Victor Starffin

Victor Starffin
Pitcher
Born: (1916-05-01)May 1, 1916
Nizhny Tagil, Perm Governorate, Russian Empire
Died: January 12, 1957(1957-01-12) (aged 40)
Tokyo, Japan
Batted: Right Threw: Right
NPB debut
1936, for the Tokyo Kyojingun
Last appearance
July 12, 1955, for the Tombow Unions
NPB statistics
Win–loss record 303-176
ERA 2.09
Strikeouts 1960
Teams
Career highlights and awards
Member of the Japanese
Baseball Hall of Fame
Inducted 1960

Victor Starffin (Russian: Виктор Константинович Старухин, tr. Viktor Konstantinovich Starukhin,[1] May 1, 1916 – January 12, 1957), nicknamed "the blue-eyed Japanese" (青い目の日本人 aoi-me no Nihonjin), was an ethnic Russian baseball player in Japan and the first professional pitcher in Japan to win three hundred games.[2][3] With 83 career shutouts, he ranks number one all-time in Japanese professional baseball.[4]

Biography

Early years

Victor (or Viktor) Starffin was born in 1916 in Nizhny Tagil, in the Urals region of what was then the Russian Empire, but after the Russian Revolution he moved with his family to northern Hokkaidō, where he attended Asahikawa Higashi High School.[5]

Starffin wanted to get into Waseda University, but he was scouted by Matsutaro Shoriki in the autumn of 1934 as a member of the national baseball team for an exhibition game against the United States. At that time, the Ministry of Education had a regulation stating that high school baseball players who played professionally forfeited their eligibility to enter higher education, so Starffin was reluctant to turn pro. However, he and his family had entered Japan on transit visas, and his father, Konstantin Starffin, was in jail awaiting trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter, both of which put the family at risk of deportation. Shoriki effectively blackmailed Starffin, stating that if Starffin refused to play professionally, Shoriki would use his connections with the Yomiuri Shimbun to publicise the details of Konstantin Starffin's case.[3]

Tōkyō Kyojingun/Yomiuri Giants

Starffin was signed by the Tōkyō Kyojingun (now the Yomiuri Giants), outside the draft, in 1936, and played for them until 1944. He was one of the premier pitchers in the Japanese baseball "dead-ball era" (pre-1945), when many of Japan's best players were serving in the Imperial Japanese Army.[3] He won two MVP awards and a Best Nine award, and won at least 26 games in six different years, winning a league record 42 games in 1939. He followed his record-setting 1939 performance with another 38 wins in 1940.

World War II

In 1940, as xenophobia increased in Japan, Starffin was forced to change his name to Suda Hiroshi. Later, during World War II, wartime paranoia resulted in Starffin being placed in a detention camp at Karuizawa with diplomats and other foreign residents.

Post-war career

After a brief period working as an interpreter for the U.S. Occupation authorities (SCAP), Starffin returned to professional baseball in 1946, but chose not to return to the Giants, instead signing a contract with a new team, the Pacific, an offshoot of the team now known as the Yokohama BayStars. The Pacific's contracts with several famous players, including Starffin, led to a serious conflict, and Pacific was forced to forfeit four games. However, this decision ultimately resulted in the Giants losing the first Japanese championship after World War II, as one of Pacific's forfeited games had been a loss to Great Ring (now the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks): the change from a loss to a win gave Great Ring the title over the Giants.

Victor Starffin: first pitcher to win 300 games in Japanese baseball

Starffin also played for the Shochiku Robins (now the Yokohama BayStars) in 1947, and the Kinsei/Daiei Stars (now the Chiba Lotte Marines) after 1948. He finally signed with the Takahashi/Tombow Unions (a forerunner of the Chiba Lotte Marines) in 1954-55. In 1955, his last season, he became the first career 300-game winner in Japanese professional baseball. He retired in 1955 with a career record of 303 wins and 176 losses.[3]

Retirement

After retirement, he became an actor and presenter of radio programs.

Death

In 1957, Starffin was killed in a traffic accident when the car he was driving was struck by a tram on the Tōkyū Tamagawa Line (now the Tōkyū Den-en-toshi Line) in Setagaya, Tokyo. The exact circumstances of the incident are debated to this day, with speculation ranging from a simple accident to suicide or drunk driving.

Starffin is buried in Tama Cemetery in Tokyo.[6]

Tributes

In 1960, he became the first foreigner elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

Asahikawa City has nicknamed its municipal baseball stadium, as Asahikawa Starffin Stadium, since 1984.[3]

Natasha Starffin

Starffin's oldest daughter, Natasha, worked for Japan Airlines as a flight attendant, opened the first tanning bed salon in Japan, and attended the renaming ceremony for the stadium named for her father, as a pitcher with the uniform number 17, which had been her father's number. She is now a dietician.

Professional Statistics

Year Team G W L IP K BB HR ERA
1936 Summer Kyojin 1 0 0 3.0 4 1 0 0.00
1936 Autumn Kyojin 3 1 2 21.0 19 7 0 3.00
1937 Summer Kyojin 25 13 4 147.1 92 58 1 1.53
1937 Autumn Kyojin 26 15 7 164.2 95 51 0 1.86
1938 Summer Kyojin 24 14 3 158.2 76 57 5 2.04
1938 Autumn Kyojin 24 19 2 197.2 146 59 0 1.05
1939 Kyojin 68 42 15 458.1 282 156 4 1.73
1940 Kyojin 55 38 12 436.0 245 145 3 0.97
1941 Kyojin 20 15 3 150.0 58 45 3 1.20
1942 Kyojin 40 26 8 306.1 110 119 3 1.12
1943 Kyojin 18 10 5 136.0 71 57 2 1.19
1944 Kyojin 7 6 0 66.0 27 23 0 0.68
1946 Pacific 5 1 1 31.2 11 16 1 1.99
1947 Taiyo 20 8 10 162.1 77 48 3 2.05
1948 Kinsei 37 17 13 298.1 138 80 6 2.17
1949 Daiei 52 27 17 376.0 163 69 24 2.61
1950 Daiei 35 11 15 234.1 86 48 21 3.96
1951 Daiei 14 6 6 100.2 47 22 5 2.68
1952 Daiei 24 8 10 150.1 44 43 9 3.05
1953 Daiei 26 11 9 201.2 61 42 11 2.68
1954 Takahashi 29 8 13 178.1 52 45 12 3.73
1955 Tombow 33 7 21 196.2 56 30 9 3.89
Total ― 586 303 176 4175.1 1960 1221 122 2.09

*Bold = lead league

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/insignificance/204537.html (Russian)
  2. ↑ "Victor Starffin". Japan Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Retrieved 2007-05-25.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Reaves, Joseph A. (2002). Taking in a Game: A History of Baseball in Asia. University of Nebraska Press. pp. 70–71. ISBN 0-8032-3943-2.
  4. ↑ Wilbert, Warren N. The Shutout in Major League Baseball: A History (McFarland, 2013), p. 108.
  5. ↑ http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sb20080720wg.html
  6. ↑ http://www6.plala.or.jp/guti/cemetery/AREA/list_00.html (Japanese)

Further reading

Awards
Preceded by
Haruyasu Nakajima		 Japanese Baseball League MVP
1939–1940 		Succeeded by
Tetsuharu Kawakami
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