Bonzai Babe Ruth!

Shinji Hamasaki was not only the smallest player to ever play the game (5'1", 110 pounds), but was also the oldest pitcher to ever win a game- in 1950, with the Braves. He was born in December of 1901, and when the Braves began the 1950 season, he was a 48 year old player-manager as well as pitcher who had compiled a 4-3 record over the previous two seasons. During that first season in the newly formed Pacific League, Hamasaki pitched in 28 innings over 9 games, enough to earn him one victory and two losses for a Braves team he would lead to an eventual 4th place finish. On top of that, the 48 year-old managed to accumulate 12 plate appearances, and even hit a triple!

He had come to Hankyu after World War II in 1947, and before the war had played in the Industrial Leagues with the South Manchurian Railroad team and, before that, Keio University. After a few stints as manager of some of the more terrible teams in Japanese baseball history (including the 1955 Tombo Unions, who finished with 98 losses in only 141 games, and whose best hitter, catcher Sal Recca, did not do too much better at the plate than Victor Starfin, in the final season of his HOF career), he retired and was voted to the Japan Baseball Hall of Fame in 1978. Now, the focus of A Noboru Aota Fan's Notes has always been on those who have gone outside the notice of the Hall, so there must be a special reason to be talking about Shinji:

One of the primary reasons for his inclusion in the HOF is his participation on the 1934 All Japan team that battled the American All-Star team that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Moe Berg and a gaggle of stars- NPB & MLB HOFer's. Hamasaki, #22, joined a pitching staff that included Masao Date, Eiji Sawamura, and his future Unions player Starfin- a pitching staff that consisted of the best of all Japan, and that would go on to form the foundation of the professional leagues. Rob Fitts, the author of several great books on the history of Japanese Baseball, including his latest Wally Yonemine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball , is working on a new book about the 1934 tour:

Click on the above image to check out some of the content from the upcoming book, which looks to be a fascinating examination of not only the game from an American and Japanese perspective, but a detailed analysis of the politics and culture of Japan in the years before World War II. Check it out!

Stay tuned for the third installment of the Miricles post, for more on catchers in the post war era as well as discussion on the meaning of enshrinement in any Hall of Fame- coming soon!

Noboru Aota in the Hall of Fame

One last interruption before the completion of the catchers/miracles post- Aota's plaque is now hanging in the Hall. Below is a photo of the hanging of English translation placard underneath the plaques of all four new Hall of Famers:generously sent by Mr. Ryuichi Suzuki of the Hall of Fame in Tokyo. For a closer look, see this photo:

taken by Deanna on her recent visit to the Hall- Thanks Deanna!

Tune in shortly for more info on the catchers of the post war period, and check out the Japan Baseball Hall of Fame site for more info on the inductees and a lot of other great data and exhibits.

Intermissionagain

#23-


June 12, 2009 was the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Tokyo- just as all of 2009 is the 50th anniversary of Noboru Aota's 1959 farewell- his final goodbye to his slugging days.

Sorry for the second interruption to this post, but its important to point out that the middle of 2009 is, along with the 50th anniversary of so many things, also the start of Aota's eternal residence in the HOF.

On July 24, Noboru Aota was inducted into the Japan Baseball Hall of Fame in a ceremony on the field of the Sapporo Dome. Accepting the honor was his widow, Michiko, along with his grandson, and they can be seen here on the English version of the Japan HOF website. Keep watch on that site- on September 28, the English translations of the new Hall of Famer's plaques (including Aota's) will go live. I was fortunate enough to participate in the translation process and assist Mr. Ryuichi Suzuki (who is in charge of International Public Relations for the Hall of Fame) with the final edits of the text that will not only appear on the site, but hang in the Hall of Fame gallary under the actual plaques. Please check out Mr. Suzuki's hard work here on Sept. 28. And now, the intermissionagain- 1959, fifty years ago this fall, was the end of Noboru Aota's final season as a player, retiring as the all time leader in home runs and number three all time in rbi; fifty years ago...


George Will recently wrote an article disputing the idea that any date, any year, can truly be seen as "changing everything", in which he highlighted the year 1959 as an arguably pivotal year in American history- that is, he argues, if you can consider any year (or decade, for that matter) more pivotal than any other. In 1959, Will points out, Miles Davis recorded the defining record in the evolution of Jazz, the first Americans were slain in Vietnam, the birth control pill was approved by the government, and Lady Chatterley's lover was published. Monumental steps in the development of our cultural and political history, but steps no larger or smaller than those before or after. It was in this year, 1959, Sadaharu Oh's rookie year, the middle of an era, the beginning and the end.

It was, then, in the Spring of 1959, that Noboru Aota began his final year as a player, and prepared for the transition to the coaches bench. Though he hit .270 in 64 games, only three of his hits were home runs- the third, coming most likely sometime in mid July just before manager and ally Fujimoto was fired- it being number 265, a record that would stand for the next five years. He had already cemented his lead in the all time HR category in 1956- by June 24 of that year he had hit the 222nd dinger of his career, and only a few games after that hit his 225th, putting him ahead of Fumio Fujimura as all time leader. He would hit 40 more in his career, but would remain number one for the rest of his career and long after, finally being overtaken in 1963. After a lackluster 1958 (though, not dissimilar to his first season with the Whales), he landed back with the team that had given him a spot after the war, way back in '46- the Hankyu Braves (see image above). Hankyu (who evolved, eventually, into the Orix Blue Wave, and now the Buffaloes), coming off of a third place season, may have been looking for a power boost- their leading slugger in 1958 had 12 hr and less than 60 rbi. It may have just been a homecoming- manager Satayoshi Fujimoto, who had been at the healm of the Giants way back in '42 and had given Noboru his first chance in pro baseball as well as with Yomiuri, providing a comfortable slot in which Aota could finish out his career. In the end, he did not add much pop to the lineup, but more than likely some veteran leadership- either way, the Braves sank to fifth, 40 games out of first. He did, though, lead the team in batting, despite less than 200 plate appearances, and his experience providing an extra coach for the team struggling to climb to a pennant. However, with the July 26th firing of Fujimoto, playing time and innings were few and far between.

Aota shared the outfield on the next-to-last place Braves with Seizo Furukawa (right), also in the twilight of his career. When he retired, Furukawa was fourth on the all time stolen base leader list, and, along with Tokuji Iida, was the only player to amass more than 50 HR and 300 SB in a career, and his 55 triples put him in the top 15. He is still number 10 on the all time stolen bases list.
Like Aota, Furukawa had begun his career in the lean years before the war, coming up with the Dragons as a catcher. He quickly developed into a powerhouse, leading the league in homers in both '42 and '43. After three seasons behind the plate, Furukawa moved to the outfield upon his post-war return to Nagoya. In 1947, he tied Aota for third in the league in HR, but was still traded the next season to the Braves, where he remained for the rest of his career.

There, he quietly combined power and speed for the hapless Braves- though he regularly scored 60-70 runs per season, the Braves never placed higher than second in the Pacific league. During that lone winning year, 1952, he was teamed with Larry Raines, who led the league in runs scored. Over the years Furukawa was teamed with several speedsters, including Raines and Chico Barbon, who pushed him while at the same time overshadowing, season by season, his accomplishments. However, Furukawa (below) was consistant, and his 796 career runs scored rank with the top five run scorers of the post war period. Added to that are his 617 rbi, 370 sb and 2071 total bases- contributions to the Braves that definitely mark him as their MVP position player of the 50's.
Springtime 1959- Sadaharu Oh played his first game on April 11, launching a remarkable career, but April 11 also marked the end of his pitching career when he strode out to first base, a pitching career that had first brought him to fame. It marked the end of one golden age, the beginning of another golden age of baseball in Japan, yet it was just a continuation, another great season for some and a bittersweet transition for others. The end for so many of Aota's former teammates as it was the end for Aota, just as it was a transition for so many of them, including Aota, to the bench. For Aota, that meant joining forces with his old mentor Fujimoto, who had, by 1962, moved over to the Tigers, bringing along Noboru to begin a coaching career that would last another two decades. By the end of his coaching career in 1980, he was alongside Oh once again as he finished out his career; far from his start, in 1942, a teammate of Victor Starffin, in the thick of the Second World War...


Soon, the final installment of the miracles post and the continuation of the review of catchers in the post-war era.

Miracles! pt. 2

Fred Exley knew that getting off the couch was a miracle- that relativity was in play at the most complex functions of physics as well as the most commonplace actions of each and every human. The real miracle is in not just being; and the real heroes are just those that hold on to "that awful dream of fame". Hard work and consistency make for lasting fame, for those strange-but-true gods of the diamond, but it's the fans that hold on to the awful dreams

There is no miracle in baseball that even comes close to immortilization in the Hall of Fame. Two grand slams in a game is slightly beyond reason, but it is only for one game, consistancy for a brief period, but not for the long haul- Babe Ruth never hit two grand slams in a game, and neither did Sadaharu Oh.
The odds of a player making it through the lower levels, staying healthy and focused enough, and then waiting for the luck it takes to actually be noticed. Once noticed, the miracle is in the timing- lucking onto a team that has the right opening at the right time. If Wally Yonemine doesn't give up first base, do the Giants give a chance to the failed pitcher Sadaharu Oh? One would guess with a talent like Oh's, there would be no problem; but what about those that had to fight, like Hoyt Wilhelm or Motoshi Fujita, who did not make it to the majors until their late 20's and still put together HOF careers?

Between 1937, when the MVP was first awarded to Eiji Sawamura, and 1980, only one catcher, Katsuya Nomura, was so honored as Most Valuable Player. His first award came in 1961, suggesting that no catcher dominated the league to that point. In addition to having no MVP catchers, the post-war era failed to produce a hall of fame catcher, and, in fact, only one pre-war professional catcher, Masahaki Yoshihara, has been elected to the Hall.

Of the one hundred and fifty five players (see list below as well as in post no. 3) who caught at least one professional game in Japan between 1946 and 1955, only two of them, Nomura and Masaaki Mori, made the Hall, and their rookie seasons were at the end of that period. Do any of the others deserve the honor? Or even just the recognition of greatness that membership in the Hall of Fame confers? The first place to look is the Best Nine award.

Read Jim Albright 's excellent statistical analysis of the best players of each decade, and Takeshi Doigaki stands out- the best catcher of the post war period. The numbers don't lie. Like the MVP award, the Best Nine awards were not awarded annually until after the war. The winners for Best Nine were first named in 1947, and the first three for catcher (in the one league system, only one player for each position was so honored) were awarded to Takeshi Doigaki.

Doigaki (right, along with Tiger pitcher Tadayoshi Kajioka) played for three years before the war starting in 1940, and led the Tigers in runs scored in '42, splitting catching and infield duties with the few remaining men not yet on the front lines. When everyone returned in 1946, Doigaki took over as primary catcher for the Tigers, catching in 87 games and finishing the season in the top three in batting, hits and at bats, and in the top ten in almost every other offensive category.

It was not until the next year, though, that the first Best Nine's were awarded since 1940, and Doigaki won the first of six straight as a catcher. Despite hitting .259, he was in the top 15 in the league, once again, in most offensive categories, and, along with Masumi Isekawa, was the best hitting catcher in the league. Looking at the starting catcher for each team in '47, here is a list in order of runs created that season:

Tigers- Takeshi Doigaki- 52.25
Robins- Masumi Isekawa- 41.20
Flyers- Keiichiro Suzuki- 28.90
Giants- Tetsunosuke Fujiwara- 28.87
Braves- Takeshi Hibino- 24.83
Hawks- Keizo Tsutsui- 16.70
Giants- Tamatsu Uchibori- 16.34(for more on Uchibori, see here)
Stars- Isao Tsuji- 11.84

His 52 runs created compared to teamates Fumio Fujimura's and Shosei Go's 59 and 55, respectively, and trailing only Tigers leader Masayasu Kaneda's 68, on par with Hiroshi Oshita's 89 runs created, Tetsuharu Kawakami's 79 runs created, and Kazuto Tsuruoka's 69 runs created. In addition, he handled the best pitching staff in the league, with Bozo Wakabayashi, Tadayoshi Kajioka and Takao Misonoo winning 26, 22, and 18 games (respectively), and only one pitcher with a losing record (1-2) to bring Hanshin the pennant for last time in the one-league era.

After a stellar 1948, he dominated in '49- with a .328 average, fourth in the league, 86 rbi and 16 home runs.

In 1950, the new Pacific League included several newly formed teams, including the Orions, tucked away in Chiba City and soon to be stocked with stars. Kaoru Betto jumped from the Tigers to the Orions along with a streak of his teammates, including Shosei Go, Bozo Wakabayashi, Yasuya Hondo, and Takeshi Doigaki (at left, with new hat). Doigaki did not skip a beat, and won the first three Best Nine awards for a catcher offered in the Pacific League, leaving him with 6 straight awards, a feat topped only by Kastsuya Nomora and Masahiko Mori (the only two post-war catchers in the HOF).


The first Japan Series at the end of that season found the two best catchers from the Pacific and Central Leagues squaring off against each other. Shoji Arakawa, the Best Nine winner for the Robins, out-hit Doigaki (and, incedently, out-hit the rest of his team as well), but did not control his pitching staff as well. Doigaki caught all six games and led the Orions to the first Japan series win. He was never quite as productive in his last few seasons, with the Flyers and Braves, but finished out his career leading all catchers in most lifetime batting categories.

Doigaki again narrowly edged out Masumi Isekawa (below) in 1950 for Best Nine- Isekawa slugged 13 homers along with his .296 average for the third place Stars. Though a consistent slugger for a catcher, Isekawa would always be overshadowed, making only one All-Star team (along with Matsui and Tsutsui in '53) and never making it to a Japan Series.

Charlie Lewis (or Charlie Luis- see March 21, 2007 post here) took over the catching reins for the Hawks when Doigaki moved on to the Flyers in 1954, and proceded to win back to back Best 9's. However, his 22 errors in 1954 (a Pacific League record according to Japan Baseball Daily) demonstrate the focus of the award on hitting prowess over fielding percentage. Charlie left Japan after the 54 season, most likely going back to Hawaii or the West Coast of the US, and leaving the Best Nine to Katsuya Nomura, who took over the next season as the premier catcher in the Pacific League, overshadowing Doigaki's legacy as the best catcher, and the best hitting catcher, of the post war era.

Overshadowed by Doigaki, Luis and Nomura was Keizo Tsutsui, who, as the steady catcher for the Nankai Hawks during the first decade after the end of the war caught in more games than any other catcher of the era without playing any other position. From '46 to '49, he was the primary catcher for the Hawks, handling pitchers like Takehiko Bessho, Nobuo Nakatani, Susumu Yuki and Shisho Takesue.

He hit only .236 lifetime, but this is a testament to his defensive prowess, as he was not only the starting catcher for the Hawks for the first 5 years after the war, but also split duties with his protoge, Jun Matsui, Best 9 catcher in the gap year between the end of Doigaki's rein and the Luis/Nomura years, for the first five years of the 50's. (In fact, they split the catching duties in several Japan Series, including 1953, when Matsui, who hit only .083 to Tsutsui's .375, slammed a home run in game seven, a solo shot that almost put the Hawks up enough to win the game, and the Series). On top of that, Tsutsui was voted to two All-Star teams ('53 & '55) at the end of his decade-long run with the team, during which he played in 4 Japan Series (including being present for Noboru Aota's only Japan Series home run in game 2 of the '51 series) as the crew chief for the Hawks' million dollar infield.

Below is a list of catchers who played their entire career behind the plate without ever moving to another position; and, as this post focuses solely on the post-war era, it includes only those who played at least one game in the decade following the war (1946-1955)- Mori and Yamashita both played the majority of their careers after this period (though Yamashita did start in 1950, playing 532 of those in the post war period), leaving Tsutsui (below right) at the top:

Mori, Masahiko 1884
Yamashita, Ken 1232
Tsutsui, Keizo 1052
Yamamoto, Tetsuya 854
Tokuami, Shigeru 782
Matsui, Jun 679
Kawahara, Masakazu 497
Kiori, Takeyoshi 452
Hara, Katsuhiko 418
Kanbayashi, Shigejiro 323
Kamiichi, Akio 298
Yoshimura, Iwao 285
Yamada, Seizaburo 274
Inoue, Shinichiro 234
Tsuji, Isao 218
Recca, Sal 190
Nemoto, Rikuo 186
Ai, Toshiharu 147
Kotani, Nobuo 101
Higashiguchi, Kiyomi 97
Kotsuji, Hideo 66
Hasebe, Minoru 64
Onodera, Katsuo 62
Okamoto, Mitsuo 54
Munesue, Susumu 53
Wanaka, Michio 53
Arai, Kuzuhiro 48
Atsui, Kiyoshi 48
Kinoshita, Ikuhiko 44
Matsuhashi, Yoshiki 41
Murokawa, Mitsuo 41
Etoh, Daisuke 36
Goto, Hiroyuki 36
Goto, Jinjiro 30
Matsumoto, Isamu 28
Ikehata, Tadao 18
Itoh, Haruo 18
Matsunaga, Eiichi 18
Kawague, Kameiji 17
Ezaki, Masayoshi 16
Hasebe, Eiichi 16
Ichiyanagi, Tadano 16
Kawakami, Michiro 15
Inagawa, Goichi 14
Takahashi, Kazuo 12
Katsuta, Ko 10
Mimura, Tadashi 10
Ogawa, Hideo 9
Taniguchi, Kineji 6
Harada, Yasuaki 4
Nakashizu, Tadahachi 4
Sugiyama, Tetsuo 4
Nakamura, Kunio 3
Sakurai, Sadao 3
Kawase, Hiroyuki 2
Nagai, Yojiro 2
Sakurai, Taro 2
Tohno, Mayumi 2
Kawai, Shizuo 1
Kitamura, Shuichi 1
Taki, Hideo 1
Takiguchi, Toyohiro 1
Yamamoto, Fumiya 1

The rest of this post, including the Central League catchers and the 'Moonlight Graham"'s, will be covered in part 3, which is almost done and will be up as soon as the couch allows....

Intermission:

Preparations for pt. 2 of the Miracles post has taken longer than expected, so here is a short piece on another great player from the 1950's in Japan. Most well known to American fans of Japanese baseball are the former major league players who have made their way to NPB for one reason or another, guys like Davy Johnson, Dave Hilton, , even Cecil Fielder. They have generally stayed a few years before trying to make an MLB comeback or hanging up their spikes. Even Hall of Famer Larry Doby played 72 games for the Dragons in 1962, hitting 10 home runs in 268 plate attempts. But it was not the former MLB players that forged the path for foreign players in Japan- it was the Nisei scrappers in the 1950's, the Wally Yonemine's, the Dick Kashiwaida's, and the Fibber Hirayama's.
Fibber (Satoshi) Hirayama (above) was born in California, not Hawaii, like many of the other Nisei stars, and played a season for the Stockton (CA) Ports, a team in the St. Louis Browns farm system, before making his way to Japan. After getting out of the army, Wally Yonemine and Kenichi Zenimura put him in contact with the Hiroshima Carp, a team only five years old playing in a town just ten years past the devastation of atomic warfare. According to the excellent Through a Diamond: 100 Years of Japanese American Baseball, Fibber had been playing baseball in a Japanese Internment Camp in Arizona at the time the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. Following a stint in the Army and his time with the Ports, Hirayama arrived in Hiroshima less than a decade after that bomb had redefined the terms of war and changed the city forever, and the Carp seemed to be the only bright spot in the lives of the people that still inhabited the coastal town. Much has been written about Fibber, the finest being an article by Marc Harris (who wrote the novel Bang the Drum Slowly) for Sports Illustrated in 1958- it covers the 10,000 fan greeting Fibber received upon his arrival in Hiroshima, and the wave of excitement he inspired. The Carp were coming off their best season yet, thanks to their young pitcher Ryohei Hasegawa and the arrival of Makoto Kozuru, and, though they would love their team whether or not they won a single game, the prospect of a winning season seemed to arrive with the young American.
Two teammates helped him feel more at home. One was Kenshi Zenimura, also from Fresno, son of Kenichi Zenimura, one of the most influential Nisei in American Baseball who led the charge to organize teams in the Japanese internment camps set up by the US government during WWII like the teams Fibber played on. The other was Jiro Kaneyama (see Feb. 20 post in this blog), who had arrived with Kozuru and shared the speed and aggressive style of play that Fibber excelled at. In his first season with the Carp, the rookie Hirayama stole 25 bases, third on the Carp behind Kanayama and Kozuru, and scored 46 runs and played the outfield with a strong and aggressive throwing arm. According to Harris, Kaneyama also raved about Fibber's leadership qualities, taking charge on a team that had not yet found its center. The result was the best Carp team yet, winning 58 games and finishing 4th in the Central League, bolstered by Ryohei Hasegawa's 30 wins. Unfortunately, though Fibber would improve in the years to come, this would be the highest placing the Carp would be able to achieve during his stay.
1956 would be his most productive year, though the Carp finished the season 37 games behind Central League champs Giants. Fibber drove in 46 runs while scoring 52, and stole 34 bases, second in the league behind Yoshio Yoshida. He led the Carp in almost every batting category except HR, and his 10 were second, making him one of the few in the Central League that season to make it into double digits with home runs- the league leader that year with 25 was Noboru Aota of the Whales.
With the Carp until 1964, Fibber was consistently productive, continually creating 50 or so runs per year with his speed and aggressive play (and most likely a lot more with his excellent defensive skills) while helping Hiroshima break the .500 mark for the first time in their history in 1960 and making the '56 and '58 All-Star Teams along the way. Since Gold Glove awards were not issued until the early 1970's, he was never so honored, but the anecdotal evidence suggests he deserved quite a few. In the field he gave his all until the end of his career, and ended up staying in Hiroshima as a coach, scout and community member.
In addition to being a great, hustling ballplayer, Fibber was also one of the few bespectacled players in post-war Japanese Baseball, along with my favorite Shissho Takesue (to be covered in a later post) and many others. Below is an attempt to compile a list of all bespectacled players from that era- this is an incomplete list, so please, if you have names to add, include them in a comment and they will be added:

Atsushi Aramaki
Kaoru Betto
Fibber Hirayama
Sashio Himoto
Hiroo I
Shigeya Iijima
Shinichiro Inoue
Tadayashi Kajioka
Shoji Kato
Hirofumi Komae
Hiroyoshi Komatsubara
Sadao Kondoh
Toshimitsu Kunieda
Kenjiro Matsuki
Kozo Matsuo
Takao Misonoo
Minoru Nakamura
Nobouo Nakatani
Jiro Noguchi
Yoshiharu Ogawa
Kanenori Shimakata
Shigeru Sugishita
Tadashi Sugiura
Shissho Takesue
Hiroshi Tsujii
Masahiro Yokoyama
Wally Yonemine

There are still a bunch missing, so please write in if you have any names to add. The second part of Miricles should be done soon, so stay tuned....

Miracles (pt. 1)
The other night I witnessed, first hand, something miraculous. Chris Richard of the Durham Bulls hit 2 grand slams in the same game, the first player to accomplish the feat in the league since 1957.
In 1936, Tony Lazzeri became the first player to hit two grand slams in one game- not home runs, but grand slams- and only eleven players have done it since in the majors (including Fernando Tatis hitting two in the same inning). In the roughly 300,000 games played since the turn of the 20th Century, only 12 players have done it. In the roughly 50,000 games played in the history of professional baseball in Japan, only one man has done it. Shigeya Iijima.
After the war, Iijima joined the Senators, who would become the Flyers the following year. During the 1946 season, his rookie season, he finished the season seventh in batting with a .312 average and second in home runs with 12, 8 behind fellow rookie and teammate HOF'er Hiroshi Oshita. He also led the Senators in runs, hits, doubles and walks to give him a league leading .426 OBP. All this while splitting fielding duties between first and third base. The following two seasons, the bespectacled Iijima's performance slowly declined, and by the middle of the 1948 season he was only hitting .206 and splitting first base duties with five other players. The presence of three future Hall of Famers, compounded by his age (born in 1918, he had been a 28 year old rookie in '46 and was now looking to be an old 30) most likely led the Flyers to believe that his poor numbers were not going to ever rebound- he was expendable. The following season he found himself, along with Makoto Kozuru (another future HOF teammate from the Flyers in '48), on the Stars of Daiei- leading them to a third place finish, five and a half games ahead of the Flyers. The pair led the Stars in almost every category, and the 31 year old Iijima finished the season with a .548 slugging percentage and 25 home runs, as well as 67 walks, all within the top five in the league.
The following season, several teams were added and two leagues were formed, and Iijima and the Stars took up shop in the new Pacific League. Even with the dramatic rise in stats that resulted from the influx of new players and new stadiums, Iijima still placed third in the PL in home runs and slugging percentage, and won his first of three Best Nine awards for the outfield. With the departure of Kozuru to the Robins, Iijima became the power-center of the Stars, leading them in almost every offensive category (though it is important to point out that Victor Starrfin, while pitching 35 games for the Stars, filled in a number of times at first base, compiling 114 at bats with at .333 batting average, 18 rbi and a .468 slugging percentage). During that four year span ('49-'52) Iijima's slugging percentage never dipped below .500, and he was the premiere run producer for his team (though the Stars never placed higher than third).
His least productive year during that span was 1951, yet it was in October of that year that he hit his two grand slams (off of a fairly terrible Braves pitching staff that had only one pitcher [4-3] with a record over .500). How was it that Iijima came to perform such a feat- a very good hitter at the tail end of a "dead ball" era, though certainly not at the top of the power-hitting elite in the league? Was his performance that October a fluke, or the rest of his career just unlucky enough to fall at the wrong time? Why has no one else done this- and why Iijima? How much does chaos and randomness affect the performan, and legacy, of a player- how does it ensure his place in any "hall of fame"? More on this in part II of this post.

A .282 career hitter, his 115 home runs were enough to place him at 11 on the all time home run list when he retired in 1955. Though he did not play long enough to compile the stats one might associate with a Hall of Famer, he packed a lot of power into a career that essentially began when he was 30 because of the war. What was more impressive was his eye, as in his batting eye. For every strikeout in his career, he drew 1.52 walks- only Kawakami, the God of Batting, had a higher percentage, with a 1.92 walk to strikeout ratio. Here is a list of the top eleven home run hitters of all time at the end of the 1955 season, along with their walk to strikeout ratio:

Tetsuharu Kawakami 1.92
Shigeya Iijima 1.52
Fujio Fujimura 1.48
Karao Betto 1.25
Yoshiyuki Iwamoto 1.16
Tokuji Iida 1.06
Michio Nishizawa 1.04
Makoto Kozuru 1.02
Hiroshi Oshita 0.87
Noboru Aota 0.74
Satoru Sugiyama 0.47

Just for comparison, here are the ratios for Bonds, Ruth and Aaron, respectively: 1.66, 1.55, 1.01. Some may say that the role of a power hitter is not to walk, but to hit the ball hard- but the name of the game is scoring runs, and if a power hitter can also get on base, they are a double threat.

During Iijima's last season with the Stars, he hit only 10 home runs, but he was still in the top 25 hitters in the league, drove in 60 runs and made the all-star team. Despite being, by far, the best player on the Stars that year, he found himself the following year, 1955, on the best team in the league- the Hawks. He provided depth for the Hawks, who went on to almost beat the Giants that year in a thrilling seven game Japan Series, but hit a disappointing .180 in 73 games and retired at the end of the season.
In the next post, look for more miracles- an analysis of a group under-represented in the Hall of Fame, and how random luck and fate plays a role in their legacies.

The 1936 season, split into a tournament style competition in the Spring and a more conventional schedule in the Fall, kicked off professional baseball in Japan. Everything was new, and no player exceeded 150 at bats. The home run leader that Fall slugged 2, and the stolen base leader, Hisonori Karita, ended up with 16. Number four on that SB list, and in the top ten in batting and rbi, was Seiichi (or Kiyokazu) Hayashi, patrolling the outfield for the Kyojin in both the Spring and Fall seasons. In the Spring tournament he, along with Harayasu Nakajima, led the Giants with 1 home run, and in the Fall he led the new-born Giants in batting, rbi, stolen bases and hits. The Giants, the premiere team in 1936, a team that had already been playing professionally longer than any other team, won the first championship that year despite going 18-9 to the Tigers 24-6 due to their dominance in the tournaments played earlier in the season. One reason for that dominance was their ace, Eiji Sawamura, who outpitched everyone and went 13 and 2 in 15 games, winning almost twice as many games as his nearest competitor.
Unfortunately for both Hayashi and the Giants, he was drafted into the military in January of 1937 (according to Japan Baseball Daily), and would not return to a Giants uniform until 1940, after which he was never very affective and ultimately retired at the end of the 1947 season, another casualty of the long Pacific War.
During that mythic 1936 season, Hayashi patrolled the pre-Korakuen outfield with a sometime pitcher, sometime infielder, jack-of-all-trades named Hachiro Maekawa. While not providing pitching support to the Hall-of-Fame aces of the early Giants pitching staff, he filled gaps and supported every aspect of the team from 1936 through 1938. Though he played some in the industrial leagues, his true calling was in coaching young ballplayers. Born in Hyogo Prefecture, he returned to manage the Takigawa Middle School team, where, in the early 1940's, he taught the finer points of the game to a young Noboru Aota (below).


In 1946, with all of the weary soldiers returning from the war, Aota found himself on the Braves with an old friend and teacher in the bullpen- Maekawa. He pitched well, winning three and losing three while providing veteran leadership to a young pitching staff and easing young Aota back into the league that he would soon dominate.
The benefit Aota gained from not only learning the game early from a member of the original professional team in Japan, but also having the chance to then share the clubhouse and bench with that same teacher, cannot be measured. No doubt he received more intimate coaching and feedback than his teamates, and it is no wonder that he honed his skills so quickly and was back with the Giants within 2 years, setting records as a superstar.

Up Next: Miracles!