Japanese Baseball - Hiroshi Oshita

Hall of Famer, Hiroshi Oshita, who played for the Nishitetsu Lions,  was one of the best Japanese baseball hitters of the 1940s and 50s. This picture was taken in 1951 or '52.

 Rob of Rob's Japanese Cards, has this to say about him:

After leading the league with 20 homers in his rookie season, he went on to win three batting titles, and three home-run crowns. He held the record for most hits in a game (7), and his .383 BA in 1951 remained the single-season record until Isao Harimoto topped it by .0003 in 1971. He was named to eight Best Nine teams. His best season for the Lions came in 1954 when he won the MVP Award, hitting .321 with 22 homers, 88 RBI and 11 stolen bases. He also won the 1957 Japan Series MVP award. 

Jerry, who used to live in the house next door to me, had a pen pal in Japan just after World War II - which is how I came to have this card. They are hard to come by.

Japanese Baseball - Kawakami

Tetsuharu Kawakami is a former Japanese baseball player who played for the Yomiuri Giants from 1938 to 1958.  He was born in Hitoyoshi in 1920. During World War II, he took a break from baseball to serve in the Imperial Army, but returned to the sport after the war.  Kawakami was also in three movies; in at least one of them he played himself as a baseball player.

Rob of Rob's Japanese Cards has this to say about Kawakami:

Known as the "God of Batting", Kawakami was one of Japan's greatest stars in the 1940s and 1950s and became its greatest all-time manager. As a player, he played first base for the Yomiuri Giants both before and after World War II. He led the league in batting 5 times, in hits 6 times, in RBI 3 times, and HRs twice. He was also a three time MVP and selected for the Best Nine team 10 times. His .313 lifetime batting average ranks 5th on the all-time list. As a manager, Kawakami led the Giants from 1961 to 1974. During this 13 year period, the Giants won 11 Japan Series titles.

These cards seem to be fairly rare.

Here's a picture of Kawakami on a movie poster made by Nikkatsu Corporation in 1957.

League Park, Cleveland, Ohio

I don't know anything about baseball, but that doesn't mean I don't like it. In fact, I like it a lot. I just like it for the wrong reasons. I love the sounds and the smells. I like the cheering of fans and the shouting of the vendors, and the old-fashioned organ music. I enjoy the food smells and the taste of a hot dog with all of the stuff on it, even though I don't normally eat hot dogs. (They taste different at a ball game.)  I am fascinated by those perfect mowed-grass patterns on the field. I can enjoy a baseball game without caring who wins. My investment, when I buy a ticket, is simply in breathing in deeply (if somewhat obliviously) of the wonderful American tradition.

Once I was invited to watch a baseball game from a luxury suite. I was very excited about it, but it turned out to be a huge letdown. It had the effect of removing everything I love from the game, which is to say, the ambiance. This game in Cleveland seems to have ambiance and hats to spare. I wish I could have been there.

League Park in Cleveland was built in 1891 and provided seating for 9,000. In 1910, the stadium was completely rebuilt in steel and concrete, with seating for more than twice as many fans (that's what you see here.) This was the home of the Cleveland Indians for over 50 years. The park was renamed Dunn Field in 1916, after the new owner, but went back to being called League Park in 1927. League Park always had a slightly strange shape, because the neighboring property owner was unwilling to sell any property, so the right field fence was short. The Cleveland Indians moved to Cleveland Municipal Stadium in 1932, but they continued to play at League Park on the weekends until 1947.  In 1951, League Park was demolished.

Here's what it looks like now. Kind of sad.

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The League Park Society is a non-profit dedicated to bringing baseball back to League Park. As they say on their website: On a spring day a visitor can still walk into this place and see the green grass. They can gaze down the old first base line and just imagine what Babe Ruth felt on August 11, 1929 when he hit his 500th home run over the wall onto Lexington Avenue or stand where Addie Joss throw his perfect game. You can close your eyes and just for a moment or two go back in time. Yes, the brick and mortar may largely be gone but the soul of League Park is still very much alive.

Japanese Baseball - Kaoru Betto

 

Here's another Japanese baseball postcard from around 1950.  Kaoru Betto was born on August 23, 1920 and graduated from Keio University. He served in World War II and then worked at a couple of other jobs before becoming a professional baseball player at 28. Betto played for the Osaka Tigers for two years (1948 and '49) and then for the Mainichi Orions for seven years. He won the Nippon Most Valuable Player Award and led the Mainichi Orions to the first Japanese Series Championship. Along the way, he married a beauty queen. Betto retired as an active player in 1957, although he continued to manage teams after that. He retired from baseball all together in 1979 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1988. Betto died of heart failure in 1999.

Kaoru Betto achieved secondary fame more recently, because "The Dude" in the movie the Big Lebowski wore a t-shirt bearing his likeness. The t-shirt, along with the movie, achieved cult status. I need to watch the movie again to figure out why. Actually, Jeff Bridges (the Dude) also wore this t-shirt in an earlier movie, Fisher King.

If you want to find out more about Japanese baseball, visit Rob's Japanese Cards or Japanese Baseball Cards, which has lots of links to other Japanese baseball sites. You may also want to look at a previous post on Shigeru Sugishita.

Tracy Has a Headache!

The message reads:

Hello Trace

Oh your a hot lot all right.  I suppose you lost a lot of money 16 to 1. How much did you give those Treadwell fellows? Bought the umpires too. Ha Ha but we beat you after all.

Oh, poor Trace!

Japanese Baseball- Shigeru Sugishita

Why would I have Japanese baseball postcards? It's only because my neighbor had a Japanese pen pal when he was a boy. Otherwise, these would be hard to come by.

Shigeru Sugishita was one of the premier pitchers in Japanese professional baseball in the 1950s. This picture is circa 1951, when he was pitching for the Dragons. He beat out Wally Yonamine for Central League MVP in 1954 (a very big deal!) and was presented with the Sawamura Award three times. Sugishita was inducted into to the Hall of Fame in 1958.

If you're interested in finding out more about Japanese baseball or Japanese baseball cards, this is a good source: Rob's Japanese Cards