By 1988 the trend of Japanese teams sending players to the US minor leagues was reaching its peak. Half the teams in NPB that year sent players abroad -
the Lions were in their final year in San Jose in the California League, the Buffaloes and Whales were in the Pioneer League in
Salt Lake City and
Butte respectively,
the Giants were in Miami in the Florida State League, while
the Dragons had at least one player with three different Dodger affliates in the Gulf Coast, Northwest and Florida State Leagues. The newcomer for 1988 was the Hanshin Tigers who sent four players to the Fresno Suns of the California League.
The Fresno Giants had been an affiliate of the San Fransisco Giants for 30 years, ever since the big league team had moved to the Golden Gate in 1958, but ballpark issues (46 year old Euless park had its grandstand condemned in 1987) caused the Giants to end their relationship with the city. They ended up moving the affiliation to San Jose where they've been ever since. The newly renamed Suns operated as an independent team in 1988. They signed a handful of former major league players, including Julio Cruz, Dwayne Murphy (who would play in Japan in 1990 for the Yakult Swallows) and Terry Whitfield (who spent 1981-83 with the Seibu Lions and played with the Lions farmhands in San Jose in 1986). Cruz and Whitfield both retired after the 1988 season. The team filled the rest of their roster with players loaned from other organizations as well as non affliated players. As is typical for independent teams playing in organized ball, the team wasn't very good. They went 53-89 for the season and suffered a California League record 20 game losing streak during the second half of the season. They weren't the worst team in the league, however. Another independent team, the Reno Silver Sox, went 39-103.
Here's a summary of four Hanshin players:
There were two team sets produced for the Fresno Suns in 1988, one by Cal League and one by ProCards. All four players appear in both sets. I swiped all the images for the Fresno cards from TradingCardDB.com.
Katsumi Manabe had the shortest career of the four players. He was drafted as a pitcher out of Kansai High School but hurt his arm and converted to the outfield in 1991, his final season. He's the only one of the four who never played for the
ichi-gun Tigers. He made the top league in a different way, however, as he's been an NPB umpire since 1994. The only cards I know of for him are from the Fresno team sets.
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| 1988 Cal League Fresno #21 |
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| 1988 Cal League Fresno #21 |
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| 1988 Procards #1235 |
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| 1988 Procards #1235 |
Naoji Miyauchi also went by the name Masakazu. He only played about half the season in Fresno - he fractured his elbow in mid-July and was out for the rest of the year. He eventually got into 108 games with the big league Tigers over parts of four seasons - 74 of which were in 1991.
His Japanese wikipedia page says he retired following the 1994 season although
his Baseball-Reference page says he played in 16 games with the Expos Gulf Coast League team in 1995. I know of three Japanese cards for him - 1992 BBM, 1992 Takara Tigers and 2013 BBM Tigers Legends.
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| 1992 BBM #261 |
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| 1988 Cal League Fresno #15 |
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| 1988 Cal League Fresno #15 |
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| 1988 Procards #1233 |
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| 1988 Procards #1233 |
Side-arm pitcher Atsushi Tagi (whose NPB stats are available under
Atsushi Taki although I don't think he ever went by that name) made his
ichi-gun debut in September of 1988 after appearing in 46 games for Fresno, mostly in relief. He'd go on to make only three more appearances with the top team before retiring following the 1995 season. The only NPB card I know of for him is from the 1994 BBM Tigers team set.
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| 1994 BBM Tigers #T-19 |
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| 1988 Cal League Fresno #20 |
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| 1988 Cal League Fresno #20 |
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| 1988 Procards #1234 |
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| 1988 Procards #1234 |
Hiroshi Yagi unquestionably had the best career of the four players who spent the season in Fresno. He became the regular third baseman for the Tigers in 1990 and hit 28 home runs in 1991. He alternated between third and the outfield some over the next few years although he remained one of the Tigers regulars. His playing time started to diminish in 1994 and 1995 and he spent all of 1996 with the farm team. He returned to the
ichi-gun level in 1997 and spent most of the remainder of his career as a pinch hitter and late inning replacement. He retired following the 2004 season. He was selected to the All-Star team in 1992 and 1994 although he declined the honor in 1994. There are many cards of Yagi besides his Fresno cards.
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| 2004 BBM Tigers #T52 |
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| 1988 Cal League Fresno #14 |
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| 1988 Cal League Fresno #14 |
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| 1988 Procards #1239 |
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| 1988 Procards #1239 |
In addition to the players, the Tigers also sent Jiro "Joe" Ueda to Fresno to be the pitching coach for the team. Ueda was the Tigers number one draft pick in the 1969 draft and was a starting pitcher for them during much of the 1970's. His best season was 1972 when he went 22-14 with a 2.22 ERA. He was named to the All Star team in 1970 and 1973. He spent a couple seasons (1980-82) with the Nankai Hawks before returning to Hanshin for the second half of 1982. He retired following that season and worked as a coach for Hanshin until 1994. There are many NPB cards of Ueda but he only appeared in the Procards set during his stint in Fresno.
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| 1973/74 Calbee #92 |
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| 1988 Procards #1238 |
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| 1988 Procards #1238 |
Following the 1988 season the Suns were sold to long time minor league team operator Joe Buzas, who moved them to Salinas. As we shall see in a future post, the Salinas Spurs would come to be the largest test case in the NPB Study Abroad experiment.
1 comment:
Those cards are awesome! The simple, classic look makes them easy on the eyes. And what is up with the name Bullet Manabe??! Thanks for sharing.
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