I want you to picture something for me for a
second. Imagine you're playing a video game.
Let's say it's a baseball management sim or maybe
just franchise mode in the show. Okay. And you
decide to just mess with the settings. You turn
stamina all the way up. You turn fatigue completely
off. And then you simulate an entire season with
just one starting pitcher. I know exactly where
you're going with this. You get numbers that
just look like a glitch in the code. Exactly.
It looks like the game broke. You see a stat
line that says, Game is played. 100. Games started
by this one guy. 60. Complete games. 36. It sounds
like a typo. Or like you're reading stats from
the 1880s when guys were throwing underhand from
45 feet away. Right. But it's not a typo. It's
not a glitch. And it's definitely not from the
19th century. This actually happened in 1983.
And that's what this deep dig is all about today.
We are unpacking the career of a man who makes
modern pitching workloads look like a light warm
-up. It's a genuinely... fascinating story. We're
looking at a player who lived his career under
three different names across two different countries
and managed to set records that are quite literally
unbreakable. And I don't use that word lately.
We're talking about the man born as Akio Matsubara,
who became the champion Hiroki Fukushi and finally
became the legendary and honestly tragic Jang
Myung -bu. And the mission here is really to
explore the cost of that greatness. Yeah. You
have this pitcher who goes from being a journeyman
in Japan to an absolute mythical figure in the
early days of the Korean baseball organization,
the KBO. And he holds the record for the most
wins in a season. And paradoxically, the most
losses. Which just feels like a perfect metaphor
for his entire career. The highest highs, the
lowest lows. It really is. It's a story about
endurance, about the physical limits of the human
body, and about a very specific era of sports
where pitch count wasn't even in the vocabulary.
So let's rewind. Before he was the Ironman of
the KBO, he started out in Japan. And his background
is a bit complex right from the get -go, isn't
it? He was born December 1950 in the Tottori
Prefecture. Right. And he started his career...
using the Japanese name Akio Matsubara. He was
signed young, just 19 years old, by the Yomiuri
Giants in 1970. Now, for those of us who might
not follow Japanese baseball history that closely,
how big a deal are the Yomiuri Giants? Oh, they're
the pinnacle. Imagine the New York Yankees combined
with the Dallas Cowboys, but in Tokyo. They are
the institution of Japanese baseball. Wow. So
getting signed by them is a massive honor, but
it's also incredibly difficult to actually break
into the lineup because they always have the
best talent money can buy. So he's a teenager,
signs with the biggest team in the country. Did
he even play? Barely. For three seasons, he was
essentially a ghost. He was buried on the bench,
pitching in practice, maybe getting some mop
-up duty here and there. If story ended there,
he'd have just been a footnote. A guy who had
a cup of coffee with the Giants and then was
gone. Exactly. But he didn't disappear. He gets
traded to the Nankai Hawks in 1973. And this
is the turning point. This is where we start
to see flashes of what he could actually do when
someone finally gave him the ball. So it goes
from the bench to the mound. How did he do? He
finds his footing almost immediately. In his
first year, 1973, he posts a 2 .87 ERA. Okay,
let's unpack that for the non -baseball mad people.
ERA is earned run average. What does a 2 .87
tell us? It means for every nine innings he pitched,
he gave up less than three runs. And pro baseball,
anything under 3 .00 is excellent. It's elite.
So you're shutting down the other team. You are.
Yeah. And that was the eighth best mark in the
whole Pacific League that year. So he proves
he belongs. Right. And he even pitched in the
Japan series that year. He actually took a loss
in a game against his old team, the Giants, which
must have stung a bit. Oh, I bet. But the trajectory
was clear. By 1975, he's tying for the league
lead with four shutouts. A shutout is when you
pitch the entire game and the other team doesn't
score a single run, correct? Not a single run.
And doing that four times shows a level of dominance
and stamina. But the real shift, the evolution
into this workhorse identity, that happens when
he moves to the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in 1977.
The Carp. This is where the legend really starts
to build. It is. In 1978, still playing as Matsubara,
he makes his first All -Star game. And he led
the Central League with 12 complete games. 12
complete games. I want to pause on that because
the context has just changed so much. In modern
MLB, if a pitcher throws two or three complete
games in a season. Everyone goes crazy. It's
virtually unheard of now. Managers protect their
assets. You go six innings, maybe seven. And
you're out. And you hand it to the bullpen. Maktoubira
was finishing what he started 12 times. But,
and here is a really crucial detail from the
source, there was a warning sign. A warning sign.
Yeah. While he had a solid ERA of 3 .60, he also
allowed 236 hits. Which was the most in the league.
The most. So what does that tell you? It tells
me he's getting hit. A lot. Exactly. It tells
you he pitches to contact. He isn't blowing everyone
away with, you know, 100 mile per hour fast goals.
He's staying in the game. He's absorbing hits.
He's letting the defense work. And he's just,
he's just keeping on pitching. He's bending,
but not breaking. A durable style, but it must
put a lot of mileage on the arm. A ton. Okay,
so that's 1978. Then 1979 comes around and suddenly
Akio Matsubara is gone. And Hiroaki Fukushi arrives.
He changes his registered name. Now, looking
ahead to the Korean part of his career, is it
safe to assume this was related to his heritage?
It's highly likely. He was what was known as
a Zenichi Korean, an ethnic Korean living in
Japan. And at that time, it was very common for
players of Korean descent to use Japanese names
to avoid discrimination or just to fit in. The
source material just notes the change happened
in 79. And under this new name, Fukushi, he enters
what you could call his champion era. The Hiroshima
Toyo Carp had a massive year in 79. Huge. They
won their first title in the team's 30 -year
history. And Fukushi wasn't just along for the
ride. No, not at all. He was a hero. He pitched
in Game 4 of the Japan Series, went 1 -0 with
a 2 .19 ERA. He was clutch. And he kept it up.
1980 seems like another huge year. It was. He
wins 15 games, makes his second All -Star appearance,
and... Get this, he's the winning pitcher in
Game 6 of the Japan Series to help the carp repeat
as champions. So at this point, 1980, he is on
top of the baseball world. Two -time champion,
an all -star, a proven winner. He is. He's reached
the summit. But in sports, especially for pitchers
who rely on volume and durability, the cliff
can come. Very, very suddenly. The cracks start
showing in 1981. They do. He makes the all -star
team again, which is a bit misleading because
if you look at the underlying numbers, he led
the Central League in walks, runs allowed, and
earned runs allowed. Ouch. So he's putting guys
on base and they're scoring. Yeah. The durability
is becoming a liability. He's eating innings,
but they're bad innings. And then comes the crash.
1982. The disaster season. A 313 record. Just
a complete collapse. And just like that. The
Hiroshima Toyo Carp, the team he helped win back
-to -back titles, they release him. It's brutal
how fast that happens. One minute you're winning
Game 6 and two years later you're out of a job.
Well, out of a job in Japan. Yeah. But this is
where the story takes its most fascinating turn.
He doesn't retire. He moves to a new frontier.
The KBO. The South Korean League. Which was in
its infancy then. It had just started in 1982.
So this was 1983. It was a brand new league.
And they were desperate for talent. Yeah. They
were specifically looking for ethnic Koreans
playing in Japan to come over and raise the standard
of play. So Fukushi moves over to play for a
team with, I have to say, one of the greatest
names in sports history. The Sammy Superstars.
I love that name. Sammy Superstars. It sounds
like a cartoon team. It really does. And he changes
his name again. He adopts the name Yang Myung
-bu, which is a transliteration. He's embracing
his identity. Okay, so now we have Jang Myung
-bu. It's 1983. He's on the Sammy Superstars.
And this, this is the season we need to really
settle in on. Because looking at these numbers,
I genuinely don't understand how his arm didn't
just fall off by July. This is the centerpiece
of the legend. This is the glitch you mentioned
at the start. So the Sammy Superstars played
a 100 -game season that year. Okay, 100 games.
Shorter than MLB, but still a full season. Cenk
pitched in 60 of them. 60 % of the games. He
was on the mound more often than he wasn't. He
gets crazier. He didn't just pop in for an inning
here and there. He threw 427 and one -third innings.
400. Wait, let's put that in perspective. What
does a workhorse pitcher throw today? Today.
If a pitcher throws 200 innings, they are considered
an absolute beast, a cyborg. The Cy Young winners
are usually around 180 to 200. So in 1983, Jang
threw basically double what a modern ace throws.
Pretty much, yeah. He threw two full modern seasons
in one summer. In fact, the pitcher who came
in second place in the KBO that year, he was
192 innings behind Jang. He threw almost 200
more innings than the next closest guy. That's
just mind -boggling. It is. He faced 1 ,712 batters
in one season. Just imagine the mental focus
for that. And here's the thing. He wasn't just
eating innings for a bad team, right? He was
actually dominating. The results were historic.
He won 30 games. 30 wins in a 100 -game season.
That is a league record that still stands. And
honestly, unless they change the rules of baseball,
nobody is ever breaking that. But here is the
stat that just blows my mind. He completed 36
games. 36 complete games. So 36 times he has
started a game and was still on the mound for
the final out. Correct. He also had five shutouts,
struck out 220 batters, which was a record at
the time. His ERA was 2 .34. He was a machine.
He was the entire team. And this is the part
that really drives it home. The Sammy superstars,
they were not a great team. They won 52 games
total that year. 52 wins. Total. Jang had 30
wins and 6 saves. Let me do the quick math. 30
plus 6. So he was directly involved in 36 of
their 52 wins. He accounted for more than 69
% of the team's entire win total. I've heard
of putting the team on your back, but this is
ridiculous. He was the team. He won the Golden
Glove Award that year, and rightfully so. But
when you look at those numbers, 427 innings,
60 appearances, you have to ask. What is the
cost? Yeah, that level of exertion. The human
body just isn't designed for that. The ligaments,
the tendons, the shoulder, it has a limit. Exactly.
And this brings us to the decline because you
can't borrow that much against your future without
paying the debt. The bill comes due. It does.
The burnout was immediate and severe. The very
next year, 1984, he still managed 13 victories,
which, you know, in a vacuum is a decent season.
But the magic was gone. It was. He suffered 20
losses. So he went from winning 30 to losing
20. The dominance is fading. He's getting hit
hard. And then comes 1985. The pendulum swings
all the way to the other side. He sets another
league record. Let me guess. Most losses. Most
losses in a season. 25 losses. He won 11 games
but lost 25. So just to get this straight, he
holds the KBO single season records for most
wins and most losses. That's right. Most wins
with 30. Most losses with 25. It's a poetic,
almost tragic. Kind of symmetry. He gave everything
he had in 1983, and he spent the next two years
paying for it. And it ends pretty quietly after
that, doesn't it? It does. He moved to an expansion
team, the Bingray Eagles, in 1986. How'd that
go? Not well. He went 1 -18. One win and 18 losses.
With an ERA close to five. It was the end of
the line. It's such a steep drop -off. From the
highest peak to the lowest valley in just three
years. It really highlights the volatile nature
of his career. I mean, look at the summary. He's
a five -time Japan Series champion from his time
with the Giants and the Carp, a hero in Japan.
Then he goes to Korea, becomes this mythical
figure who did the impossible but destroyed himself
doing it. And he passed away relatively young,
didn't he? Yeah, he passed away on April 13,
2005. He was only 54 years old. That is young.
It really makes you think about the legacy he
left behind. It does. Because when we look back
at sports history, we focus so much on efficiency
now, on longevity, protecting the asset, pitch
counts, innings limits. We treat players like
investments. Right. No one would ever let a player
throw 400 innings today. The manager would be
fired by June for negligence. Exactly. And they
should be. It destroys the arm. But Jang Myung
-bu's 1983 season stands as this monument to
a completely different philosophy. It was the
era of burn bright, regardless of the burnout
that follows. He literally gave his arm for one
season. It's interesting you say that. It feels
like we look at old stats and just see numbers,
but there's a human story of pure exhaustion
behind that 31 record. There is. And think about
the mental side, too. Playing 60 games, the mental
fortitude to go out there day after day knowing
your arm is heavy, knowing you're tired, knowing
you're going to throw 120 pitches again, it's
something we just don't see anymore. It's true.
We marvel at the physical scats, but the mental
grind of facing 1 ,712 batters, it's intense.
And he wasn't just collecting stats. He dragged
that team to relevance. Without him, the Sammy
superstars would have been a complete laughingstock.
So as we wrap this up, what does this all mean
for us today? Why does this story from the 80s
matter? I think it matters because it defines
the boundary of what is humanly possible. We
often think records are made to be broken. You
know, home runs, scoring titles. We assume someone
someday will pass them because athletes get bigger,
faster, stronger. But not this one. I don't think
so. I think Jang Myung -bu is the eternal guardian
of the unbreakable season. Unless the fundamental
rules of baseball change, no one is ever getting
30 wins again. No one is throwing 36 complete
games. It's a record sealed in amber. Precisely.
It's a testament to a specific moment in time,
a specific baseball culture, and a specific man
who was willing to throw until he just couldn't
lift his arm anymore. It's a fascinating legacy
for a man with three names, Akio Matsubara, the
young prospect, Hiroaki Fukushi, the champion,
and Zhang Mianbu, the legend who broke the records
and broke himself in the process. A complex career
for a complex figure, and a reminder that sports
history is filled with these incredible anomalies.
And a reminder that sometimes the most unbelievable
stats, the ones that look like glitches, are
the ones that really happen. So I want to leave
you with this thought. In a world where we optimize
everything for long -term performance, have we
lost something by not seeing athletes push themselves
to the absolute breaking point like Jang did?
Or are we just better off never seeing a 427
-inning season ever again? That is the question.
The spectacle of the moment versus the longevity
of a career. Thanks for diving in with us. We'll
catch you on the next one. Goodbye, everyone.