1921 (Taisho 10) Saturday, May 7 Tokuji Kawasaki, a professional baseball player and manager, is born in Tosu, Saga Prefecture. He entered Ryukoku Junior High School, but failed the entrance examination for Army Cadet School and went on to Kurume Commercial School. He became the best 8 player as the ace player of Kurume Commerce in the Fukuoka tournament at Koshien in summer. After graduating, he went to Manchuria and joined Fushun Coal Mine. In 1940, he participated in the Inter-City Baseball Tournament held by the Mantetsu Club and drew attention by defeating in his first match the championship candidate “Fujikura Electric Wire”, who had won 2 consecutive championships. (Showa 15). In November of the same year, he joined the professional baseball team Nankai Army, which was in the middle of the season, with exceptional conditions of a contract fee of 2000 yen and a monthly salary of 150 yen. In 1942, he was drafted to serve as an internment camp in Mandalay, Burma, where the war ended.
After being demobilized, he joined the Yomiuri Giants. In the season of 1947 (Showa 22), he won 24 games as a team leader, and in the following year, he won 27 games. In 1949 (Showa 24), he also won 19 games, contributing to the Giants’ first post-war victory. In 1950 (Showa 25), he was divided into 2 leagues and transferred to Nishitetsu Lions near his hometown. 1955 (Showa 30) also recorded 17 wins and continued to win in two digits. He retired in 1957 (Showa 32). He supported Mihara Osamu’s golden age as a coach and took over from Mihara in 1960 (Showa 35). Later, in 1967, he served as a single-team pitching coach for the Hanshin Tigers (Showa 42) and is said to have created the prototype of the pitching style of Enatsu Yutaka who was a rookie pitcher at that time. He died in 2006 at the age of 84.
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