Victor Starffin

Victor Starffin
Victor Starffin to celebrate his 300th win.
Pitcher
Born: May 1, 1916 in Nizhny Tagil ,  Russia
Died on: January 12, 1957 Setagaya ,  Japan
Suggested: Right	Threw: Right
Wins	303
Shutouts	83
Strikeouts	1,960
Teams
Tōkyō Kyojin-gun (1934–1944) Pacific / Taiyō Robins (1946–1947) Kinsei Stars / Daiei Unions (1948–1953) Takahashi Unions / Tombow Unions (1954–1955)
member of
Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame
Recorded	1960

Victor Starffin ( jap. ヴィクトルスタルヒン Bikutoru Sutaruhin ; actually Russian Виктор Константинович / Фёдорович Старухин Viktor Konstantinovich / Fedorovich Staruchin ; in World War II 須田博 Suda Hiroshi * 1. May 1916 in Nizhny Tagil , Russian empire , reported in Asahikawa , † 12th January 1957 in Setagaya ) was a Russian-born stateless baseball player in Japan . He was the first foreign player to play Japanese professional baseball and, together with Eiji Sawamura, was one of the outstanding pitchers of the early days. He was the first to hit more than 300 wins and his record of 83 shutouts is unmatched to date. In 1960 he was inducted into the Yakyū Dendō , the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

Life

Starffin was born in 1916 in the final phase of the tsarist empire . After the Russian Revolution , his family left the country as “Byelomigrants”, loyalist supporters of the “Whites” , fleeing from persecution by the revolutionary government, the “Reds”: In 1925 the Starffins emigrated to Japan. Starffin attended the Asahikawa Middle School there - this corresponds to a high school in the post-war period - where he developed into a pitcher with strong fastball in baseball . However, his team failed in two consecutive years, 1933 and 1934, in the final of the high school tournament in Hokkaidō by errors of his teammates and so narrowly missed participation in the summer Koshien .

In 1934 there was a series of games by an all-star team from the American Major League Baseball , including Babe Ruth , Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx in Japan. 15 of the 18 games played an all-Japanese selection, which later became the nucleus of the "Greater Japanese Baseball Club Tokyo" . Starffin was selected for the Japanese team, in the third year he left school on November 25, 1934 and moved to Tokyo. He had originally planned to graduate from school and then attend Waseda University ; however, he had to give up these plans when a criminal case was investigated against his father. On November 29, Starffin threw 2 innings in the 17th game of the series at the Ōmiya-Kōen ballpark and made his debut in the world of professional baseball.

In 1936, the Nippon Yakyū Renmei ( 日本 野球 連 盟 , "Japanese Baseball Association") began playing as a professional league with initially six teams. Starffin became a player in the Tōkyō Kyojin-gun , the successor to the "Greater Japanese Baseball Club Tokyo" and the forerunner of today's Yomiuri Giants . From the autumn of 1937 season - until 1938 there were spring and autumn championships - Starffin became the star pitcher of Kyojin as a replacement for pitcher Eiji Sawamura , who went to the war on the mainland as a conscript. In the six seasons from autumn 1938 to 1943 he made major contributions to the six championship titles won: In the 1939 season he set a new Japanese record with 42 wins - initially corrected to 40 wins after the war due to unclear game statistics - and at the same time became the first pitcher with 100 wins. In 1939 and 1940 he was named Most Valuable Player . On July 3, 1943, he threw a no-hitter .

Since the climate for Russians in Japan deteriorated because of the tensions with the Soviet Union, especially after the Nomonhan incident in 1939, Starffin adopted the name Suda Hiroshi in 1940. That is why he was nicknamed "blue-eyed Japanese". When Japan's situation deteriorated in the Pacific War in 1944, he was arrested as a potential enemy and interned in Karuizawa along with numerous diplomats . The official baseball statistics for 1944 recorded that he had been quarantined because of an illness. The 1945 season was canceled because of the war.

In the first post-war year 1946 Starffin took up his career with Pacific (1947: Taiyō Robins ) again, where he played under the former Kyojin manager Fujimoto Sadayoshi. In August of the same year he achieved his 200th win, which he also reached as the first pitcher in Japan. In 1948 he switched to the Kimboshi Stars (from 1949: Daiei Stars ), with whom he stayed until 1953. There he completed his most successful post-war season in 1949 with 27 wins in 52 games. His last two seasons as an active player, 1954 and 1955, he played for the Takahashi Unions (1955: Tombow Unions ). On September 4, 1955 he reached in a game against Daiei in the Kyoto Nishi-Kyogoku baseball stadium the 300th win of his career. Posthumously the two victories of 1939, which had been disallowed, were credited back to him, so that he had actually already reached the record on July 30, 1955 in Kawasaki against the Kintetsu Pearls. After the 1955 season he ended his active career.

Death and posthumous honors

On January 12, 1957, Starffin was driving his car on National Road 246 because of a class reunion. At about 10:38 p.m., his car was hit by a tram on the Tōkyū Tamagawa line near Mishuku Station . He was still taken to Kunitachi Setagaya Hospital, but soon died. Reports of his death were accompanied by media speculation about possible drunk driving or possible suicide. Starffin was in Yokote in Akita Prefecture , was buried, the home of his wife's family.

In 1960 he was accepted into the Yakyū Dendō , the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, which had only been created the year before , as the first player in the regular process (without special nominations).

The citizens of Asahikawa honored Starffin by giving the municipal ballpark the nickname "Starffin Stadium" ( Starffin-kyūjō ), after a renovation in 1984 it was officially called so. A Starffins bronze statue was erected in front of the stadium. Since 1991 the stadium is officially called Asahikawa Hanasaki-Sports-Kōen Yakyūjō ("Hanasaki Sports Park Baseball Stadium Asahikawa"), but the nickname remains in use. In 2008, the Giants played a regular league game against the Chūnichi Dragons in Starffin Stadium; Starffin's oldest daughter Natascha threw the symbolic first pitch.

Web links

• Yakyū Dendō , The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum: Entry Victor Starffins ( baseball-museum.or.jp Japanese, English.baseball-museum.or.jp English), player statistics
• Hokkaidō Television Broadcasting : 心 の 中 の 国境 ～ 無国籍 投手 ス タ ル ヒ ン ン の 栄 光 と 挫折 ~ (Japanese)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 日 米 野球 1934 年 メ ジ ャ ー リ ー グ 選 抜 チ ー ム (Players and statistics of the US-Japanese game series 1934)
2. ↑ Yomiuri Giants : Annual Review 1940 ( Memento of the original from February 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ^ ^{A b} Wayne Graczyk: Writer takes memorable trip to Victor Starfin Stadium in Asahikawa. In: The Japan Times . July 20, 2008, accessed December 18, 2008 . 
4. ↑ 初 の 300 勝 投手 ス タ ル ヒ ン 、 ナ ゾ の 交通事故. (No longer available online.) In: Suponichi . January 12, 1957, archived from the original on August 3, 2009 ; Retrieved December 16, 2009 (Japanese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.