RIP Shoji Matsumoto

I wanted to do a quick post to mark the passing of former Hankyu Braves pitcher Shoji Matsumoto.  He passed away on October 8th at age 67 but it wasn't announced by the Orix Buffaloes (Hankyu's successor) until the 14th.

As is the case with many Japanese baseball players, Matsumoto became well known because of his performance in the National High School Baseball Championship, better known as Summer Koshien.  And as is also the case with many Japanese baseball players, especially pitchers, his performance in the tournament most likely directly impacted his professional career in a negative way.

Matsumoto attended Toyo University Himeji High School.  According to his Japanese Wikipedia article, he overcame his initial control struggles in high school by "running 20 km [12.4 miles] and throwing 300 pitches every day".  His team reached the semi-finals of the Spring Koshien tournament in his second year but Matsumoto really made his mark in the Summer Koshien tournament of the following year.

Himeji's first game in the 1977 Koshien tournament was against Chiba Commercial on August 12th.  They won 4-0 with Matsumoto throwing a complete game shutout.  Their next game wasn't until August 17th against Hamada.  Matsumoto started and threw six scoreless innings before being lifted for Kenji Miyamoto (who would later pitch for the Swallows) due to the team having a 5-0 lead.  Matsumoto didn't come out of the game, however, he just switched to a different position.  This came in handy as Miyamoto ended up only throwing five pitches before taking a line drive off his hand and being forced from the game.  Matsumoto resumed pitching and completed the team's second consecutive shutout.

The next day, August 18th, was the quarterfinal game against Tomigusuku and Matsumoto had another complete game victory, although this time it was not a shutout.   The semi-final game against Imabari Nishi was on the 19th and Matsumoto again got the start.  He threw another shutout but it took ten innings before Himeji finally managed to score a run and win the game.

The final was on August 20th and, you guessed it, Matsumoto was again on the mound for Himeji.  He gave up a run in the top of the top of the second but Himeji tied it up in the bottom of the fourth.  That's the way the score remained until the bottom of the tenth inning when Himeji's catcher, Koji Yasui, hit a three run, walk off home run to win the game and the tournament.  It was the first time that the tournament had ever ended on a sayonara home run.

So, to recap, Matsumoto essentially pitched five complete games in the tournament, including four on consecutive days, the last two of which went ten innings each.  This, of course, was on top of his regime of throwing 300 pitches a day - although, to be fair, I don't know how long he kept doing that.

Matsumoto was neither the first nor the last pitcher in Japan to be horribly overworked in high school - remember it was less than ten years ago when Roki Sasaki's high school coach ignite a firestorm of controversy when he rested Sasaki instead of using him in the final game of the Iwate prefectural tournament.  So how Matsumoto was used in the tournament was neither eye opening or a red flag - which was apparent when Hankyu selected him in the first round of the draft the following fall.  As you might expect, Hankyu had high expectations for him - high enough that they gave him the uniform number 33 which had been ace pitcher Takao Kajimoto's number.  To be clear, it wasn't just Kajimoto's number when he was pitching but he was still using it as a coach up until when Matsumoto got drafted.  He switched to number 78 to free up the number for Matsumoto.

Matsumoto spent most of his first year with the Braves on their farm team, making the Junior All Star game (as the minor league All Star game was called then).  He only got into six games with the top team, posting a 4.15 ERA in 13 innings, walking eight while striking out only five.  Still, Hankyu thought enough of him to have him pitch in the Nippon Series against the Swallows that year.  He pitched two thirds of an inning in Game Seven in relief of Mitsuhiro Adachi and gave up a solo home run to Charlie Manuel.  He also appeared as part of a combined Giants and Braves roster to take on the visiting Cincinnati Reds in a game in Nishinomiya on November 11th.  He pitched one inning and gave up two runs (with either Dan Driessen or Champ Summers hitting a home run off of him).  He took the loss in the Reds 10-5 win.

This was probably the high point of his career.  He spent all of 1979 with the farm team but got into 9 ichi-gun games in 1980 and got his first and only win that season.  Injuries and ineffectiveness would limit him to only 17 games with the top team over the next four years and he retired after the 1987 season after spending three seasons exclusively on the farm team.

He spent a couple years as a bullpen pitcher for Hankyu/Orix but he mostly worked in the equipment department for the team, eventually becoming equipment manager, a position he held until forced to retire in 2024 when he turned 65.

I was a little surprised at how few baseball cards there were of him.  As far as I can tell, there were only five issued for him during his career - three Takara Braves cards (1981, 1982 & 1984) and two Hankyu Braves team issued sets from 1978 and 1979.  I thought he might have had a Calbee card in 1978 but there's actually very few Pacific League players in that year's Calbees and it was still pretty rare for them to issue a card of a rookie.  I believe he only had one "modern" card - a 2014 BBM Brilliant Teenagers card:

2014 BBM Brilliant Teenagers #073