Independent Study Abroad - 1993-94 San Bernardino Spirit

This is kind of a quick addendum to my recent post about the 1989-92 Salinas Spurs.  I was originally going to include this with that post but it was already way too long so I decided to do it separately.

As I mentioned in the Salinas post, Spurs owners Joe Buzas and Don Nomura sold the team following the 1992 season to new owners who would move the team to San Bernardino to replace the team that was moving to Rancho Cucamunga to become the Rancho Cucamunga Quakes.  The new team in San Bernardino would have the same name as the old one - the Spirit - but as in Salinas they would operate as an independent team.  The team would no longer receive players from the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks and Yakult Swallows of NPB but they did have a couple of Japanese players on their roster.

One of these Japanese players was the sole member of the 1992 Salinas Spurs to make the move to San Bernardino - Makoto Suzuki.  The 19 year old pitched worked in 48 games with all but one of them being out of the bullpen.  He went 4-4 with a ERA of 3.68 and 12 saves.  He struck out 87 in 80 2/3 innings.

The other Japanese player didn't fare as well.  Toshio "Tony" Tajima had been the first round pick of the Nankai Hawks in the 1986 draft.  He got into 30 games with the top team in 1987, going 3-7 with an ERA of 3.99 for a mediocre Hawks team in their penultimate year in Osaka but a right shoulder injury kept him on the farm team after that.  The Hawks released him after the 1990 season and he was picked up by Lotte who released him after two seasons spent exclusively on their farm team.  He spent 1993 with two teams - the Spirit and the Sioux Falls Canaries of the independent Northern League (which was in its inaugural season).  I don't know for sure but I think he was with Sioux Falls first - he made three starts and went 0-1 with a 7.15 ERA.  He wasn't much better in the California League, going 1-3 with a 5.46 ERA in 13 games with the Spirit (including three starts).

The remainder of the roster was mostly made up a players on loan from other organizations.  Two of these players (both on loan from the Montreal Expos) would later play in NPB.  Rick Dehart got into six games with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in 1999, going 0-1 with an 8.53 ERA.  Rod Peraza also made his NPB debut in 1999 but there the similarities end.  Peraza was an All Star for the Hawks for four straight years, notching 117 saves between 1999 and 2002.  He briefly played for the Yomiuri Giants in 2003 before suffering a career ending shoulder injury.

The Spirit went 62-74 in 1993, a 25 game improvement of their 36-99 finish in their final year in Salinas.  More importantly, attendance was 88,468, about 34,000 more than what the franchise had drawn the previous season (although this was almost 20,000 fewer than the Mariners affiliated team in San Bernardino had pulled in in 1992).

Following the season, Suzuki was the #6 prospect in the California League in Baseball America's survey of the league managers.  He was courted by several major league teams before signing a contract with the Seattle Mariners.  He was represented in his negotiations by Don Nomura.  Nomura had become a player agent after selling the Spurs and Suzuki was his first client.  The rest of Suzuki's career is fairly well known - he made his major league debut with Seattle in 1996, becoming only the third Japanese player in the majors and the first in the American League.  He also spent time playing for the Royals, Rockies and Brewers over the next few years before going back in Japan.  He was drafted in the second round by the Orix BlueWave in 2002 and spent three seasons with them.  He kicked around a bit after Orix released him after the 2005 season, spending time in Mexico, Taiwan and various independent league teams in both North American and Japan before retiring as a player in 2011.

The Spirit still had a Japanese player in 1994 as Tajima returned.  He got into 34 games, going 2-2 with a 7.42 ERA.  That ERA is bad but for context - the entire team's ERA was 6.21.

Even with Suzuki gone the team's roster featured one former Salinas Spur - Andy Allanson, the former Cleveland Indians catcher who had played for the 1990 Spurs, got into 20 games before being picked up by the California Angels.  Jolbert Cabrera, another player on loan from Montreal, would go on to play two seasons with the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks in 2005 and 2006.

On the field in 1994, the Spirit's record dropped to 48-88 but off the field, attendance rose to 101,710, just under what it had been in 1992.  After the season the team finally entered into a working agreement with a major league team, signing on with the Los Angeles Dodgers.  This was the first time the franchise was an affiliated minor league team since 1987 when it was in Fresno - seven years and two cities earlier.  The team would be renamed the Stampede for 1995 and would end up winning the California League championship that year - a far cry from the mostly last place finishes the franchise endured as an independent team.  The team has remained in San Bernardino, having moved into a new ballpark in 1996 and is now called the Inland Empire 66ers.

With the team no longer being independent, Tajima returned to Japan and signed on with the Nippon-Ham Fighters.  He spent two seasons with them, never getting off the farm team before they released him after the 1996 season.  He then spent two and a half seasons with the Brother Elephants of the CPBL, going 9-20 with an ERA of 5.54 in 56 games.  The Elephants released him midway through the 1999 season and he returned to North America to join the Newark Bears of the Atlantic League.  He got into 16 games and went 1-1 with a 9.18 ERA and was then released.  This appears to be the end of his career.

There were two card sets issued for San Bernardino in 1993, one by Classic Best and the other by Fleer ProCards.  Suzuki appears in both sets but Tajima does not appear in either of them.

1993 Classic Best San Bernardino Spirit #19

1993 Classic Best San Bernardino Spirit #19

1993 Fleer ProCards #773

1993 Fleer ProCards #773

In addition Suzuki appeared in the pack based Fleer Excel minor league set that was issued over the winter of 1993-94.  It featured players from the 1993 minor league season.

1993/94 Fleer Excel #128

1993/94 Fleer Excel #128

The 1994 team also had team sets done by both Classic Best and Fleer ProCards.  Both sets feature Tajima:

1994 Classic Best San Bernardino Spirit #22

1994 Classic Best San Bernardino Spirit #22

1994 Fleer ProCards #2760

1994 Fleer ProCards #2760

Both players have had other baseball cards.  Suzuki has over 150 cards from the minor leagues, the major leagues, NPB and the CPBL.  Here's one of his NPB cards:

2005 Konami Baseball Heroes Old Black Edition #B05B184

Tajima has had many fewer cards than Suzuki.  He had three NPB cards - two of them from Takara Hawk sets from 1987 and 1988 and the other from the 1995 BBM set.  He also had several cards from his time in the CPBL.  Here's the 1987 Takara card:

1987 Takara Hawks #26

I swiped the images of the San Bernardino cards from Trading Card DB.