RIP Brian Wolfe

Retired pitcher Brian Wolfe tragically passed away last week at age 45 after fighting leukemia.  Wolfe spent parts of nine seasons in NPB with three different teams.

He was originally drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the sixth round of the 1999 draft and played in the Twins, Brewers and Blue Jays organizations, making the big leagues for parts of three seasons with Toronto (2007-09).  He signed with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in 2010 and started the season in middle relief before being promoted to closer.  He eventually moved on to the starting rotation where he would remain for the next three seasons.  On May 24th of 2011, he became the first foreign pitcher in NPB history to record an immaculate inning.  He started and won Game Three of the 2012 Nippon Series against the Giants. 

The Fighters released him after 2013 and the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks immediately snatched him up, signing him to a two year contract.  His elbow gave way two months into the 2014 season and he underwent Tommy John surgery to repair it.  He was able to return in 2015 to make just two appearances but the Hawks did not resign him after his contract expired.

He started 2016 without a contract but the Saitama Seibu Lions picked him up in late July for their stretch drive.  He made four starts for the ichi-gun Lions and won all four of them, earning himself a contract extension for 2017.  He'd spend his final two seasons with the Lions, retiring after the 2018 season.

Here's a selection of Wolfe's Japanese baseball cards.  I tried to pick one card from each year of his NPB career but there are no Japanese cards of him from 2016 (and only one from 2015).

2010 BBM 1st Version #218

2011 Fighters Victory Card #053

2012 BBM Nippon Series #S35

2013 BBM 2nd Version #556

2014 BBM 1st Version #084

2015 BBM Hawks #H06

2017 BBM 2nd Version #433

2018 Epoch Lions Rookies & Stars #31

RIP Isao Harimoto

Another Japanese baseball legend has died.  Isao Harimoto, NPB's career hits leader with 3085, passed away on the Wednesday of last week at age 86.  

Harimoto was born in Hiroshima to Korean parents who named him Jang Hoon.  He severely burned his right hand after falling into a bonfire at age four and had only limited use of that hand.  He and his family were still living in Hiroshima when the US dropped the first atomic bomb on the city on August 6, 1945.  The family home was shielded from the blast itself by Hijiyama Hill which is probably why Harimoto survived.  His oldest sister, Jang Jeom-ja, was not as fortunate.  The 12 year old had been conscripted along with her classmates by the Imperial Japanese government to clear fire lanes in case of air raids.  She suffered burns all over her body and succumbed to her injuries in the days following the bombing.  Harimoto has been described as the only Hibakusha to ever play professional baseball but there were at least three others - Wataru Nonin, Takahashi Harada and Kunio Fukutomi.

His father returned to Korea after the war with the expectation that the family would join him once he got found stable employment but his father tragically died when a fish bone pierced his esophagus.  After an illegal boat taking Koreans back to the peninsula capsized off the coast of Japan, his mother decided it would be safer for the family to remain in Japan.  

The conditions in post-war Japan and the discrimination he and his family faced as Koreans shaped his childhood and, ultimately, his decision to play baseball.  He started playing baseball in elementary school.  He was naturally right handed, but the injuries he had suffered as a toddler to his right hand forced him to learn to throw left handed.  He would climb trees outside of Hiroshima Sogo Ground Baseball Park, the home of the Carp before they moved to Hiroshima Municipal Stadium in 1957, and saw that the baseball players had access to much better food than his family did.  He decided that baseball would be the way he could provide for them.

His other option, of course, was a life of crime.  He got in a lot of fights and greatly admired the local yakuza.  He had said that if he had stayed in Hiroshima, he thought he would have ended up joining them. 

Luckily, he didn't stay in Hiroshima.  With the help of his brother, he was able to attend Naniwa Commercial High School in Osaka.  He had hoped to play in the Koshien Tournament and the team made it in 1958.  However, several players, including Harimoto, were suspended from the team prior to the tournament due to a "violent incident in the clubhouse".  Harimoto had always maintained his innocence and was convinced that he was included in the suspensions due to the coach's prejudice against Koreans.  

He drew interest from professional clubs while in high school.  The Yomiuri Giants suggested that he drop out of school in his second year in 1957 and join them as a pitcher.  Harimoto had promised his brother that he'd graduate, so he declined the offer.  

He was no longer a pitcher by the time he graduated but teams were still interested in him.  While he had been interested in signing with the Carp, his final decision was between the Chunichi Dragons and Toei Flyers.  Here, again, the poverty of his family played a role.  Since they were too poor to have a television set, he and his brother (who was in charge of the negotiations) didn't know that the Central League was much more popular than the Pacific League.  He ended up signing with Toei for a two million yen signing bonus.  After the signing, he and his brother traveled back to Hiroshima from Tokyo on an overnight train with the entire two million wrapped in newspaper.  When they presented it to their mother, her reaction was "Have you done something bad again?"  Harimoto used the money to buy a new house for her.

He quickly established himself a star with Toei in 1959, winning the Pacific League Rookie Of The Year award.  He hit over .300 for the first time in 1960 and won his first batting crown in 1961.  He'd win a record seven batting titles during his time with the Flyers/Fighters (1961, 1967-70, 1972 and 1974) - Ichiro is the only other player who led the league in batting seven times.  He also led the league in OBP nine times and hits three times.  He won the PL MVP award in 1962, the year that Toei won their only pennant and Nippon Series championship.

Harimoto remained with the Flyers during their sale first to Nittaku in 1973 and then Nippon-Ham in 1974.  He and the Fighters parted ways following the 1975 season with the 35 year old Harimoto being dealt to the Yomiuri Giants for Kazumi Takahashi and Masaru Tomita.  At the time, the two teams shared Korakuen Stadium so his work commute didn't change.

The Giants were coming off their first ever last place finish under rookie manager Shigeo Nagashima and Harimoto would replace Nagashima as the number three hitter in the lineup, batting in front of Sadaharu Oh.  The two would be dubbed the "OH Cannon" as an update of the "ON Cannon" that Nagashima and Oh had been called.  

Harimoto's arrival also allowed the Giants to move Davey Johnson from third base to second, a position he was much more comfortable with while outfielder Shigeru Takada, displaced by Harimoto, took over third base.  The move paid off for the Giants and they would win the Central League pennant in both 1976 and 1977, although they'd fall to the Hankyu Braves in the Series both years.

An eye injury limited him to just 77 games in 1979 and he hit only .263, his lowest batting average to date.  The Giants felt the 39 year old was no longer in their plans and he transferred to the Lotte Orions for the 1980 season.  That season would see him reach two career milestones - his 3000th hit on May 28th and his 500th home run four months later on September 28th.   He is still the only player to reach 3000 hits in NPB.  He returned for one last season in 1981 but hit a paltry .219 in 70 games and retired at the end of the season.

He won 16 Best 9 awards during his career and was named to the All Star team 18 times.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1990 and was selected as one of the outfielders (along with Ichiro and Hideki Matsui) on the 20th Century Best 9 team.  He's the only player in NPB history with more than 500 home runs and 300 steals.

There were rumors of him being offered the managerial job with either Lotte or Nippon-Ham in the decade after he retired but nothing ever came of it.  He is credited with being one of the three founders of the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) which started up in 1982.  He served as the special assistant to the commissioner of the league from its founding until 2005.  

He was also a commentator on TV and was known for his "grumpy old man" opinions - Jim Allen described him as "the commander of Japanese baseball’s curmudgeon corps" in his BlueSky post about his passing.

He made some playing appearances in his 60's for the Tokyo Dreams of the Masters League, a baseball league for retired players that operated in the off season from 2001 to 2009.  He managed to get a hit in 2005 although he said that the pitcher he got the hit off of, Nobuyuki Hoshino, was "going easy on him".  Harimoto was also active in the annual Premium Malts old-timer game for a number of years.

There are a LOT of baseball cards for Harimoto.  His earliest appearances were on menko and bromide cards in the early 60's and he was in the 1967 Kabaya-Leaf set.  In the 70's he made regular appearances in sets from Calbee, Yamakatsu, Nippon-Ham and NST.  He's shown up fairly regularly in OB sets from both BBM and Epoch (among others) since 2000.  He also appeared in all three of BBM's sets for the Premium Malts old timer games in 2009, 2010 and 2012 (I've never been able to track down any Masters League cards or even really confirm if any existed) and had a "Ceremonial First Pitch" card in the 2016 BBM Fusion set.  Here's a big batch of his cards:

1960 Yamakatsu Home Plate Menko (JCM 86)

1961 Marusan JCM 12d

1962 Doyusha JCM 55

1967 Kabaya-Leaf #409

1974/75 Calbee #248

1976 Yamakatsu JY1a (w/Davey Johnson)

1975/76/77 Calbee #1213 (w/Hal Breeden)

1975/76/77 Calbee #1252 (w/Sadaharu Oh)

1979 TCMA #61

1980 Yamakatsu JY12

1995 BBM #324

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #460

2001 BBM Preview #CB9

2009 BBM/Shukan Baseball Legend Players #28

2010 BBM The Premium Malts #02

2014 BBM Classic #090

2016 BBM Fusion #FP20

2021 BBM Legendary Rookies #LR03

2024 BBM 90th Anniversary #116

NOTE - I used Harimoto's Japanese Wikipedia page extensively for the information in this post.

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:

2008 BBM Back To The 70's #032

2009 BBM Kintetsu Anniversary #25

2011 BBM Legend Of The Bs #56

2012 BBM No-Hitters #59

2017 BBM Time Travel 1975 #15

RIP Baek In-chun

Former baseball player Baek In-chun passed away late last week at the age of 82 in Cheonan, South Korea.  Baek had a 20 year career in NPB under the name "Jinten Haku" and then played in the KBO's first three seasons.  I'm not entirely sure but I believe that Baek was the first "native" Korean to play in Japan - I put quotes around "native" as he was actually born in China.  There were other Koreans who played in NPB before him such as Masaichi Kaneda and Isao Harimoto, but I think they were all from the Korean communities in Japan (Kaneda was from Aichi prefecture while Harimoto was from Hiroshima).

As I mentioned, Baek was born in Wuxi in Jiangsu province in China on September 27, 1942.  I'm not sure why the family was living there but they moved "back" to Korea following the country's liberation from the Japanese occupation at the end of the Pacific War.  The family initially moved back to his father's home of Cholsan County in the northern part of the country, not far from the Chinese border.  Before the Korean War broke out, however, the family moved south to Seoul and Baek grew up there, attending Kyungdong High School.  He was a baseball star in high school, winning the Lee Young-min award in 1959, an award named for a pioneering Korean baseball player*.  He homered in a game played in Japan at Meiji Jingu Stadium in 1960, becoming only the second high school player to hit one at Jingu in the postwar period.  

*Who played for the the All Nippon team that took on the All American All Stars in 1934 under the name Eibin Ri - my thanks to Rob Fitts for confirming that Lee was Eibin Ri.

In addition to playing baseball, he was also a speed skater and won the 1500 meter event at the Winter Sports Games held in January, 1961 with a time of 2 minutes and 49.18 seconds.

After he graduated from high school, Yoshiro Shimaoka, the legendary coach of Meiji University's baseball team, approached him about studying abroad.  It wasn't possible, however, due to Japan and South Korea not having established a diplomatic relationship following the war and Baek not having fulfilled his military obligation.  Instead, he joined the Korea Agricultural Bank corporate league team as their catcher.  He was selected for the South Korean team for the 1962 Asian Baseball Championship which was held in Taiwan in January of that year.  He homered in the team's final game against the Philippines, helping Korea to a 5-1 victory and a second place finish in the tournament (tied with Taiwan).  It was the only home run hit in the entire tournament and the first one hit by a foreigner at Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium.

He stopped off in Tokyo while returning to Korea and created a bit of an international incident by signing a provisional contract with the Toei Flyers.  The Korea Baseball Association was not happy, believing that it was better for the future of Korean baseball for their best players to stay in Korea.  The South Korean government, ruled at the time by a military junta that had seized power in the May 16 coup in 1961, felt differently, perhaps due to their need for funds from Japan to help rebuild the economy, and ultimately Baek was allowed to join the Flyers.

I'm not entirely sure when and why he started playing under the name Jinten Haku but it appears to be when he joined Toei.  He spent his first year and a half with the Flyers' farm team, not getting called up until a series of injuries sidelined several of the catchers on the ichi-gun squad.  He made his first team debut on June 26, 1963, in the seventh inning of a game against Nankai.  He reportedly felt like he was dreaming when he got behind the plate and caught his first pitch but instead of pinching himself, he kicked the home plate umpire's leg.  When the umpire yelled "Ouch! What are you doing?", he felt that he had confirmed to himself that he wasn't dreaming.

He ultimately only got into 20 games in 1963 but he ended up replacing Junzo Ando as the team's starting catcher during the second half of 1964.  The Flyers had him hit clean up and he was part of the core of the team's lineup, along with Isao Harimoto and Katsuo Ohsugi.  By 1966, the Flyers had moved him to the outfield and he was an All Star for the first time in 1967.  

He had a boneheaded play that season, though, as he hit what looked like a game winning three run home run against Kintetsu but was called out for passing the base runner in front of him.  The game was instead tied and the Flyers ended up losing the game in extra innings.

Haku became embroiled in an unfortunate incident in 1970 when, enraged by a called strike three, he got into a fist fight with home plate umpire Motoya Tsuyuzaki, a former boxer.   He not only was ejected from the game, but was criminally charged with assault and battery.  Ultimately a settlement was made several days later but not before Haku went to Tsuyuzaki's home to apologize.  He found that the umpire was not there, having left to go to the police station to swear out the complaint against Haku.  The incident doesn't appear to have disrupted his season too much though as he played in 127 of the Flyers' 130 games that year, made the All Star team for the second time and led the league in doubles with 30.

Later that same year, Toei made a request at the South Korean Embassy in Japan that Haku be exempted from his mandatory military service.  The Korean government refused and ordered Haku to return to Korea, which he did, leaving his wife and kids behind in Japan.  He didn't return to them and the Flyers until the beginning of May, 1971.  It turns out, however, that he didn't actually serve in the military - he instead helped out on the ranch his father had purchased and took care of his sick mother.  The South Korean government had arranged the whole thing to counter criticism they were getting for allowing Haku to play baseball instead of being in the military and the delay in his return to Japan was to make it realistically look like he'd served.  He ultimately never served his military obligation.

He had what was probably his best season with the Flyers in 1972, reaching career highs in home runs and RBIs with totals of 19 and 80 respectively.  His .315 average, best of his career to date, was third best in the league.  He made the All Star team for the third time.  

Toei sold the Flyers to the real estate company Nittaku Home in February of 1973.  Haku had a poor season for the newly renamed Nittaku Home Flyers, hitting just .247, his lowest average since he'd become a regular.  The team didn't play particularly well either - finishing fifth in the first half of the season and fourth in the second half - and Nittaku Home sold the team to Nippon-Ham in November of that year, after just nine months of ownership.  

Haku bounced back somewhat in 1974, bringing his average up to .261, but the now Nippon-Ham Fighters were abysmal, finishing last in both halves of the season with an overall record of 49-75-6.  At the end of the season, the new ownership decided that it was time to part ways with many of the key Toei players who were still with the team.  Katsuo Ohsugi was dealt to the Yakult Swallows, Tsuyoshi Oshita was dispatched to the Hiroshima Toyo Carp and Haku was traded to the Taihieyo Club Lions in exchange for Masayoshi Higashida.  (Isao Harimoto would be dispatched to the Yomiuri Giants a year later.)

Haku responded to the trade by winning the Pacific League batting crown with a .319 average.  He became the first batter to win the crown with exactly the required number of plate appearances as he'd fought several injuries during the season including a sprained ankle and a fractured ring finger (caused when his left hand was hit by a pitch).  Oddly enough, he didn't make the All Star team that year but he was named to the post-season Best 9 squad for the only time in his career.

After two seasons in Fukuoka, he was on the move again.  The Lions traded him along with pitcher Shoji Yasuki to the Lotte Orions for Kazuo Hasegawa and Akira Kuramochi.  His second year back in Kanto, 1978, did not go well.  He clashed with manager Masaichi Kaneda and played in just 58 games, his fewest since 1963.  He planned on retiring following the season but was convinced to stay on by Kazuhiro Yamauchi who replaced Kaneda as manager that off season.  He ended up with one of his best seasons in 1979, hitting .340 which was by far the highest batting average of his career and, once again, good for third place in the league.  He had 18 home runs and 71 RBIs and made the All Star team for the fourth and final time.  He fell hard in 1980 (despite being reunited with Harimoto), hitting just .216 in 76 games.  He was sent to the Kintetsu Buffaloes that offseason and ended up hitting .227 in 84 games in 1981.

He and Kintetsu parted ways after the season and Haku set his sights on returning to South Korea for the inaugural season of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), the first professional baseball league in South Korea.  He was named player-manager of the MBC Blue Dragons and led the fledgling league in batting with an astounding .412 average.  It is still the highest average in KBO history and is the only .400 season ever recorded in the league.  MBC finished third for the season and Haku - or Baek as he was now using his Korean name again - was set to return as manager for 1983.  A few weeks into the season, however, MBC let him go after he was arrested for adultery.  His wife had filed a complaint against him for having an affair with another woman.  Baek was out of baseball for a few months while the two of them divorced.  He signed on with the Sammi Superstars as a player-coach late in the 1983 season but hit only .190 in 35 games.  He played even less in 1984, getting into only 10 games with Sammi while hitting .281.  He retired at the end of the season, bringing his 23 year playing career (1962-84) to a finish.

He ran a golf equipment business for several years after his playing days ended but he returned to the dugout to again manage the MBC Blue Dragons in 1989, leading the team to a sixth place, just barely (a half game) better than the last place Lotte Giants.  That offseason, the team was bought by LG and renamed the Twins, making Baek both the first and last manager of the Blue Dragons.  The team had quite a turnaround in 1990, finishing first and sweeping the Samsung Lions in the Korea Series.  It would be the only championship of either his playing or managerial career.  He was named the league's Manager Of The Year.  The Twins dropped back to sixth place in 1991 and Baek was fired at the end of the season.  

Five years later he was hired to manage the Samsung Lions.  His time with the Lions was marked by his falling out with star shortstop Kang Ki-woong.  Kang had suffered an ankle injury in May of 1995 after colliding with rookie first baseman Lee Seung-yeop and his performance had declined significantly.  Baek felt that Kang had a poor attitude towards practice and ended up trading him to the Hyundai Unicorns after the 1996 season.  Kang refused the trade and ultimately retired in early 1997 at age 33.  

The Lions finished in sixth place in Baek's first season at the helm in 1996.  They rose to fourth place the following season and made the playoffs.  They defeated the third place Ssangbangwool Raiders in the first round of the playoffs but lost to the second place LG Twins in the second round.*  By that time, however, Baek was no longer with the team.  He had suffered a stroke during the season and was forced to step down as manager.  Cho Chang-soo finished out the season as interim manager.

*Baseball-Reference incorrectly has Ssangbangwool winning the first round of the playoffs and then falling to LG in the second round.  I got the correct outcome from Korean Wikipedia.

He was a hitting coach for Yonsei University in 1998 and filled the same roll for the Hanwha Eagles in 1999.  He also was a baseball commentator for the SBS network in 1999 and 2000.  At the end of the 1999 season, Samsung dismissed manager Seo Jeong-hwan, who had taken the team over from Cho the previous year and Baek's name was mentioned as a possible replacement.  His exclusive contract with SBS, however, prevented this from happening.  

He started 2002 as a hitting coach for the SK Wyverns but in mid-June, he was named manager of the Lotte Giants.  Lotte was still reeling from the abrupt death of manager Kim Myung-sung the previous July from a heart attack.  Woo Yong-deuk took over the team and led them to a 27-22-1 record during the remainder of the 2001 season but he was dismissed three months into the following year when the team was just 17-1-42.  Acting manager Kim Yong-hee lost the two games he led the team before Baek took over.  

To say it didn't go well would be an understatement.  The team had a worse record under Baek, going 18-53 in the remaining 71 games that season.  Things did not improve in 2003, with the Giants going 23-66-3 in 92 games before Baek was dismissed in early August.

The 2001-07 seasons are referred to as the "dark age" in Lotte Giants history.  Baek's contribution to this was not just in the team's record.  In 2002, he ordered the then-20 year old Lee Dae-ho to lose weight.  The outdated training methods he made Lee do injured his knee cartilage, resulting in him being exiled to the farm team.  Baek also decided to make a power hitter out of leadoff hitter Kim Joo-chan which resulted in Kim's batting average dropping from .313 in 2001 to .220 in 2002.  Finally, he tried to convert star pitcher Son Min-han to a catcher and, when Son refused, attempted to trade him before being overruled by Lotte's front office.  

It probably comes as no surprise that Baek neither managed or coached again after the debacle with Lotte.  He was again a baseball commentator and had a three year contract with SBS when the network got the rights to broadcast the Yomiuri Giants' home games in Korea in 2008.  In later years he suffered both health issues related to his stroke and financial hardships.  

Haku/Baek did not have a lot of baseball cards.  Engel lists 17 cards for him while TCDB lists 16.  There is, of course, some overlap between the two lists and I believe the real count is about 25.  His earliest card is from the 1964 Marukami JCM 14g menko set.  He also appears in the 1967 Kabaya-Leaf set.  Curiously, his only Calbee cards appear to be from the "monster" 1975/76/77 set - he had a total of eight cards in that set although two of them are multi-player cards.  Additionally, he appeared in the 1977 NST, 1979 TCMA and 1981 Takara Buffaloes sets as well as some oddball sets including a very rare "Taiheiyo Club Lions Diecut Standups" set from 1975.  His only known KBO card is from the 1996 Pro Baseball Stickers when he managed Samsung although I would not be surprised to discover he had an earlier card - unfortunately the cards for the KBO before the mid-90's are not well cataloged.  He also appeared in a handful of BBM's OB sets in the 2000's and 2010's.

Here are all the cards I have of him:

1964 Marukami JCM 14g menko

1967 Kabaya-Leaf #408

1975 JCM 58 menko

1975/76/77 Calbee #270

1975/76/77 Calbee #349

1975/76/77 Calbee #392

1977 NST #254

1979 TCMA #2

2008 BBM Lotte 40th Anniversary #31

2010 BBM Lions 60th Anniversary #78

2017 BBM Time Travel 1975 #24

2017 BBM Time Travel 1975 "Titleholder" #PT3

2019 BBM Time Travel 1979 #58

It's kind of odd that his 1977 NST card shows him with the Lions as he was with the Orions when that set was released.  It is very rare for an NPB card to show an active player on a team that he was no longer with.

I separated out the two multi-player cards from the 1975/76/77 Calbee set that he appears on.  The first is the Lions team card:

1975/76/77 Calbee #455

Haku is on the bottom row, the second player from the right - #6 (right next to Matty Alou - #2).

The other card was for the Pacific League statistical leaders from 1975:

1975/76/77 Calbee #404

Haku's batting crown gives him a prime position on the left of the top row (#6).  I think that it uses the same photo as the Lions team card but not as tightly cropped and tilted just a tad.

A quick note about my sources - I used the Google translations of Baek/Haku's Japanese and Korean Wikipedia pages as a starting point and from there I went to other Wiki pages as well as some of the references on the pages.  I'm reasonably confident about everything I put in this post but it's definitely possible that I misunderstood something.