1980 Calbee Large: A Scarce and Intriguing Set (Part 5)

Part 5 of my 1980 Calbee Large survey. A fair number of fairly unremarkable pitchers in this group, but another card with an actual blurb to translate, yay! Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Archive

#8  Koji Yamamoto - Outfielder (Hiroshima)

Yamamoto is one of the more slept-on NPB greats. The two-time MVP is 4th all-time in home runs (526) and won 10 Golden Gloves.

#32  Kazuhiko Endo - Pitcher (Taiyo)

Endo had a long, steady career with the Whales. Of his 460 starts, 109 were complete games.

 

 #33  Akio Saito - Pitcher (Taiyo)

Like Endo, Saito was a long tenured Whale who was a solid presence in the rotation. The two teammates’ careers almost completely overlapped.

#36  Roy White - Outfielder (Yomiuri)

In 1971, White appeared in 147 games and recorded a fielding percentage of 1.000. He is the only outfielder in Yankees history to go a full season without an error.

White is one of the more prominent ex-Major Leaguers to play in NPB. He shared an outfield with Mickey Mantle and is a two time World Series champion (1977-78).

#37  Tatsuo Komatsu - Pitcher (Chunichi)

Another pitcher who led a long, perfectly-good-but-not-great career and had an ERA in the mid-3’s. Something of a theme for this grouping of cards.

 

#40  Tetsuji Yamaguchi - Pitcher (Kintetsu)

Yamaguchi had a promising rookie season, posting a 2.49 ERA in 148.1 innings pitched. Unfortunately, his injury plagued career never really got off the ground and he retired at age 29 in 1988. This card features a typo: the phonetic characters above Yamaguchi’s given name read ‘Tetsuharu’ although his name is in fact Tetsuji. The actual kanji of his name are the same as Giants legend Tetsuharu Kawakami, making this a pretty easy mistake to make. I like the image on this card. The close up portrait style shot is unusual for this set and reminds me of ‘73 Calbee.

 

#41  Kimiya Fujisawa - Pitcher (Chunichi)

Fujisawa isn’t a player of particular note, having pitched a 4.23 ERA over six  seasons with the Dragons. He did have the Central League’s best winning percentage among qualified starters his rookie year (1979).