RIP Shigeru Sugishita

Hall Of Fame pitcher Shigeru Sugishita has passed away at age 97.  Born in Tokyo, Sugishita attended Teikyo Shogyo High School where he played baseball under coach Shunichi Amachi, a future Hall Of Famer.  He joined the Army after he graduated in 1944 and served in China.  He supposedly strengthened his previously weak shoulder by practicing throwing hand grenades - he even won a competition.  He was in a POW camp when the war ended and did not return to Japan until January of 1946.  (His older brother Anyu never returned as he was killed in action in Okinawa as a member of the kamikaze corps.)

He went to work for Isuzu Motors and played for the baseball team under another future Hall Of Famer, Hisanori Karita.  He threw a no-hitter in his first start for them but I don't think he played for them very long as the Tokyo Big Six schools were starting to play baseball again and he enrolled at Meiji University in time to play for them in 1946.  He was still in contact with Amachi during his time at Meiji and Amachi taught him how to throw a forkball which Amachi claimed he had learned from Herb Pennock of the Yankees during the Herb Hunter All Stars tour of Japan in 1922.  Sugishita would go on to be the first professional player in Japan to throw a forkball and earn the nickname "The God of the Forkball".

After graduating from Meiji in 1948, Sugishita signed on with the Chunichi Dragons, joining the team at the same time Amachi became their manager.  After a pedestrian rookie season in 1949 in which he went 8-12 with a 3.66 ERA in 29 games, he embarked on a remarkably dominant six year stretch.  He went 27-15 with a 3.21 ERA in 1950; 28-13 with a 2.36 ERA in 1951; 32-14 and 2.33 ERA in '52; 23-9, 2.84 in '53, 32-12, 1.39 in '54 and 26-12, 1.56 in '55.  He pitched in over 50 games with at least 290 innings pitched in each season except 1953 when he "only" pitched 266 2/3 innings over 45 games.  He won three Sawamura Awards during this stretch (1951, 1952 and 1954), tying him with Masaichi Kaneda, Minoru Murayama and Masaki Saitoh for the most times winning the Award.  He led the Central League in wins twice (1951 & 1954), strikeouts twice (1950 & 1954) and ERA once (1954).  He was the first CL pitcher to win the "Pitching Triple Crown" in 1954.  He was also CL MVP in 1954, helping the Dragons win their first ever Central League pennant and Nippon Series championship - he was MVP in the Series as well.  He no-hit the Swallows (and Kaneda) in 1955 but Kaneda returned the favor two years later, throwing a perfect game against the Dragons and Sugishita.  

His playing time started to decline after 1955 although his ERA's remained low.  He picked up his 200th career win in his last start in 1957.  The losing pitcher for the Giants in that game was Shohei Baba who would gain fame in the 60's as the professional wrestler "Giant Baba" - this loss was the only decision of his short baseball career.  He became the Dragons' manager in 1959 and served the team for two years - he was officially a player/manager but he never took the field during those two seasons.  

He had pretty much retired as a player and joined the Daimai Orions as their pitching coach for the 1961 season but he eventually made a comeback, going 4-6 with a 2.44 ERA in 32 games for the Orions.  That was the end of his playing career but he remained the Orions pitching coach for 1962.  He moved on to coach the Hanshin Tigers in 1964, helping Gene Bacque to win a Swamura Award, and was the team's manager in 1966.  He returned to the Dragons to manage them in 1968 but resigned before the season ended.  After spending several years as a TV baseball commentator, he returned to the coaching ranks, working under Shigeo Nagashima with the Giants from 1976 to 1980.  He spent most of the 80's as a TV commentator but he had one last coaching job in 1993 and 1994 with the Lions.  After that he was frequently a spring training advisor for the Dragons, joining the team in Okinawa each February even into his 90's.

Despite having 200 wins, Sugishita was excluded from the Meikyukai as its other membership requirement is having been born in the Showa Era or later and he was born in the Taisho Era.  I'm not positive, but I believe he may have been the last professional baseball player from that era as well as the last professional player to have served in World War II.  He apparently was the last living manager of a team from the 1950's.

Sugishita has a large number cards that were issued during his playing career - mostly menko and bromide cards but there are some game cards and some candy and/or gum related cards as well.  I only have one card from his playing days:

1949 JBR 53

He's shown up pretty regularly in card sets from BBM and others over the past 30 years.  Here's a small sampling:

1992 BBM #40

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #T-12

2010 BBM Dragons 70th Anniversary #13

2011 BBM Legend Of Tokyo Big 6 #033

2011 Epoch Managers #09

2012 BBM No-hitters #28

2013 Bandai Owners League 02 #L001

2021 BBM Dragons History #07

He's so associated with the Dragons that it's extremely disconcerting to see him in another team's uniform:

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #367

1979 Giants Gekkan #71

One of my favorite cards of his is this one from the 1999 BBM Nippon Series set showing him throwing out the first pitch in one of the games with Futoshi Nakanishi at the bat.  Sadly I just showed this card about a month ago in my memorial post for Nakanishi:

1999 BBM Nippon Series #S65