Japanese Baseball Cards: RIP Toshio Kanbe

Former Kintetsu Buffaloes and Yakult Swallows pitcher Toshio Kanbe passed away at age 83 about a week ago. Kanbe's path to professional baseball was kind of circuitous as he signed on with the Mitsubishi Paper Mills team in Japan's corporate leagues after graduating from high school in I'm guessing around 1962 as he was born in 1943. He switched jobs in 1965 and went to "work" for Fuji Steel Hirohata. He was loaned to Sumitomo Metal for the 1966 Intercity Tournament and threw a shutout in the semifinal game against Daishowa Paper to put the team into the finals against Kumagai Gumi (although he took the loss in relief in the final game when he gave up the winning run in the bottom of the tenth).

He was taken by the Yomiuri Giants in the third round of the 1966 draft but he refused to sign, remaining with Fuji Steel Hirohata. He was the Hashido Award winner - basically the MVP - of the 1968 Intercity Tournament when he helped Fuji Steel win their first ever corporate league championship. He again pitched in the 1969 tournament, winning his first two starts before losing in the third round against Nippon Life.

He was the second round pick by the Buffaloes in the 1969 draft and this time he signed. He was a 27 year old rookie when he made his professional baseball debut on April 14th, 1970, getting the win in relief against the Toei Flyers. Kintetsu used him as both a starter and a reliever during his stint with them and he was a steady member of the rotation. He got into a league leading 51 games in 1971 and led the league in shutouts with 4 in 1974. He was named to the Pacific League All Star team three times - in 1972, 1974 and 1975. The highlight of his time in Osaka was undoubtably the no-hitter he threw against the Hankyu Braves in 1975.

The Buffaloes traded him away after the 1978 season. He, along with Takehide Sato and Yoshitaka Terada were dealt to the Yakult Swallows for Charlie Manuel and Yasunori Nagao. The timing couldn't have been worse for the three former Buffaloes. The Swallows had just won the Nippon Series and would not win again until 1993 while Kintetsu would play in the next two Nippon Series (although they'd lose both to the Carp). Yakult used him as a starter for his first couple seasons with them. He gave up Sadaharu Oh's 868th and final home run on October 12th, 1980. He took over the closer role in 198, notching 10 saves and was expected to continue in that role the following year. He injured his elbow during spring training, however, and was unable to pitch at all in 1982. While he had originally planned on playing until he was 40, he retired at the end of that season one year short of that.

He spent the next three seasons as the pitching coach for the Swallows farm team before moving back to Kintetsu in 1986 to perform the same role. He was promoted to be the ichi-gun team's pitching coach when Akira Ohgi took over as manager in 1988 and remained there until Ohgi was dismissed after the 1992 season. He was demoted back to the farm team under Keishi Suzuki and was there for another four years.

Ohgi had become manager of the Orix BlueWave in 1994 and he asked Kanbe to rejoin him in 1997. Kanbe was the pitching coach for the BlueWave for five years, leaving when Ohgi was let go after the 2001 season. He was a commentator for J SPORTS for the 2003 season and returned to Orix in 2005 when Ohgi was named manager of the newly merged Orix Buffaloes. He remained as coach after Ohgi's untimely passing at the end of 2005, staying with the team through 2007. He spent 2008 and 2009 in Korea as the pitching coach of the Kia Tigers. His final coaching job was as a training camp instructor with the KBO's Hanwha Eagles in 2013.

Kanbe's baseball cards fall into three categories - the cards he had as a player, the cards he had as a coach and the cards he had in BBM's OB card sets. Engel lists 13 cards for him while TCDB has 23 although four of those are autographed cards. As usual, there is some overlap but by my count he has 21 base set cards.

His first known card is from an oddball menko set that Engel refers to as "JCM 15a: c. 1972 Kankan Menko". He shares the card with Minoru Murayama of the Tigers - Murayama appears in the foreground and Kanbe is in the background. He also had eight Calbee cards - two in the 1974/75 set and six in the 1975/76/77 set (including one of the multi-player cards). His remaining cards from his playing days are in the 1977 NST set and the 1979-82 Takara Swallows sets. I only have the Kankan Menko and the 1975/76/77 Calbee multi-player cards:

1972 Kankan Menko JCM 15a

1975/76/77 Calbee #464

Kanbe is the rightmost player on the top row (#27).

I have what I think is an additional card of Kanbe. I have a handful of uncataloged, blank backed cards from around 1975. There's no identification of the players on the cards but I think this one is Kanbe - the uniform number appears to be #27:

Kanbe also has a cameo appearance on Yoshito Oda's card from the 1976 Yamakatsu JY1a set:

Kanbe appeared as a coach in two of BBM's Orix Buffaloes team sets - 2005 and 2007. I do not have either of these cards. I have the complete 2006 Orix team set but BBM didn't include coach cards that year.

Finally, Kanbe has appeared in five of BBM's OB sets over the past 20 years or so. I have all five of these cards: