Gaijin: Mark Brownstein

 Don't expect this to be a regular series, but this particular card has a somewhat-interesting story behind it. Gaijin is a slang/casual word for foreigner.

The player pictured above is Mark Brownstein. The card front calls him "Brown", a nickname of sorts given to him to make it easier to pronounce in Japanese. (Side note: Japan loves shortening names. For example, one major convenience store, Family Mart, is called FamiMa.) Brownstein was a star pitcher with the University of Southern California whose father did business in Japan. I guess he figured playing baseball in Japan would be a good opportunity to learn about the country.

The Hanshin Tigers signed Brownstein in 1962 fresh out of college.

This is a very rare occurence; Matt Randel and Carter Stewart are two other examples of Americans coming to Japan prior to playing in the US. Randel came over in 1999 after dropping out of college and pitched only 1/3 inning in 2000 before returning home for a couple seasons. He would then play for the Yomiuri Giants for two seasons before moving over to the KBO. Stewart came to Japan in 2019 fresh out of high school (thanks, Scott Boras) and has spent the past two seasons pitching for the Hawks' minor league teams. 

As for Brownstein, he didn't do so well in 1962, never played for the top-level team, and left by the end of the season. He managed to make it on to three 1962 menko cards, though: this Doyusha menko, a Marusan menko, and a Marusan bromide. In fact, if I hadn't randomly came across this card, I wouldn't even know he existed.

1931 Yakyukai Magazine Bromides

 Say hello to the oldest Japanese card in my collection.

In fact, it doesn't get much older than this. Baseball's first professional teams formed in the 1920s, though the first real professional team (which would become the Yomiuri Giants) wouldn't form until 1934. Before that, most baseball was played by high school and college students. The Koshien high school baseball tournament started in 1915, with the spring version starting in 1924. The Tokyo Big6 Baseball League (college) was established in 1925, though college baseball was big for more than 20 years prior.

The first identified bromides in Engel's guide come from 1930, with all pre-war sets consisting of college players or US players from the Japan tours. It's definitely possible that cards were issued before 1930; in fact, I'm pretty sure they have been, but just haven't been cataloged yet. 

And that puts us with this card here:

The card above is identified as JBR 71: 1931 Yakyukai Magazine Sepia Bromides. Cards were included in the February 1932 issue of the magazine inside an envelope, and came blank-backed. The bottom text has the school name, player's surname, and position, from left to right. The card measures 3-3/8" by 5-3/8". Three cards were in the set. The card I have above is Kiyokazu Igawa, from Keio University. The remaining players are Osamu Mihara from Waseda, and Takeo Tabe from Meiji.

Yakyukai Magazine was issued for a very long time - from late 1911 through October 1959, it appears. Only two sets of bromides are listed in the Engel guide from the magazine, however: this one, and one for the January 1934 issue. The image above is the February 1932 cover. I'm not sure why Engel calls this a 1931 card, though while the cover date is February 1932, the magazine was possibly on shelves just before or on New Years.

Finding information on Igawa isn't easy. It appears he might have participated in the Koshien Tournament in the 1920s, and more famously, I think he was partly involved in what translates as the "Apple Incident" on October 22, 1933. While it seems that rivalry has caused problems for a long time, this particular event, involving the throwing of trash, including an apple core, was the impetus for creating specific cheering sections for fans.

To this day, sporting events have "cheering" sections where only that team's fans can enter; for smaller matches such as independent leagues that just means sit on your team's side, while NPB stadium rules basically prohibit entering another team's fan area (if you're wearing a Giants jersey, you aren't allowed in the Tigers fan area, and vice versa), and these fan areas can be fairly well "fenced in" to prohibit infiltrating enemy lines (and keep people from sneaking into more expensive seats). 

Odd note I discovered while preparing this post: the Japanese version of Wikipedia has a page explaining what a strike is in baseball. The page's photo shows Barry Bonds from behind home plate as an umpire calls a strike.

Down to One

 A long time ago, there was a magazine called SCM. Well, not that long ago. The last issue came out in 2017. SCM stands for Sports Card Magazine, and it was the Japanese equivalent of Beckett. It had previews of upcoming sets, articles on featured sets or players, and a price guide which rotated through different prices - Calbee sets, BBM sets, soccer sets.

It was issued by BBM, which brings up questions of confict of interest; a card manufacturer produced the magazine listing card values for their cards. But, then, the prices in the magazine were supposedly provided by JSCA (Japan Sports Card Association), which after some research, seems to be the card shop association, or possibly associated with or run by Mint (the major chain of card shops here in Japan). Which, too, brings up several questions about conflict of interest and price fixing.

But that's not the point of this post. Also found in the magazine were cards. Some cards had original designs, but others served as previews for new or upcoming releases. Since the magazine was produced by BBM, the cards inside were also BBM cards. And because BBM produces sets for a wide range of sports, the promo cards also cover the range of sports from baseball to wrestling. NPB Card Guy has a comprehensive list on his blog.

I soon took notice of SCM promos as I visited card shops (and the Weekly Baseball promos as well), and eventually realized that there were more than just baseball cards in those magazines. As a collector of women in sports cards, I made it a goal to get as many as I could featuring female athletes, and eventually, thanks to Dave's list, I was able to have a definitive list of cards to seek out.

There are about 75 cards, and I was able to find all of them except for the badminton cards from Issue 60. Four total cards were found in that set: one soccer card and three badminton cards previewing an upcoming box set. The team card featuring nine players wasn't too tough to track down, but the two single-player cards have been tough.

After setting the two cards on my watch list, I've sat, waited, and watched for over a year, and finally, late last year, Reiko Shiota's card came up in auction. It is number 0, but otherwise has no hint that it came from SCM. 

So that leaves Kumiko Ogura. The hunt remains on, and hopefully it won't take another year to finish it off. Though, perhaps, I should check through that checklist again to be sure I haven't missed anything...