Getting a Baseball Card . . . from Japan!

A couple of months ago I made a fun announcement here on the blog: The Sadaharu Oh stained glass card design that I'd created back in 2020 was now available in print form. I even gave away a few copies to readers.

 

But I hadn't forgotten that the original inspiration for the design came from Sean, the man behind the blog called Getting Back into Baseball Cards . . . in Japan. So that same week I also sent him a copy of the stained glass Sadaharu Oh card.

Well, wouldn't you know it, just a few weeks later something arrived in my mailbox . . .  from Japan.

 

 

There's the postage.

 

It was from Sean. Included was a nice thank-you note, plus a card that I wasn't expecting at all. 

 

 

 

A 1975 Calbee card featuring Sadaharu Oh!

Wow. That's very cool. Not only is it my first playing-era Sadaharu Oh card, it's also my first Calbee card. Ever!

 

It measures 2 3/8 x 3 3/8, which is just slightly smaller than the standard trading card. It's a pretty crisp color photo for 1975. Here's a look at the card back.

 

 

I found the checklist for this set, and it runs at a rather large 936 cards. At first I was floored when I noticed that about 75 of those cards feature Sadaharu Oh exclusively. Seventy five! 

 

But it turns out that's not exactly atypical. Fellow Yomiuri Giants slugger Shigeo Nagashima has well over 100!

That's what will happen when you have only 11 teams in such a large set. And that's not all. The Giants in particular were such a big deal that they received a whopping 366 of the 936 total cards, while less popular teams at the time, like the Kintetsu Buffaloes, only received 25. Ouch. 

 

But the Giants are the Giants. And besides, look at these career stats.

 

Sadaharu Oh: 2831 G, 2786 H, 422 2B, 25 3B, 868 HR, 2170 RBI, .301/.446/.634

Shigeo Nagashima: 2186 G, 2471 H, 418 2B, 74 3B, 444 HR, 1522 RBI, .305/.379/.540

 

Sadaharu Oh still sits atop the Nippon Professional Baseball career home run list by a large margin. Nagashima, known as "Mr. Giants", sits at 15th all time.

 

That'll get you numerous cards in the set. And I'm happy to have this particular card in my collection.

 

Sean, thank you very much for the surprise return gift. And keep up the great work over there!

Katy Jurado Sure Gave Lloyd Bridges a Good Talking-To

Welcome to 2023, everyone! 

 

In the first Nine Pockets installment of the new year, we'll be going back exactly 70 years, to a set that Topps released in 1953 called Who-Z-At Star? 

 

It's an 80-card set that features many remarkable actors, actresses, singers, and musicians from the era: Clark Gable, Elizabeth Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Gene Kelly, Slim Pickens, Ava Gardner, and Errol Flynn, to name a few.

 

And here's the focus of today's post: actress Katy Jurado.

 

 

 

Jurado became a crush for me as soon as I saw her in the classic 1952 Western called High Noon, starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. In the film, she plays a beautiful and tough saloon owner named Helen Ramirez who, among other things, gives a young Deputy Marshal named Harvey Pell a good stern talking-to about manhood in the Wild West. (Pell was played by Lloyd Bridges.) 

 

The role earned Jurado a Golden Globe award for Best Supporting Actress. Have a look:

 

She's a stunner inside and out, right? 

 

Jurado played memorable characters in other films of the decade as well, such as Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), Arrowhead (1953), Broken Lance (1954), and The Racers (1955). She also had a love for Mexican cinema, and devoted as much of her time, if not more, to starring in Mexican films as she did Hollywood films.

 

Here are some quotes from Jurado that help define who she was:

[On High Noon] I am very proud to make this picture because I look and act like a Mexican—not imitation. Some Mexicans go to Hollywood and lose their career in Mexico, because they play imitation. I don't want this to happen to me.

 

Movies will have to change—they just show too much. Sex is supposed to be what people feel and think. If you show it, there's no sex. It's just like women's skirts and see-through dresses. They got shorter and shorter and were so ugly until they came out with the maxi. People get tired of that sort of thing.

 

[When asked if she preferred Hispanic men] Nationality has nothing to do with being a man. What counts is the way he brushes your hand, the way he looks at you, and the little things he does and says.

I am not afraid to play mothers. Some of these little girls are afraid to admit they are getting older. I am not afraid. You can't put your finger in the sun and stop time.

 

Women can have a career, but the real career is to be a woman. It's beautiful to be a woman and give birth.

 

 

There's definitely some food for thought in those quotes, all these years later. And I'm happy to have a Katy Jurado card in my collection. 

 

Here's what the card back looks like. 

 

 

 

They're pretty well done. I might have to pick up a few other cards from the set, too.

 

As for where this card came from, I've got to thank Mr. Jon Pennysleeves.

 

He saw the card on my want list at TCDB, and sent it to me as a RAK. Or, more specifically, a return RAK for a book that I'd sent him shortly before. You can learn more about the book, which documents Theodore Roosevelt's adventures through the Brazilian wilderness, at another one of Jon's blogs, My Kind of Nonsense. The blog—and the book—are both worth a read, for sure.

Jon, thank you so much for the surprise gift. It's the new star of my vintage collection. If I can get down to Tennessee one day, maybe we'll meet up and watch High Noon, or explore the Tennesean wilderness like Colonel Roosevelt did in Brazil—just with a little less danger and difficulty, thank you very much.