Japanese baseball

There was an interesting question posed on one of the Japanese Baseball forums the other day - Why do Japanese uniforms have English letters rather than Japanese characters? Michael Westbay suggested that it had something to do with a backlash against the "Imperial Charter" that forbid the use of English on baseball uniforms during the war. I think it's a bit more complicated than that. I wrote a response to Mr. Westbay's comment but I don't know if he'll publish it or not. I'll repeat what…

baseball card

I've picked up some more menko cards in the past few months that appear to not be cataloged in Gary Engel's "Japanese Baseball Cards Checklist And Price Guide".* *I do need to mention that Gary Engel took a look at some of the cards I've posted and confirmed that the Shigeru Fujio card I have is a previously unknown card from the 1961 Marumatsu JCM 14d set. UPDATE - I received an email from Gary Engel today (12/14) with his comments on the cards. I'll add them to each of the paragraphs…

About a month ago, I introduced you to one of the earliest types of Japanese cards, the Bromides. While Bromides were essentially simple black and white or colorized cards, similar to many early American baseball issues, menko cards have a distinction which makes them unique to Japanese culture. Menko is a Japanese game with two or more players. One player places his card on the ground, and the other tries to flip it by throwing another card at it. If the flipper is successful, he takes both…

Not since the days of Babe Ruth has one of baseball's greatest hitters also been one of its finest pitchers. Now, the reigning MVP is opening up for the first time about his singular place in modern baseball.

silversnow (@silversnow2) / X

Sho-ing off 🦄 Shohei Ohtani matched his single-game MLB career high in strikeouts (13) and now has 500 career pitching strikeouts, being one shy of matching Babe Ruth's career total (501).

Vintage Japanese baseball cards