We're about three days out from the start of the Olympic baseball competition and I thought it was time to finally do a post for the Samurai Japan team. This is the eighth Olympics that Japan has played baseball in - they are the only team to play in every Olympics that baseball has been included in the official program. They've medaled in five of the Olympiads, winning Gold in 1984, Silver in 1988 and 1996 and Bronze in 1992 and 2004 (although the 1984 and 1988 "medals" aren't official since baseball was a demonstration sport in those Games).
I've arranged the cards of the players the way a typical Japanese team roster is ordered - first the pitchers are listed, then the catchers, followed by the infielders and finally the outfielders. Each group of players is ordered by uniform number. I'm using the roster on this Japanese Wikipedia page as my source for this including the uniform numbers.
I wanted to do another quick round up on some recently announced sets:
- BBM's final "comprehensive" team set for 2021 is for the Tigers and is being released...checks notes...today, I think. Like the other team sets, the base set contains 81 cards. These 81 cards include 71 cards for the manager and players, three "Set The Tone" cards, four "Big Blast" cards and three "Headlines" cards. There are 18 non-premium insert cards split into three sets - "Wild Attack" (nine cards), "Sparkle" (five cards) and "Sonic Boom" (four cards) - along with 54(!) premium insert cards also split between three sets - "Phantom" (24 cards), ""Esperanza" (15 cards) and "Hyakka Ryoran" (I think) (15 cards). There's also a lot of autograph and memorabilia cards available.
- Genesis, BBM's annual high end set, will be released in late-September. As usual, it's base set contains 120 cards - 108 player cards (nine per team) plus 12 team checklist cards - and as usual, no one really cares about the base set. The big draws of Genesis are the billion parallels of the base set cards, the premium insert cards ("Elite Of Nine", "Game Changer" and "Cross Torrent") and the autograph and memorabilia cards. The memorabilia cards include "super patch" and "grip end" cards. There are both memorabilia and autograph cards that feature multiple players. There are also signed ball cards and buyback autograph cards along with "booklet" autograph cards.
- Just a month after they release the "Dragons History" set, BBM's releasing another OB team set using the "History" theme, this time for the Chiba Lotte Marines. The base set for the "Marines History 1950-2021" set will have 90 cards split up into seven team history cards, 71 cards for OB players and 12 cards for active players. There will also be nine "Team Record" insert cards, three "New Era" insert cards and 12 premium "Phantom" insert cards along with a bevy of autographed cards. I'm kind of excited about this set as it's including a period of time that's not been covered with any of the previous OB sets for the Marines. The two earlier sets were for the 40th Anniversary of Lotte buying the team in 1968 and for the 20th Anniversary of the team's move to Chiba in 1992 so the Mainichi/Daimai/Tokyo Orion era for the team has not previously been included. The set will be out in mid-September.
- Epoch has announced the latest two of their ultra high-end "Stars & Legends" team sets. These will be for the Fighters and Swallows. The boxes for these will retail for 16,500 yen (around $150) and contains four cards - one of which I believe is guaranteed to be an autographed card. As the name of the sets might suggest, each set contains cards of both active and OB players from the team. The Fighters set will have a base set of 52 cards - 36 active players (including manager Hideki Kuriyama) and 16 OB players. The Swallows base set has 51 cards split between 38 cards for active players (and the mascot) and 13 cards for OB players. Both sets will include Epoch's ubiquitous six card "Gem" and "Black Gem" insert sets. The Swallows set at least also has a three card insert set called "Decomori Signature Black Vision". Both sets have five different kinds of autograph cards available - "Authentic", "Star", "Legendary", "Combo" and "Baseball". There's an "Authentic" autograph for every player in the base set and a "Legendary" autograph for every OB player. I think the "Baseball" ones are actually on pieces of baseballs. The Fighters set will be released on August 28th and the Swallows set will be out on September 11th.
The Opening Ceremony for the pandemic delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics happens this Friday but the competition has already started. Both the softball and women's soccer events have started and baseball will be kicking off in about a week.
I'm of two minds about the Games. On the one hand, I love international baseball tournaments so I'm very excited for the baseball portion of the competition to start. On the other hand...there's STILL a pandemic going on and it's probably a bad idea to do hold the games. But since they ARE holding the games, I might as well try to enjoy the baseball and hope for the best for everyone health-wise. It will be interesting to see how serious the Japanese government takes the coronavirus AFTER the Olympics are over.
I'm planning on doing some posts for the Olympic teams over the next week but I wanted to start with a quick post about former Japanese Olympic baseball players who are still active in either NPB or MLB. There are nine active players who have played in the Olympics for Japan. It's hard to believe but there's actually still an active player from the 1996 Atlanta Games - Kosuke Fukudome of the Dragons. This was still the pre-professional period for Olympic baseball and the Japanese team was made up of mostly corporate league players (including Fukudome who played for Nippon Life) along with a couple collegiate players. There are two active players remaining from the 2000 Sydney Games - Masanori Ishikawa of the Swallows and Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Lions - although it's a bit of a generous definition of "active" for Matsuzaka. The 2000 team was a mish-mash of professional (Matsuzaka), corporate league and collegiate (like Ishikawa) player. The remaining two Olympic baseball teams were purely professional outfits. There are three active players from the 2004 Athens Games - Fukudome, Matsuzaka and Tsuyoshi Wada of the Hawks. There are six players still playing from the 2008 Beijing Games - Norichika Aoki of the Swallows, Yu Darvish of the Padres, Hiroyuki Nakajima of the Yomiuri Giants, Masahiro Tanaka and Hideaki Wakui of the Eagles and Wada. Tanaka is the only former Olympian to make this year's team.
Here's a card of each player. I tried to pick either Olympic team cards or other National Team cards for each player but Ishikawa never played for the National Team after the 2000 Olympics (and the Upper Deck Olympic cards for the team didn't include the collegiate players) so I had to settle for a card of him with the Swallows.
2008 BBM Japan National Team #JPN25
2009 Konami WBC Heroes "Special" #W09S001
2006 Upper Deck WBC Moments #CM-23
2009 BBM 1st Version #521
2000 Upper Deck Sydney Olympic Games Japanese Team Cards #213
I received a nice surprise in the mail last week - Dan Skrezyna had sent me an assortment of postcards and stickers published by the Yomiuri Giants back in 2008. Dan has a player collection for Lee Seung-yeop and has picked up either Giants sets or card lots on occasion just to get the Lee cards. He's been kind enough to send me the non-Lee cards and that's what he did again with these.
The Giants annually do a collection of staged photos of their players called "Giants Pride" that end up being published in a variety of methods. They've appeared in BBM Giants team sets, card sets issued by the team, and stickers. The postcards and stickers Dan sent me all feature "Giants Pride" images.
Dan sent me 10 postcards and 11 stickers - although only 10 of the stickers feature individual players. Eight players appear on both a postcard and a sticker - Shinnosuke Abe, Tatsunori Hara, Michihiro Ogasawara, Hisanori Takahashi, Yoshinobu Takahashi, Yoshitomo Tani, Tetsuya Utsumi and Ryota Wakiya. It's the same image on both the postcards and the sticker - here's the postcard and sticker for Hara as an example:
I should mention that the stickers are smaller than a standard sized card - they're about 3 inches high by 2 inches wide.
The two players who are only on the postcards Dan sent me are Tomohiro Nioka and Koji Uehara. The two players who are only on the stickers are Marc Kroon and Kenji Yano. Here's a couple other examples:
Abe
Kroon
Ogasawara
Uehara
Yano
I mentioned that there was an eleventh sticker - it shows the whole team:
Dan actually sent me eight copies of this sticker.
Dan's got the checklist for the postcards up over at TCDB where you can see not only all the postcards he sent me plus the ones for Lee and Alex Ramirez (which I assume he sent to Ryan).
As I had mentioned, Shimamoto had been the ace pitcher and cleanup hitter for Minoshima High School in Arida city in Wakayama Prefecture. I had also mentioned that he had led them to victory in the 1970 Spring Koshien Tournament but what I hadn't realized is that he pitched all 12 innings in the championship game against Hokuyo High School. This performance made him an "idol of Koshien" (according to his Japanese Wikipedia page) which I assume means he became extremely popular in a similar vein to Yuki Saitoh after the 2006 Summer tournament. Nankai took him with the first pick in the 1970 draft as a pitcher and briefly considered having him be a "two sword player" (he pitched in at least one exhibition game in the spring of 1971) before converting him to the outfield. He played sparingly in 1971, getting only eight at bats over seven games, so his election to the All Star team was purely based on his popularity from his high school days. He spent all of the next two seasons on Nankai's farm team and only played in nine games with the top team in 1974. He got his big break midway through the 1975 season when he was traded to the crosstown Kintetsu Buffaloes for Koichiro Sasaki. With the Buffaloes, he got a chance to play a little more regularly and while I don't think he ever really became a star he did make the All Star team two more times (1976 and 1977). He retired in 1985 and has been a baseball commentator on TV as well as head of a baseball school in Osaka since then.
Here's a card of him as a pitcher with Nankai from the 2007 BBM Draft Story set (#008):
50 years ago today, Yutaka Enatsu of the Hanshin Tigers was the starting pitcher for the Central League in Game One of the 1971 NPB All Star Series in Nishinomiya Stadium, home of the Hankyu Braves. This was his eighth appearance in an All Star game but just his second ever start. In his previous start, Game 2 of the 1970 Series, he pitched three innings and gave up a run on three hits and a walk. He struck out eight batters, including the last five that he faced. He got the win as well as the MVP Award for the game.
The Pacific League’s starting pitcher Tetsuya Yoneda of the Hankyu Braves had retired the Central League in order in the top half of the first so the game was scoreless as Enatsu took the mound in the bottom of the inning. Michio Arito from the Lotte Orions was the first batter. Enatsu struck him out on five pitches. Next up was Mitsuo Motoi of the Nishitetsu Lions. Enatsu struck him out on five pitches as well. The third batter was Atsushi Nagaike of the Braves. Enatsu only needed four pitches to dispatch the player who would win the Pacific League MVP that year as well, striking out the side on 14 pitches.
1973 Calbee #51 (Enatsu & Koichi Tabuchi)
Yoneda ran into issues in the top of the second. He issued back-to-back walks to Shigeo Nagashima of the Yomiuri Giants and Dave Roberts of the Yakult Atoms. It looked like he might escape without any damage though when he struck out Koichi Tabuchi of the Tigers and got Kenichi Yazawa of the Chunichi Dragons to fly out to right field. But Shiro Takegami of the Atoms hit a single which brought Nagashima in with the first run of the game. This brought Enatsu up with two on and two out. Enatsu hit a shot to right field that carried into the stands for a three run home run before Shigeru Takada grounded out to end both the inning and Yoneda’s evening.
With a 4-0 lead, Enatsu took the mound again for the bottom of the second. The first batter was the PL’s cleanup hitter, Shinichi Eto, a batter he was familiar with from Eto’s time with the Chunichi Dragons. Eto would lead the Pacific League in batting in 1971 but Enatsu struck him out on five pitches. Masahiro Doi of the Kintetsu Buffaloes was next and went down quickly on three strikes. The Lions’ Masayoshi Higashida followed and extended his at bat to six pitches before Enatsu struck him out as well. Just like the first inning, Enatsu struck out the side in the second on 14 pitches.
Keishi Suzuki of the Buffaloes came into pitch for the PL in the top of third. PL manager Wataru Nonin of the Lotte Orions pulled a double switch, having Suzuki replace Eto in the cleanup spot in the lineup with Hideji Kato of the Braves taking over at first and going into Yoneda’s ninth spot. Suzuki held the CL scoreless in the inning, despite giving up a double to Nagashima.
Hankyu’s Toshizo Sakamoto was the first batter in the bottom of the third. Like Higashide, he extended his at bat to six pitches before striking out. Enatsu retired the next batter, Koji Okumura of Hankyu, on three strikes before completing his evening by striking Kato out on four pitches. He again had struck out the side, this time on 13 pitches. He’d faced nine batters and struck all nine out.
Suzuki gave up a single to Tabuchi to lead off the top of the fourth but then proceeded to show the crowd of 28,160 that Pacific League pitchers could strike out batters as well. He struck out in succession Yazawa, Takegami and Yukinobu Kuroe of the Giants who was pinch hitting for Enatsu to get out of the inning unscathed.
2014 BBM Giants 80th Anniversary #31
The new Central League pitcher was Hidetake Watanabe from Yomiuri but the Pacific League’s luck did not improve. Watanabe struck out Arito for the tenth straight strikeout of a PL batter before Motoi finally put a ball in play. Unfortunately for him and his team, it was groundout to Takagami at second for the second out of the inning. Nagaike followed with a flyout to Roberts in right and the PL went down in order for the fourth time in four innings.
Suzuki got his fourth straight strikeout by retiring Yomiuri’s Shigeru Takada to lead off the top of the fifth. It was his fifth overall as he had struck out Sadaharu Oh of the Giants in the third. He went on to get Taira Fujita of the Tigers to ground out and Oh to fly out to retire the side in order.
With Suzuki due to lead off the bottom of the fifth, Nonin went to his bench for a pinch hitter and selected perhaps the most unlikely All Star on his roster. Kohei Shimamoto was a 19 year old rookie with the Nankai Hawks. He’d been the ace pitcher and cleanup hitter for Minoshima High School and had led them to victory in the 1970 Spring Koshien tournament. The school also played in the Summer Koshien tournament a few months later but was knocked out in the second round. He was regarded highly enough to be Nankai’s first pick in the 1970 draft and popular enough that he was elected to the All Star team despite barely playing for the Hawks’ ichi-gun squad. He would only get into seven games all season and had just two hits in eight at bats - although those two hits were a pair of solo home runs in one game against the Buffaloes. He spent most of his time with Nankai on their farm team before getting traded to Kintetsu in the middle of the 1975 season with whom he had some decent years later on (and made the All Star team two more times).
Shimamoto fared no better than the rest of his team this evening as Watanabe struck him out to start the inning. He was the eleventh PL batter to strike out. Doi became the twelfth one to strike out for the second out in the inning. Higashide then hit a ground ball to Takegami at second who was unable to make the play on him. The PL had their first base runner of the evening on an error but left him stranded at first when Sakamoto popped out to Takegami to end the inning.
The new Pacific League pitcher was Koji Ohta of the Buffaloes. He had little trouble with the Central League in the top of the sixth, retiring Nagashima on a ground out and striking out Roberts before issuing a walk to pinch hitter Isao Shibata from the Giants. Shibata stole second but Akihiko Ohya of Yakult flew out to end the inning.
2020 BBM Giants History 1934-2020 #21
In the bottom of the sixth, Watanabe gave way to his Giants teammate Kazumi Takahashi. Takahashi got pinch hitter George Altman to ground out to first for the first out but then gave up a walk to Katsuya Nomura, only the PL’s second base runner in the game. But again the runner was left stranded when Hiroshi Takahashi of the Hawks, pinch hitting for Arito, grounded out to shortstop for the second out and Motoi flew out to left to finish the inning. The positive thing for the Pacific League was that this was the first inning of the game in which no PL batter struck out.
Yasuhiro Kunisada of the Carp led off in the top of the seventh by singling off of Ohta. Kunio Fukutomi of the Atoms pinch hit for Takahashi and struck out. Ohta then got Takada to fly out for the second out but Fujita hit a double to bring in Kunisada with the fifth run of the game. The Carp’s Sachio Kinugasa then pinch hit for Oh and flew out to left field for the final out.
1967 Kabaya-Leaf #56 (Hisanobu Mizutani)
The next pitcher for the Central League was Hisanobu Mizutani from the Chunichi Dragons. He retired the only batter he faced - Nagaike - on a ground ball back to the pitcher.
2004 BBM Baystars #YB84
Mizutani then gave way to the Taiyo Whale’s Tadakatsu Kotani. Kotani finished the seventh inning by striking out both pinch hitter Takenori Ikebe from Lotte and Doi - it was Doi’s third strikeout of the game.
The new Pacific League pitcher was another rookie, Yasuo Minagawa from the Toei Flyers. He had an uneventful top of the eighth inning, retiring Makoto Matsubara of the Whales, Jitsuo Mizutani of the Carp and Shibata in order. Similarly, Kotani retired the Pacific League in order in the bottom of the eighth, getting Higashide and Sakamoto to line out to second and striking out Takeo Daigo of the Orions.
Lotte’s Choji Murata was the next pitcher for the PL. He pitched a scoreless top of the ninth, just giving up a walk to Kunisada.
Nomura led off the bottom of the ninth and went down on strikes for the first out. Kotani then got Takahashi to pop out to the second baseman Kunisada. Isao Harimoto of the Flyers came in as a pinch hitter for Motoi and lined out to shortstop Fujita for the final out of the Central League’s 5-0 victory.
The five Central League pitchers had combined to no-hit the Pacific League All Stars. They combined for 16 total strikeouts - nine from Enatsu, three from Takahashi and four from Kotani. It will probably come as no surprise that after striking out all nine batters he faced AND hitting a three run home run, Enatsu was named MVP of the game.
Here's a brief video clip showing some of Enatsu's performance. This includes the strikeouts of Nagaike, Eto, Doi and Kato as well as his three run home run:
Enatsu's next All Star appearance would come three days later in Game Three of the 1971 games. He entered the game at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo in the sixth inning and struck out the first batter he faced, Shinichi Eto. That ran his streak of consecutive strikeouts in an All Star game to 15, going back to Game Two from 1970. Nomura then broke the streak by grounding out. Enatsu would strike out the side in the seventh inning, giving him 13 strikeouts in five innings pitched in the 1971 All Star games. Since he gave up no hits and walked no one in those five innings, he struck out 13 of the 15 batters he faced.
The Pacific League may have gotten no-hit but they had the last laugh as they beat the Central League in both Game Two and Game Three to win the All Star series.
This event - both Enatsu's nine consecutive strikeouts and the combined no-hitter - have been commemorated on at least two baseball cards. There was a card in the 1999 BBM All Star set that I think was celebrating the most popular All Star game event from the first 50 years of the two league system or the 20th Century. I think the photo on the front of the card shows him right after he struck out Kato for his ninth K. Here's the front and back of the card:
99 BBM All Stars #A70
99 BBM All Stars #A70 Back
The other card is from the insert set "The Scene" from the 2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 set and shows a cropped version of the image from the 1999 card. It's at the top of the post.
I put together the play by play of the game using this page on NPB's official website. Other resources were the Japanese Baseball Database's box score for the game and the Japanese Wikipedia page for Enatsu's strikeouts. I also want to thank Sean for his assistance in figuring out what happened in the game. Between the two of us, though, we never did figure out when Sachio Kinugasa dropped a foul popup for an error.
