Tabuchi was one of Japan's biggest stars in the 1970s and for a few years I had just assumed he was already in the Hall of Fame until I looked it up and was surprised to find that he wasn't. So I'm happy that he is in. He clobbered 474 career home runs, which (I think) would have put him in the top 5 all time at the time he retired in 1984. His home run rate (ratio of home runs to at bats) is second all time to Sadaharu Oh.
Since his career peaked in the mid to late 70s (his best season was 1975 when he led the Central League in home runs, the first time in a over decade that Oh didn't win the title) he appears on a lot of Calbee cards from the classic sets of the 70s, including one of my favorites of all time.
What is really interesting about him from a 1970s Calbee collector perspective though is that he appears on a massive number of cards in which he is not the featured player. The sets from the 1970s were heavily weighted with players from the Central League in which Tabuchi played, and specifically with the Giants, the most popular team by far. Tabuchi didn't play for the Giants but rather for their main rivals the Hanshin Tigers. The Calbee photographers seem to have taken a lot of their photos of Giants players in games they were playing against the Tigers and as the Tigers catcher this meant that Tabuchi features prominently on a huge number of cards of Giants batters in photos taken during their at bats.
So if you collect cards of Sadaharu Oh from the 70s, chances are that a lot of your cards have Koichi Tabuchi on them too, like these ones I've put in this post. There are a ton more out there, not just Oh cards but with other Giants cards and the odd one here or there of players from other Central League teams. Its super noticeable when you are flipping through a stack of cards from the monster 75-76-77 set that Tabuchi probably features on more cards than any other player in the set (except maybe Oh) but with the caveat that on most of them he is just the "other guy" on the card and not its main focus. When I'm finally finished collecting that set, I'm going to go through it and count how many cards there are of Tabuchi in the background, I'm positive that he holds the world record for most appearances in a card set of someone appearing as an "other guy" in the background.
Anyway, I'm glad this other guy finally got into the Hall!
The problem with collecting the hall of fame is that it's a moving target. Now I've got one more guy to add to the list!
ReplyDeleteI always like cards that have an "other guy" on them. When I was a kid I was a big fan of the 1986 Tony Perez card, where he's giving Eric Davis a high-five. I'm not sure who the batter is, but the 1973 Vida Blue features someone else very prominently. The 1992 Wade Boggs stadium club has the entire team. And probably the classic example is the 1953 Bowman card of Pee Wee Reese.
Me too. When I was a kid I remember the 1983 Topps Reggie Smith card was very popular because Ryne Sandberg features prominently in the photo. Sandberg's actual 1983 Topps card was his rookie and quite expensive (especially around 1990 when he won the MVP) so I remember settling for the Reggie Smith card as my quasi-1983 Topps Sandberg!
DeleteOh and let me know if you need a Tabuchi for your collection, I can hook you up if need be!
DeleteLike you, I was always surprised when I would re-discover that he wasn't already in the Hall Of Fame.
ReplyDeleteYeah, he should have been in long ago!
Delete70's Calbee = Beautiful Action Shots
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly right!
DeleteI echo Fuji's sentiment. Calbee photographers back then sure had an eye for baseball.
ReplyDeleteTHey sure did, I wish they still did but their cards today have way less interesting photography.
DeleteI never thought about Tabuchi being on all those cards as the "unnamed" catcher. Congrats to him on making the Hall!
ReplyDeleteHe is probably unique in that regard!
Delete