1976 Calbee Multi-Player Cards

I had mentioned the other day in my post about the Calbee cards I had brought home from my trip that I had completed my subset of the "multi-player cards" from the 1975/76/77 "monster" Calbee set.  Now, by "multi-player card", I don't mean a card that shows a photo with multiple players in it.  I mean a card that has multiple player photos on it - think of Topps' old "Rookie Stars" cards with pictures of two to four players on them.

There were 13 of these cards altogether and they were in Series 12 and 13 which were issued in 1976 - probably the spring.  There are eleven team cards that feature the manager (except in one case) and eleven players from each team except Lotte (whose parent company did not allow the rival snack company to include cards of their players until 1985).  I thought I'd go through all eleven cards and identify the players on each one.

#400

Hankyu Braves
#30 - Toshiro Ueda (Manager)
#14 -Takashi Yamaguchi

#17 -Hisashi Yamada

#28 - Kazuyoshi Takemura

#39 - Shinji Nakazawa

#4 - Bobby Marcano

#6 - Yutaka Ohashi

#9 - Kiyoshi Morimoto

#10 - Hideji Kato

#3 - Atsushi Nagaike

#7 - Yutaka Fukumoto

#12 - Tadayoshi Okuma

#410

Nankai Hawks

#19 - Katsuya Nomura (Player/Manager)

#13 - Koichi Nakayama

#14 - Michio Sato

#17 - Yutaka Enatsu

#20 - Shinichi Yamauchi

#34 - Hiroaki Fukushi

#1 - Teruhide Sakurai

#7 - Mitsuru Fujiwara

#9 - Junichi Kashiwabara

#6 - Hiromasa Arai

#12 - Yoshinori Hirose

#27 - Hiromitsu Kadota

#415

Yomiuri Giants

#90 - Shigeo Nagashima (Manager)

#1 - Sadaharu Oh

#18 - Tsuneo Horiuchi

#15 - Tadao Yokoyama

#21 - Hajime Kato

#5 - Davey Johnson

#8 - Shigeru Takada

#29 - Kazumasa Kohno

#7 - Isao Shibata

#10 - Isao Harimoto

#35 - Kenji Awaguchi

#38 - Toshimitsu Suetsugu

#425

Hanshin Tigers

#1 - Yoshio Yoshida (Manager)

#18 - Sohachi Aniya

#25 - Kazuyuki Yamamoto

#29 - Takenori Emoto

#51 - Kenji Furusawa

#22 - Koichi Tabuchi

#6 - Taira Fujita

#14 - Katsuhiro Nakamura

#31 - Masayuki Kakefu

#7 - Junichi Ikeda

#8 - Ikuo Shimano

#34 - Iwao Ikebe

#430

Taiyo Whales

#71 - Noburo Akiyama (Manager)

#12 - Masao Tamura

#15 - Shigekuni Mashiba

#17 - Ritsuo Yamashita

#27 - Masaji Hiramatsu

#1 - Daisuke Yamashita

#11 - John Sipin

#32 - Takayuki Iwai

#25 - Makoto Matsubara

#2 - Masayuki Nakatsuka

#19 - Akira Ejiri

#23 - Keiichi Nagasaki

#439

Yakult Swallows

#73 - Hiroshi Arakawa (Manager)

#11 - Tetsuo Nishii

#17 - Hiromu Matsuoka

#19 - Keishi Asano

#22 - Takeshi Yasuda

#27 - Akhiro Ohya

#8 - Katsuo Ohsugi

#10 - Keitoku Yamashita

#1 - Tsutomu Wakamatsu

#4 - Charlie Manuel

#5 - Roger Repoz

#7 - Kunio Fukutomi

#442

Nippon-Ham Fighters

#86 - Keiji Ohsawa (Manager)

#16 - Satoshi Niimi

#18 - Kazumi Takahashi

#21 - Naoki Takahashi

#5 - Hiroshi Takahashi

#3 - Masaru Tomita

#6 - Yoshito Oda

#8 - Kazuki Gotoh

#7 - Junzo Uchida

#9 - Mikio Sendoh

#29 - Walt Williams (NOTE - Williams announced he'd wear #29 when he arrived in Japan but actually wore #13)

#25 - Makoto Kamigochi

#452

Chunichi Dragons

#37 - Wally Yonamine (Manager)

#20 - Senichi Hoshino

#21 - Yukitsura Matsumoto

#29 - Takamasa Suzuki

#23 - Tatsuhiko Kimata

#1 - Morimichi Takagi

#4 - Gene Martin

#8 - Kinji Shimatani

#2 - Yasushi Tao

#6 - Hiroki Inoue

#30 - Ron Woods

#41 - Kenichi Yazawa

#455

Taiheiyo Club Lions

#71 - Takashi Eda (Coach)

#11 - Nobuhiro Tamai

#18 - Shitoshi Sekimoto

#21 - Osamu Higashio

#24 - Masaaki Koga

#10 - Masaji Nishizawa

#4 - Mitsuo Motoi

#7 - Osamu Hirose

#27 - Masashi Takenouchi

#2 - Matty Alou (NOTE - Alou had worn #2 in 1975 but wore #1 in 1976)

#6 - Jinten Haku

#3 - Masahiro Doi

#461

#72 - Takeshi Koba (Manager)

#11 - Kojiro Ikegaya

#14 - Yoshiro Sotokoba

#19 - Yukinobu Miyamoto

#21 - Kazushi Saeki

#22 - Shiro Mizunuma

#1 - Tsuyoshi Ohshita

#3 - Sachio Kinugasa

#6 - Gail Hopkins

#9 - Toshiyuki Mimura

#5 - Richie Scheinblum

#8 - Koji Yamamoto

#464

#68 - Yukio Nishimoto

#1 - Keishi Suzuki

#18 - Koji Ohta

#27 - Toshio Kanbe

#24 - Shuzo Arita

#3 - Koichi Hada

#28 - Shunji Nishimura

#42 - Clarence Jones

#5 - Kyosuke Sasaki

#7 - Toru Ogawa

#54 - Kohei Shimamoto

#38 - Nariho Abe

You may have noticed that the Lions have a coach (Takashi Eda) and not a manager on their card.  The Lions manager for 1976 was supposed to be - believe it or not - Leo Durocher.  He'd signed a contract but the 71 year old ended up cancelling out due to illness.  Masakazu Kito ended up being named manager during training camp that season - I'm guessing it was after the cards went to press.

I only had five of these team cards before I went to Japan.  I had asked Ryan to pick up four of the six I needed (the Tigers, Hawks, Fighters and Whales) from Mandarake a couple months back and they were among the cards he gave me when we met up in Tokyo.  I got the last two I needed (the Giants and the Lions) at Kinkies in Osaka.

Here's what the back of one of these cards looks like:

This is the back of the Hankyu Braves card.  The line just under the team logo identifies the team's home stadium (Nishinomiya Stadium).  The next line says the team was founded in 1936 (Showa 11).  The following lines say that the team has won six Pacific League pennants (1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1972 and 1975 or Showa 42, 43, 44, 46, 47 and 50) and one Nippon Series championship (1975 or Showa 50).  Their record in 1975 was 64-59-7 (which was a combined 1st and 2nd half record as the Pacific League was doing a split season format at the time).  The last line is a little weird but I think it's listing the team's winning percentage from 1975 - it was .520 and I think the "5" is the tenths digit in .520 and the "2" is the hundreths digit.  Some of the other teams have three digits on this line (although the Dragons card is missing this line altogether).

The remaining two "multi-player cards" are for each league's statistical leaders from 1975.  The Pacific League card has ten players on it while the Central League one only has eight.  The reason for the difference is that the two cards don't list the same statistical categories.

#404

Pacific League Leaders

Batting Average - Jinten Haku, Lions

Home Runs - Masahiro Doi, Lions

RBIs - Hideji Kato, Braves

OBP - Toru Ogawa, Buffaloes

Stolen Bases - Yutaka Fukumoto, Braves

ERA - Choji Murata, Orions

Winning Percentage - Keishi Suzuki, Buffaloes

Winning Percentage - Osamu Nomura, Fighters

Wins - Osamu Higashi, Lions

Saves - Choji Murata, Orions

I believe that this is the first Calbee card to show a player from Lotte.

#420

Central League Leaders

Batting Average - Koji Yamamoto, Carp

Home Runs - Koichi Tabuchi, Tigers

RBIs - Sadaharu Oh, Giants

Stolen Bases - Tsuyoshi Ohshita, Carp

"Most On Base" - Sadaharu Oh, Giants

ERA - Sohachi Aniya, Tigers

Wins - Yoshiro Sotokoba, Carp

Saves - Takamasa Suzuki, Dragons

I find it kind of interesting that Calbee used the same photo for players who appeared on both the leader cards and the team cards.  Which means they used that photo of Sadaharu Oh three times.  On the other hand, the photos of Tsuyoshi Ohshita might be different (or they might have rotated it slightly in addition to changing the cropping on it).