Collecting and Translating the 1973 Calbee Flag-Backs (154, 174, 178, 182, 184)
Five more from the all-Giants fourth series. 1973 was the penultimate year for three core V9 Era Giants: 3B Shigeo Nagashima, C Masaaki Mori, and SS Yukinobu Kuroe. Just for fun, here is a list of the nine main V9 starters in order of years of service to the team, counting any year they played at least 1 game for the 1st team. (For players with the same number of years, the player listed higher played in more games). Sadaharu Oh (1B, 22yrs) Isao Shibata (OF, 20yrs) Masaaki Mori (C, 20yrs) Tsuneo Horiuchi (SP, 18yrs) Shigeo Nagashima (3B, 17yrs) Shozo Doi (2B, 14yrs) Shigeru Takada (OF, 13yrs) Toshimitsu Suetsugu (OF, 13yrs) Yukinobu Kuroe (SS, 11yrs) Of the core V9 players, all but Horiuchi and Takada played on every one of the consecutive championship teams in some capacity. (Although Horiuchi played longer than Nagashima, he was a ‘ 66 rookie while V9 stretched ‘ 65- ’ 73). Takada was last of the V9 core to debut having done so in ‘ 68. #154 Takada - Outfielder (Giants) I...