Card about a guy's hair and also a guy is looking at the hair guy's butt and the hair guy is kind of floating and its a weird card and you need to buy this card

You want my advice?  You need this card in your collection.

This is a 1975 Calbee card of Takenori Emoto, ace pitcher for the Nankai Hawks.

The card isn't so much about Emoto as it is about his hair.  The title on the back of the card says "With adequate resolve, he cuts his long hair!"

Emoto is a man who likes his hair.  And can you blame him?

But it almost cost him his career in 1975.  Japanese baseball teams have pretty strict rules on haircuts.  These days a lot of NPB teams have relaxed them, but on high school or college teams its like being in the military: everyone gets a buzz cut.

So back in the 1970s Katsuya Nomura was managing the Hawks and banned long hair.  Emoto wasn't about to let go of his splendid hair and rebelled (nobody else on the team joined him).  I did some looking around and found this archival footage of Emoto giving a press conference to explain the reasons for his rebellion.

The long and the short of it is that Nomura threatened to fine him 500,000 Yen, a massive sum back then, and Emoto backed down and got a hair cut.  The scandal that it caused rocked the nation (well not really but it made the news) and elicited a lot of commentary.  This baseball card is devoted to that incident.

The text on the back says:

"With Adequate Resolve, He Cuts His Long Hair!

Nankai's ace pitcher Emoto.  His long hair became the subject of much discussion and attention even as he was breaking records.  He announced that he would cut this long hair into a new short cut and devote himself completely to baseball, making his manager and team mates say "Ah".  He hussles in the middle of training camp in Tanabe, Wakayama Prefecture."

Inspiring stuff.  I guess. The record it (probably) refers to is perhaps a backhanded compliment, he set the NPB record for balks in 1973.

I like the fact that this card once again demonstrates how ahead of their time these Calbee sets from the 1970s were.  Remember in 1991 when George Steinbrenner and Don Mattingly got into that big public argument over Mattingly's hair?

And then do you remember how Topps, Donruss, Fleer and Upper Deck all made cards about that in their 1992 sets?

Me neither.  Because they didn't.  Because American baseball cards kind of suck in that regard.  Actually Japanese cards kind of suck in that regard today too, no way they would make a card about a similar hair scandal today.  But back in the 70s it was anything goes!  The most glorious card sets ever made.

Also I like this card because there is a guy on it who seems to be totally checking out Emoto's butt, which is also  not something you often see on a baseball card:

Also, if you look at the card photo you have to wonder what is Emoto doing exactly?  He seems to be levitating, with a crowd of people surrounding him.  He is in a baseball pose, but he is standing in front of a hill and I don't think he is on a pitching mound since it is too high relative to the guy looking at his butt.

Anyway, this card has a lot going on in it, all of it fascinating.  Even though Emoto's hair didn't cost him his career, his mouth eventually did.  In 1981 after getting yanked early from a game he publicly suggested that his manager was stupid.  The blowback he received from that (Rule #1 in Japan: Never insult your boss.  Rule #2: no matter how awful something tastes, always say its Oishii even as you are gagging on it) caused his forced retirement shortly thereafter.

1949 Kagome Kazuto Tsuruoka: a Happy Card with a Sad Story

This is a pretty cool card from the 1949 Kagome Color Playing Card Game set which is catalogued as JGA 16.

This card has been around the world at least once. I didn't get it in Japan, but rather got it from Nat over at Net54 who recently put together a full set of cards of Japanese Hall of Famers (at least those who had cards during their careers).  His thread chronicling his collection which I just linked to is really worth a read.  I sent him a few that he needed for that project and he sent me this and a few Expos cards for my collection.

So this card originated in Japan, at some point made its way over to the US where he got it, then made its way back over to Japan and into my hands.  Funny how things like that work out.  If this card were a sentient being, it might have thought it would never see its homeland again when it first left for the US.  Maybe its happy to be back?  I don't know. It kind of looks like a happy card but that might be for unrelated reasons.

The card is interesting since it features the manager of the Nankai Hawks, identified as "Yamamoto".  There is a sad story behind that name. He was born with the name Kazuto Tsuruoka and went by that name throughout his youth.  In World War II he spent five years in the military as a fighter pilot where he saw combat and was assigned to a Kamikaze squadron in August of 1945 just before the war ended (and like Hiroshi Ohshita was saved from almost certain death by Japan's surrender). Throughout that experience, he went by the name Tsuroka.

Then shortly after the war ended he got married, in 1946.  Under Japanese law, when a couple get married they must both adopt the same family name (no use of maiden names permitted) but they are free to choose either the husband or wife's name.  Tsuruoka chose to go by his wife's name, which is rare but not unheard of.  Generally its done when the husband "joins" the wife's family, which for whatever reason (usually economic) is more powerful and wants someone to continue the family name but lack a male heir to do so.

So he went by the name of Yamamoto for 11 years while managing the Hawks (as player/manager through 1953) until in 1957 his still young wife suddenly passed away.  He reverted back to his former name, Tsuruoka, after that and it is the name he is mainly known by.

After his wife passed away, he told a magazine reporter that he wanted to manage the Hawks to a Nippon Series win and dedicate the victory parade along  Midosuji Avenue in Osaka to her.  In 1959, just two years later,  he fulfilled that promise.

He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1965, which is a bit odd since he was still managing the Hawks at that time (he retired after the 1968 season).  His playing career was extremely short, mostly due to his missing several years to the War, but in his 8 year career he managed to win an astonishing 3 MVP awards, which is just one shy of winning the MVP in half the seasons he played!