Card Of The Week January 21

I picked up a card of an obscure Japanese Hall Of Famer this past week - Shinji Hamazaki.  Hamazaki is best known for having held the records for oldest player to both win a game and appear in a game in Japanese professional baseball for 60+ years until both records were surpassed by Masa Yamamoto.  He's also well known for being one of the shortest players in professional baseball history - he was right around 5 foot, one inch in height.  But there's more to Hamazaki's story than just being old and short.  

He was born in Kure in Hiroshima prefecture in 1901 and played baseball at Hiroshima Commercial school.  He and his school took part in the 1917 National High School Championship tournament - the tournament that would later be referred to as "Summer Koshien" but Koshien Stadium hadn't been built yet - but they lost in the first round.  He dropped out of school in 1919 and went to work for (and played baseball for) the Kure Naval Arsenal.  Later that year he went back to high school, enrolling at the Kobe Commercial School.  He again played in the National High School Championship in 1922 (which was still not at Koshien yet - it was played at Naruo Stadium), only this time his team made it all the way to the final.  Hamasaki was the starter for Kobe in the final and took a 4-0 lead into the late innings before Wakayama High School took advantage of several Kobe errors and scored five runs in the eighth and three in the ninth to win 8-4.  He is one of only a handful of players to take part in the National High School Championship for more than one school.

After graduating high school, he joined the Diamond Club, a group of former Keio University players living in the Kansai region.  He enrolled at Keio in 1923 and played baseball there until he graduated in 1929.  He then joined the South Manchuria Railway corporate league team and remained with them until the war.  As a star pitcher in the corporate leagues, he was recruited to play for the All Japan team for the 1934 US All Star tour and made seven appearances including one start.  On their face, his numbers for the tournament look really bad - giving up 33 hits (including nine home runs), 14 walks and 37 runs (only 27 earned) in 26 1/3 innings with only 10 strikeouts (for an ERA of 9.23) but it's not like any of the pitchers on the Japanese staff put up good numbers against the US lineup which featured five Hall Of Famers (Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx and Earl Averill).

When the war broke out he joined Manchuria Films in a position to promote sports to the company's employees.  At the war's end he was still living in Manchuria which was occupied by the Soviets and I think he ran a restaurant specializing in tonkatsu (pork cutlets) before returning to Japan in 1947.

After considering a return to the industrial leagues, Hamazaki instead joined the Hankyu Braves as both player and manager and made his professional baseball debut on September 28th at the age of 46, starting against Nankai at Korakuen Stadium.  He gave up a home run to the first batter he faced - Kamikazu Yasui - but he pitched six innings, giving up only one other run and got the win in the Braves' 6-2 victory.  He ultimately got into four games that season, going 1-0 with a 4.41 ERA.  He pitched in 17 games the following season, going 3-3 with a 2.52 ERA.  

He didn't pitch at all in 1949 but the Braves had one of the best finishes Hamazaki would have as a manager, going 69-64-1 and finishing second in the Japan Baseball League's final season (although it was a distant second - 16 games behind the pennant winning Giants).  He made nine appearances at age 48 in 1950, going 1-2 with a 7.07 ERA.  He got the victory in relief in the Braves 7-6 walk off victory against the Tokyu Flyers on May 7th (although if that box score is accurate, I don't understand why he got the victory as opposed to Yoshio Tenba).  He made his final appearance on November 5th, starting the game against Yoshio Yuasa, the 48 year old manager of the Mainichi Orions who was making his first and only playing appearance in professional baseball.  Mainichi got the win with Yuasa going four innings and only giving up two runs despite walking six.  Hamazaki took the loss.

Hamazaki would manage the Braves for three more seasons.  Hankyu had the best record of any of Hamazaki's teams in 1953, going 67-52-1 to finish in second, four games behind Nankai, but he resigned at the end of the season, falling on his sword after not finishing first after six seasons.  He took over the "expansion" Takahashi Unions in 1954, leading them to a sixth place finish with a team that was expected to finish last (the Pacific League had eight teams that season).  His son, Masaru, who had joined Hankyu the previous season, followed his father to Takahashi and played in 68 games.  He only hit .113 though and he retired from baseball after that season.  It is believed that the Hamazaki's were the first father-son duo to play professional baseball in Japan.

The bottom fell out in 1955 with the now Tombo Unions going 42-98-11 to finish dead last, 57 games out of first and nine games out of seventh place.  The highlight of the season was future Hall Of Famer Victor Starffin getting his 300th career win although he went 7-21 in his final season.  Hamazaki wasn't around for the full season, however, resigning from the team in late September with 15 or so games left to play.  The Unions would have one more disastrous season in 1956, going 52-98-4 to again finish last.  They merged with the Daiei Stars to become the Daiei Unions in 1957 which merged with Mainichi to become the Daimai Orions in 1958 (and reduce the number of teams in the Pacific League to the current six).

Hamazaki did some baseball commentary for various newspapers, TV and radio outlets after leaving the Unions.  He also coached for Mainichi in 1957 and the Yomiuri Giants in 1960.  He returned to the dugout as manager of the Kokutetsu Swallows for the 1963 season, leading the team to a 65-73-2 record and a fourth place finish.  He stepped down after the season and went back to being a baseball commentator.  He was elected to the Hall Of Fame in 1978 and passed away in 1981 at age 79.

Hamazaki had a number of cards in various menko, bromide and game sets in the late 1940's - TCDB lists 13 cards for him.  To the best of my knowledge, he has never had a modern card in any BBM or Epoch OB set.  I didn't have any cards of him until I got that one last week - his 1947 Hoshi Gangu (JCM 47) card.  Here's the front and back of it:

Yariel Rodriguez Of The Toronto Blue Jays

This week former Cuban National Team and Chunichi Dragons pitcher Yariel Rodriguez signed a four year deal with the Toronto Blue Jays.  He had defected from Cuba last spring after playing in the World Baseball Classic and pretty much had to sit out all of the 2023 season after the Dragons put him on the restricted list.

Rodriguez originally joined the Dragons in 2020 as an ikusei player but was moved to the 70 man roster after pitching well in a handful of games with the farm team.  He made his ichi-gun debut as a starter in August and was mostly used as a starter in 2021 as well.  The Dragons started to use him in middle relief in 2022 and he excelled in the role, going 6-2 with a 1.15 ERA, 60 strikeouts and 39 holds in 56 appearances.  He tied with Atsuki Yuasa of the Tigers for "most hold points" (holds + wins) in the Central League with 45 (Yuasa had 2 wins and 43 holds).

In addition to playing for Cuba in the 2023 WBC, he also played for them in the 2019 Premier 12 which is where he caught the attention of then-Dragons manager Tsuyoshi Yoda.  I was surprised to learn that he had also played for the "Cuban National Team" that played in "international portion" of the Can-Am League schedule in 2017 and 2019.

Rodriguez does not have a whole lot of Japanese baseball cards.  TCDB lists 17 cards for him but that count includes parallel and autograph cards.  The number of base cards is more like nine.  His only 2020 cards were Epoch One issues and he only had two 2021 cards that I know of - BBM Dragons (#D31) and Epoch Dragons Rookies & Stars (#17).  He had his first BBM "flagship" cards in 2022 - #448 in 2nd Version and #TH21 in Fusion - the latter being a card celebrating Yuasa and him leading the league in hit points - along with a card in BBM's Dragons team set (#D16).  It might surprise you to learn that he had two 2023 cards given that most Japanese card companies are very good about keeping their sets up to date but these things happen.  His first 2023 card was his first Calbee card - #T-14 in the "Titleholder" subset in Series One.  This set was released in late March, right around the time Rodriguez defected so it's really no surprise that he was in the set.  It was a bit of a surprise he was in the Topps NPB set though, as that got released two months later and you'd have thought there'd have been enough time to remove him from the set.  Oddly enough, both 2023 cards appear to use the same photo.  Here's all six cards I have of him:

2021 BBM Dragons #D31

2022 BBM 2nd Version #448

2022 BBM Dragons #D16

2022 BBM Fusion #TH21

2023 Calbee #T-14

2023 Topps NPB #9

2024 Hall Of Fame Class

The 2024 Japanese Baseball Hall Of Fame class was announced today.  The Player's Division elected former Hiroshima Toyo Carp (and Dodger and Yankee) pitcher Hiroki Kuroda and former Yokohama Taiyo Whale/Baystar and Chunichi Dragon catcher Motonobu Tanishige.  Tanishige was also player-manager with the Dragons for a couple of years in the teens.  The Special Committee elected former umpire Tomoichi Tanimura while the Expert Division didn't elect anyone - former Hanshin Tiger Masayuki Kakefu narrowly missed being selected, getting 109 of the 111 votes he needed to gain admittance. 

I think Kuroda is the eighth former MLB player to be elected to the Japanese HOF following Lefty O'Doul, Randy Bass, Hideo Nomo, Alex Ramirez, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Hideki Matsui and Shingo Takatsu.

Hiroki Kuroda

1997 BBM #496

2007 Calbee #096

2017 BBM Retirement #02

Motonobu Tanishige

1989 Takara Whales #1

2001 Upper Deck Victory #017

2016 BBM Retirement #03

I updated the spread sheet I have listing all the Hall Of Famers in BBM's flagship sets over the years (the one I used to identify the sets with the most Hall Of Famers and the sets with the most Hall Of Fame players).  1994 is still the set with the most Hall Of Fame players with 17 while 1991 remains the set with the most Hall Of Famers (players and managers) with 25.  Since Kuroda was last active in 2016, that's now the most recent year to feature a Hall Of Fame player. 

2023 Topps World Baseball Classic Cards

Last month Topps issued yet another and probably their last set for the 2023 World Baseball Classic.  The cards were only available in 10 card packs on line for $80-ish and the set had a 100 card base set with parallels, a bunch of inserts, memorabilia and autograph cards.  

I was taking a kind of "wait-and-see" attitude on it and now that I've waited and saw, I think I'm mostly going to pass on it.  There's only six players from Samurai Japan in the base set - all of whom have been featured in several previous WBC sets last year - and the cards of at least five of the six are selling at much higher prices than I want to pay on Ebay or COMC.  I have a lot of Roki Sasaki and Munetaka Murakami cards so I don't really need to be paying $30 or $50 for this one and I see no good reason to spend $10 on another Lars Nootbaar card.

I did decide to pick up a handful of cards from the set though but I concentrated on some low hanging fruit.  I bought seven cards from one Ebay seller - each one was less than $2 - and I thought I'd do a quick post about them.

Four of the seven were the Korean players in the set:

#19

#93

#26

#68

Edman, Kim and Park had all appeared in other 2023 WBC sets but Yang had not.

Next up were the cards of two long time NPB foreign players - although one of them no longer qualifies as a foreigner because he played in Japan long enough:

#27

#7

I picked up this last card simply because I like Harry Ford:

#35

The cards themselves look OK.  They've got a shiny finish on them that make them a little difficult to scan.  One thing I really like about them is the backs have the player's WBC stats and not just for the 2023 WBC.  Balentien and Despaigne's cards show their stats for the 2013 and 2017 tournaments as well while Kim and Yang's cards each have their stats for 2017.  Ford's card has his stats from the 2022 WBC qualifier as well.

After getting these today, I took a look to see what was available at Sportlots and I ended up ordering four more cards - Yu Chang from Taiwan, Andrelton Simmons from the Netherlands, Robbie Glendinning from Australia and Yu Darvish from Samurai Japan (Darvish being the one of the six Japanese players whose cards aren't more than I want to pay).  Not sure if I'm going to get any other cards.  I could see myself getting the other two Australian players maybe but that's probably about it.

Naoyuki Uwasawa of the Tampa Bay Rays

Last week pitcher Naoyuki Uwasawa, formerly of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, signed a minor league deal with the Tampa Bay Rays.  His signing was official right around the time his posting window was expiring so there was some speculation that he was going to go back to the Fighters.

Uwasawa was the Fighters' sixth round pick in the 2011 draft out of Senshu University Matsudo High School.  He spent his first two professional seasons with the farm team in Kamagaya, Chiba prefecture which is not terribly far from where he grew up.  He made his ichi-gun debut on April 4, 2014, starting against the Hawks in Fukuoka and picked up his first win, throwing six innings while only giving up three hits and one run.  He became a part of the Fighters' starting rotation that season and pretty much remained there for ten years.  

He injured his right elbow in the middle of the 2015 season and lost much of the following two seasons recovering.  He bounced back and had one of his best seasons in 2018, going 11-6 with a 3.16 ERA.  He was the Fighters' Opening Day starter in 2019 but missed about half of the season after taking a batted ball off his left knee.  

He had perhaps his finest season in 2021, going 12-6 with an ERA of 2.81.  His first win of the season came at the expense of Masahiro Tanaka of the Eagles on April 17th.  Tanaka was making his first start in NPB since 2013 and Uwasawa and the Fighters ended his consecutive game winning streak at 28 (dating back to the 2012 season).

Uwasawa never led the Pacific League in any major categories although he did lead the league in innings pitched last year.  He was named to the PL All Star team three times (2018, 2021 and 2023).

Uwasawa's first card was #017 in the 2012 BBM Rookie Edition set.  His only other cards that year were both BBM issues - #053 in 1st Version and #F30 in the Fighters team set.  His appearances in BBM's flagship sets have been kind of hit-or-miss - he was in both the 1st and 2nd Version sets in 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023; only the 2nd Version set in 2014 and 2020 and neither set in 2013, 2016 and 2017.  He has been in the annual Fighters team set every year between 2012 and 2023 however.  His first Calbee card was a "Star" insert card (#S-60) in the 2014 Series Three set although his first base card was #021 in 2015 Series One.  He's been in every edition of Epoch's NPB set (2018-23) and every edition of Topps' NPB set (2021-23).  This is not meant to be a comprehensive list.  Here's a sampling of what he has out there:

2012 BBM 1st Version #017

2012 BBM 1st Version #053

2013 BBM Young Fighters #YF12

2014 BBM 2nd Version #425

2015 Calbee #021

2016 BBM Fighters #F70

2017 BBM Fighters #F35

2018 BBM 2nd Version #446

2019 Calbee #OP-03

2020 Epoch NPB #148

2021 Topps #86-NU

2022 Fighters Team Set #15

2023 BBM 1st Version #138

Card Of The Week January 14

Last week the news broke that the Lions would be selecting pitcher Tsuyoshi Wada from the Hawks as compensation for Softbank signing free agent Hotoka Yamakawa.  This was met with a lot of disbelief in the Twitter-based NPB fan community for several reasons.  One of those was that Wada had been a member of the Hawks since being drafted out of Waseda University back in 2003 (with the exception of the four seasons he spent in North Ameica from 2012-2015 with the Orioles and Cubs) so it seemed inconceivable that he'd go to another team at this point in his career.  The other was why on Earth would the Lions select someone who'll be 43 years old in a few weeks?

As it turned out, the story about Wada's selection turned out to not be true.  The Lions instead have selected pitcher Hiroshi Kaino, which makes a lot more sense.  Kaino is 27 and was a much heralded prospect after his collegiate career at Toyo University but his pro career hasn't clicked yet.  He missed most of the 2020 season with elbow issues.  He's pitched relatively well in middle relief the last two seasons though and a change of scenery might do him some good.

Both Wada and Kaino were the top picks of the Hawks in the 2002 and 2018 drafts respectively.  Here's each of their BBM Rookie Edition cards:

2003 BBM Rookie Edition #63

2019 BBM Rookie Edition #011

Shota Imanaga Of The Chicago Cubs

Former Yokohama DeNA Baystars pitcher Shota Imanaga signed a four year deal this past week with the Chicago Cubs.  Imanaga was the Baystars top pick in the 2015 NPB draft out of Komazawa University.  He immediately moved into DeNA's starting rotation in his rookie year, making his debut in the Baystars fourth game of the season, and was pretty much in their rotation ever since.  I don't have a whole lot of highlights to point at but he's a two time All Star (2019 and 2023), he led the Central League in strikeouts in 2023 and he threw a no-hitter against the Fighters in 2022.  He's pitched for Samurai Japan in a number of occasions, both major (2017 Asian Professional Baseball Championship, 2019 Premier 12, 2023 World Baseball Classic) and minor (friendlies against Australia in 2018, Mexico in 2019 and Australia in 2022).  He spent several weeks in late 2018 with the Canberra Calvary of the Australian Baseball League, going 4-0 with an 0.51 ERA in six starts, striking out 57 and only walking one in 35 innings.

Imanaga's first card was #106 from the 2016 BBM Rookie Edition set.  He had other rookie cards in BBM's 1st Version (#318), 2nd Version (#576), Fusion (#21), Genesis (#103), Rookie Edition Premium (#34) and Baystars (#DB14) sets that season.  His first Calbee card was #144 in Series Two that year as well.  He's appeared in both the 1st and 2nd Version sets every year from 2016 to 2023 and every Calbee base set over the same period except 2018.  He's had cards in Calbee's Samurai Japan sets in 2019 and 2020, the Topps Now Samurai Japan cards for the 2022 Australian friendlies and in various Topps issues for the 2023 WBC team.  Obviously this is not a comprehensive list.  Here's some highlights of his cards:

2016 BBM Rookie Edition #106

2016 BBM 1st Version #318

2016 Calbee #144

2017 BBM Genesis

2018 BBM 1st Version #221

2019 Baystars Team Set #21

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan Special Box Set #M-2

2020 TIC Baystars Used Ball Series #39

2020 BBM 2nd Version #480

2021 Epoch Rookies & Stars #08

2022 Calbee #ES-06

2023 BBM 1st Version #195