 1965 and 1973. Both of them have many Japanese baseball cards.

Toshimistu Suetsugu had a 13 year career with the Giants from 1965 to 1977. He was a five time All Star, was named to a Best 9 team once and was named MVP of the 1971 Nippon Series. He coached at Miami in 1987. (And his bio on the back of his ProCard is incorrect - he was an All Star from 1972 to 1976 so five times rather than three and not in the late 1960's.)