RIP Manabu Kitabeppu

Manabu Kitabeppu, the Hall Of Fame pitcher from the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, passed away last week at age 65 after a lengthy battle with leukemia.  Kitabeppu was the team's first round pick in 1975 out of Miyakonojo Agricultural High School in Miyazaki prefecture.  He became part of the starting rotation for the Carp as a 19 year old in 1977 and pretty much remained there until he retired following the 1994 season.  His best season was probably 1982, when he went 20-8 with a 2.42 ERA.  He won 213 games in his career, the most by any Carp pitcher.  He also gave up 380 home runs, the most by any Central League pitcher although it's 180 shy of the all time record of 560 given up by Keishi Suzuki.  He won two Sawamura Awards (1982 & 1986), a Central League MVP award (1986), two Best 9 awards (1982 & 1986) and a Golden Glove award (1986).  He led the CL in wins twice (1982 & 1986) and ERA once (1986).  He was a seven time All Star (1979-83, 1988 & 1992) and pitched in five Nippon Series (1979-80, 1984, 1986 & 1991).  Despite the Carp winning three of the Series he played in, he was winless in eleven starts, going 0-5 with a 3.21 ERA.

After retiring as a player he was mostly a TV commentator although he was Hiroshima's pitching coach from 2001 to 2004.  He also a member of the Sawamura Award selection committee and was a director for the Meikyukai.

Kitabeppu was fairly well represented by baseball cards during his career, appearing in major sets from Takara, Calbee, BBM, Yamakatsu and Lotte.  The earliest card of him that I'm aware of was from the 1978 Takara Carp set.  His first Calbee card appears to be from the 1979 August Best set.  He also appears in the first four BBM flagship sets from 1991 to 1994.  Here's a bunch of his cards:

1979 Yamakatsu JY8 #41

1984 Takara Carp #20

1986 Calbee #211

1989 Mermaid Data Sticker #11

1990 Lotte #82

1991 BBM Nippon Series #S33

1992 BBM All Stars #A5

1994 BBM #132

He's frequently appeared in various OB sets and subset from BBM, Epoch and others over the past 20 years or so:

2002 BBM All Time Heroes #073

2013 Front Runner Carp Stars & Legends #23

2015 Epoch Red Helmet 40th Anniversary #40

2020 BBM Carp History #34

I have to say my favorite card of him is from the 2008 BBM Hiroshima Memorial set which celebrated the closing of Hiroshima Municipal Stadium.  The card commemorates him getting his 198th victory to pass Ryohei Hasegawa for most career wins for the Carp and depicts both him and Hasegawa:

2008 BBM Hiroshima Memorial #19

News From Calbee

If you're like me and you mark each change of seasons* with the expectation of a new release of Calbee baseball cards, you've probably been wondering where the announcement of this year's Series Two set has been.  Typically the set gets released in late June, just as spring is giving way to summer, but there's been no announcement of this year's edition yet.

*Well, each change except fall becoming winter in December anyway

I was fully expecting the announcement to come while I was on vacation but it did not.  I finally decided to reach out and use the company's inquiry webpage to ask about it.  (I have this mental block sometimes where I view the card companies as these cosmic phenomenon whose intricacies are beyond the ken of mortal men and it doesn't occur to me that I can actually at least try to ask them questions.)  Anyway, I was somewhat stunned that I got a reply back from Calbee overnight (well, overnight for me).  

Here's what they said:

Thank you for your inquiry about Pro Baseball Chips 2023 Vol.2.

Release of the second edition will be later than usual this year because the popularity of baseball is increasing due to the influence of world baseball tournaments, etc., and sales of the first edition continue to exceed production capacity.

It will be sold in limited quantities on August 21st and October 9th.

I'm a bit stumped by this reply.  It looks like what they're saying is that baseball has become so popular due to the WBC that they're selling Series One as fast as they can produce it, so they're going to delay Series Two for two months.

via GIPHY

I'm assuming that the two release dates correspond to it being released to the hobby on August 21st and in stores on October 9th but that's just a guess.

I did ask a follow up question about what this meant for Series Three which typically comes out in Sepember (when summer turns into fall).  I specifically asked if Series Three would be released in November or December or if there would only be two Series this year.  Here's their reply:

Thank you for your reply.

The sales details of the third edition have not been decided at this time.

We are very sorry not to answer your inquiry.

The last time something like this happened was 2017 when Calbee was forced to cut back production due to the Hokkaido potato crop having been disrupted by a typhoon in 2016.  Series Two wasn't released until September of that year and Series Three was canceled altogether.  One thing that has me a little more optimistic about there being a Series Three this year though is that in 2017 Calbee did release a Samurai Japan baseball card set in November,  Maybe since they don't have the Samurai Japan license anymore they'll release Series Three instead in November of this year.  We'll have to wait and see.

By the way, I do want to give credit to Sean for being the first to notice that Calbee's Series releases corresponded to the changing of the seasons.  I had never noticed it until he mentioned it.

Card Of The Week June 18

 

Saw some chatter on Twitter recently discussing today's matchup between Hamburg and Bonn in Germany's Bundesliga.  Kubo played in NPB for the Marines (2005-08), Tigers (2009-13) and Baystars (2014-17) before moving to North America for a few years to play for Gary of the American Association and Sugarland of the Atlantic League in 2018 and the Bravos de Leon of the Mexican League in 2019.  After sitting out two years he pitched for the Hyogo Bravers of the Kansai Independent League last year before signing with Hamburg for this season.  Murata played in NPB for the Giants (2008-10) and Fighters (2017-21) and in the Cleveland organization from 2011-16.  He doesn't appear to have played anywhere in 2022 until he joined the Auckland Tuatara of the Australian Baseball League late in the year.

I haven't been able to find out much about how the game went today - just the final score showing the Bonn beat Hamburg 7-1.  No idea how either pitcher did or if they even actually played in the game.

Here's a card of each pitcher from their time in Japan:

2005 BBM Weekly Baseball Season Memorial #3/4

2020 BBM Time Travel 1985 #89

RIP Shigeru Sugishita

Hall Of Fame pitcher Shigeru Sugishita has passed away at age 97.  Born in Tokyo, Sugishita attended Teikyo Shogyo High School where he played baseball under coach Shunichi Amachi, a future Hall Of Famer.  He joined the Army after he graduated in 1944 and served in China.  He supposedly strengthened his previously weak shoulder by practicing throwing hand grenades - he even won a competition.  He was in a POW camp when the war ended and did not return to Japan until January of 1946.  (His older brother Anyu never returned as he was killed in action in Okinawa as a member of the kamikaze corps.)

He went to work for Isuzu Motors and played for the baseball team under another future Hall Of Famer, Hisanori Karita.  He threw a no-hitter in his first start for them but I don't think he played for them very long as the Tokyo Big Six schools were starting to play baseball again and he enrolled at Meiji University in time to play for them in 1946.  He was still in contact with Amachi during his time at Meiji and Amachi taught him how to throw a forkball which Amachi claimed he had learned from Herb Pennock of the Yankees during the Herb Hunter All Stars tour of Japan in 1922.  Sugishita would go on to be the first professional player in Japan to throw a forkball and earn the nickname "The God of the Forkball".

After graduating from Meiji in 1948, Sugishita signed on with the Chunichi Dragons, joining the team at the same time Amachi became their manager.  After a pedestrian rookie season in 1949 in which he went 8-12 with a 3.66 ERA in 29 games, he embarked on a remarkably dominant six year stretch.  He went 27-15 with a 3.21 ERA in 1950; 28-13 with a 2.36 ERA in 1951; 32-14 and 2.33 ERA in '52; 23-9, 2.84 in '53, 32-12, 1.39 in '54 and 26-12, 1.56 in '55.  He pitched in over 50 games with at least 290 innings pitched in each season except 1953 when he "only" pitched 266 2/3 innings over 45 games.  He won three Sawamura Awards during this stretch (1951, 1952 and 1954), tying him with Masaichi Kaneda, Minoru Murayama and Masaki Saitoh for the most times winning the Award.  He led the Central League in wins twice (1951 & 1954), strikeouts twice (1950 & 1954) and ERA once (1954).  He was the first CL pitcher to win the "Pitching Triple Crown" in 1954.  He was also CL MVP in 1954, helping the Dragons win their first ever Central League pennant and Nippon Series championship - he was MVP in the Series as well.  He no-hit the Swallows (and Kaneda) in 1955 but Kaneda returned the favor two years later, throwing a perfect game against the Dragons and Sugishita.  

His playing time started to decline after 1955 although his ERA's remained low.  He picked up his 200th career win in his last start in 1957.  The losing pitcher for the Giants in that game was Shohei Baba who would gain fame in the 60's as the professional wrestler "Giant Baba" - this loss was the only decision of his short baseball career.  He became the Dragons' manager in 1959 and served the team for two years - he was officially a player/manager but he never took the field during those two seasons.  

He had pretty much retired as a player and joined the Daimai Orions as their pitching coach for the 1961 season but he eventually made a comeback, going 4-6 with a 2.44 ERA in 32 games for the Orions.  That was the end of his playing career but he remained the Orions pitching coach for 1962.  He moved on to coach the Hanshin Tigers in 1964, helping Gene Bacque to win a Swamura Award, and was the team's manager in 1966.  He returned to the Dragons to manage them in 1968 but resigned before the season ended.  After spending several years as a TV baseball commentator, he returned to the coaching ranks, working under Shigeo Nagashima with the Giants from 1976 to 1980.  He spent most of the 80's as a TV commentator but he had one last coaching job in 1993 and 1994 with the Lions.  After that he was frequently a spring training advisor for the Dragons, joining the team in Okinawa each February even into his 90's.

Despite having 200 wins, Sugishita was excluded from the Meikyukai as its other membership requirement is having been born in the Showa Era or later and he was born in the Taisho Era.  I'm not positive, but I believe he may have been the last professional baseball player from that era as well as the last professional player to have served in World War II.  He apparently was the last living manager of a team from the 1950's.

Sugishita has a large number cards that were issued during his playing career - mostly menko and bromide cards but there are some game cards and some candy and/or gum related cards as well.  I only have one card from his playing days:

1949 JBR 53

He's shown up pretty regularly in card sets from BBM and others over the past 30 years.  Here's a small sampling:

1992 BBM #40

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #T-12

2010 BBM Dragons 70th Anniversary #13

2011 BBM Legend Of Tokyo Big 6 #033

2011 Epoch Managers #09

2012 BBM No-hitters #28

2013 Bandai Owners League 02 #L001

2021 BBM Dragons History #07

He's so associated with the Dragons that it's extremely disconcerting to see him in another team's uniform:

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #367

1979 Giants Gekkan #71

One of my favorite cards of his is this one from the 1999 BBM Nippon Series set showing him throwing out the first pitch in one of the games with Futoshi Nakanishi at the bat.  Sadly I just showed this card about a month ago in my memorial post for Nakanishi:

1999 BBM Nippon Series #S65

RIP Yoshinobu Uemura

Former Mainichi/Daimai Orions pitcher, long time coach and one time Nippon-Ham Fighters manager Yoshinobu Uemura passed away at the age of 88 a few weeks ago (just after I went on vacation).  Uemura was a star pitcher at Ashiya High School, leading the team to victory in the 1952 Summer Koshien tournament.  He signed with the Orions in 1953 and apparently originated the tradition of teams assigning the uniform number 18 to Koshien winning high school pitchers turning pro.  He made his debut with the Orions that season, getting into nine games and going 1-5 with a 4.45 ERA.  His playing time increased dramatically the following season when he got into 46 games as both a starter and a reliever and went 9-15 with a 2.25 ERA.  He had his two best seasons after that, going 17-10 with an ERA of 2.13 in 1955 and 19-5 with a 2.01 ERA in 1956.  He made the All Star team in 1955 and led the Pacific League in winning percentage in 1956.

In his Opening Day start in 1957 he tied Eiji Shibata for the NPB record for fewest pitches in a complete game with 71.  His numbers declined some in 1957 and 1958 but he bounced back with a 14-8 record with a 2.92 ERA in 1959, making the All Star team a second time.  Injuries limited him to just 11 appearances in 1960 and he did not appear in the Nippon Series that year (where his Orions were swept by the Taiyo Whales).  After a similarly injury plagued season in 1961, he retired.  He was just 26 years old. 

Uemura then embarked on a coaching career that would have him spend eight stints with five different teams over much of the next 39 years.  He spent 1962 to 1973 with the Orions (who went by Daimai Mainichi, Tokyo and Lotte during that stretch) before spending five years with the Hankyu Braves and one year with the Yakult Swallows.  He joined the Fighters as a coach in 1980 and reluctantly became the team's manager in 1984 at the recommendation of Keiji Ohsawa, who had just stepped down as manager to join the team's front office.  It didn't go well.  Apparently Uemura wanted to play an aggressive style of offense called "Goro-go" that had been utilized by Hankyu when he was a coach with them in the 70's under Toshiharu Ueda.  That style of play didn't suit the Fighters however (probably because they didn't have a speedster like Yutaka Fukumoto) and the team floundered.  Uemura resigned as manager at the end of June with a 21-37-9 record and was ultimately replaced by Ohsawa.  The team didn't do much differently under Ohsawa, going 21-36-4 and finishing dead last.

Uemura sat out the 1985 season before rejoining the Braves as a coach for their final three seasons under Hankyu.  He then rejoined Lotte for their final three seasons in Kawasaki before moving on to the Giants for another three year stint.  After a two year gap he re-rejoined Lotte for one final coaching stint from 1997 to 2000, after which he became an advisor for the team.

I only know of three cards for Uemura.  Two of them are from his playing days - from the quite rare 1952/3 "Calbee or Matsuo Caramel Short" (JF 62a) set and the 1956 "Tobacco Menko Sized" bromide (JBR 29) set.  The other card is the only one I have of his, from the 2011 Epoch OB Club Managers set (#31):

Card Of The Week June 11

Sorry for the lack of posts lately but I've been on vacation for the last week and a half.  When I'm away from home I like to do the "Card Of The Week" posts ahead of time which obviously makes them much less topical.  But I figured that the chances are pretty good that Shohei Ohtani did something amazing while I was away so I could show off this 2014 team issued card of him that I picked up a few months ago and it wouldn't seem out of place:

Card Of The Week June 4

Knuckleballer Eri Yoshida was in the news recently as she has reportedly signed to play in the independent Empire League in upstate New York.  I'm not sure what team she'll be playing for as the linked story (on MLB.com but mostly based on a tweet from Jason Coskrey about a Yahoo! Japan news article) doesn't mention it and the league's website hasn't been updated for about two months (as of when I'm writing this which is May 29th).  Yoshida has played for several indy league teams in both the US and Japan since 2009 but has spent the past few years coaching for a women's corporate league team.  I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to share some Japanese baseball cards of her:

2009 SCM #114

2012 BBM Real Venus #10

2012 BBM Real Venus #11

2013 BBM Real Venus #04

2013 BBM Real Venus #05

The only other Japanese cards I know of for her are the "street clothes" cards in the 2012 and 2013 BBM Real Venus sets.  I don't know of any cards for the indy league teams she played for in Japan although I do know she had a card in 2010 Chico Outlaws team set in the US.