More Memories Of Uniforms - Giants Edition

The oldest continuous professional baseball team in Japan started life in late 1934 as the Dai Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Kurabu or "Great Japan Tokyo Baseball Club".  The team was made up primarily of the All Nippon team that had just played against an MLB All Star team that included Babe Ruth (as described in Rob Fitts' book "Banzai Babe Ruth").  The team barnstormed in the Western US in 1935 and returned again in 1936 under the name Tokyo Giants.  At some point (and I'm not entirely sure when) the team's official name became the Yomiuri Giants.

I'm using the same sources for this post as all the other ones - The History Of Uniform, Professional Baseball Uniforms Encyclopedia 1936-2013 and the uniform posts from Yakyu Baka and Yakyu DB.

NOTE - I list all the uniforms I've identified, even ones that I don't have cards for, so there may be spots where there's a uniform listed but no picture.

1935

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #067

1936

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #001

1936-37

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #004

1936-40

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #003

1940-44 (2 different)

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #361

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #002

1945-47 (2 different)

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #074

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #365

1947-50 (2 different)

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #007

1950 (2 different)

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #081

1950 JBR 86A

1951 (3 different)

1951-52 Home

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #005

1951-52 Away

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #290

1953 Home

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #050

1953 Away

2014 BBM Giants 80th Anniversary #17

1953

1953-60 Home

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #213

1953-60 Away

2002 BBM All Time Heroes #005

1959

1960 Home

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #002

1960 Away

1961-74 Home

1973/74 Calbee #10

1961-74 Away

1973 Calbee #37

1975 Home

1974/75 Calbee #862

1975 Away

1974/75 Calbee #764

1976-80 Home

2007 BBM HR Chronicle #01

1976-80 Away

1975/76 Calbee #1252

1981-85 Home

1981 Calbee #425

1981-85 Away

1981 Calbee #346

1986-92 Home

1990 Lotte #74

1986-92 Away

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #004

1993-05 Home

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #005

1993-05 Away

2000 BBM #175

2002-04 Home Practice?

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #006

2002-04 Away Practice?

2003 BBM 1st Version #26

2002-05 Away Alternate

2004 BBM 1st Version #258

2005 Away Alternate

2005 BBM 2nd Version #736

2006-13 Home

2006 BBM 1st Version #387

2006-07 Away

2007 BBM 2nd Version #726

2006-07 Home Alternate

2006 BBM 2nd Version #681

2007 Great Central Home

2007 BBM 2nd Version #640

2007 Great Central Away

2007 BBM 2nd Version #644

2008-13 Away

2009 BBM 2nd Version #656

2009 Great Central

2010 Great Central

2010 "Fan's Choice"?

2010 BBM 20th Anniversary #109

2012 Great Central

2012 SCM #202

2012 Tokon

2012 Calbee #195

2013 Tokon

2014 Home

2014 BBM Giants #G061

2014 Away

2014 BBM Giants #G020

2014 Tokon

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #008

2015-16 Home

2015 BBM 1st Version #183

2015-16 Away

2016 BBM Fusion #018

2015 Tokyo Series

2015 Tokon

2015 Calbee #ES-19

2016 Tokon

2016 BBM 2nd Version #503

2017- Home

2017- Away

Notes:

There's a lot of subtle distinctions that HOU grouped together as one uniform and PBUE had as separate uniforms.  For the most part I went with HOU's groups.  The 1953-60 uniforms actually had about four different versions of the hat starting with the "T/G" hat used on the Chiba and Fujimoto cards showing the 1953 uniforms and ending with the traditional "Y/G" logo that's been used ever since.  There's a slight change in the home uniform that was made in 1990 - the color got a little whiter from a more yellow-ish tone.

The big difference between the 1975 uniforms and the 1976-80 uniforms is that the player names went on the back of the jerseys in 1976.

PBUE lists the Away uniforms for 2008, 2010 and 2011 separately and correspondingly does not list any Away uniforms for 2009, 2012 and 2013.  I'm pretty sure that these are all the same design.  It's almost identical to the Home uniform except that it's grey instead of white.

PBUE only has the Away version of the 2007 "Great Central" uniform.

I know it's a new uniform but I can't tell what changed with the 2014 home uniform.

The colors aren't quite right on the 1950 bromide (JBR 89a) of Noburo Aota and Shigeru Chiba.  The logo on the hat and the "GIANTS" on the uniform front should be navy like the piping of the "yoke" of the jersey.

One oddity that I came across while researching this was a card showing Sadaharu Oh wearing a "pillbox" style Giants hats.  It's not mentioned in HOU at all but there's a blurb in PBUE that shows that these hats were used at at least one of the All Star games in 1979 (and one of the Calbee albums from 1979 shows Shigeru Kobayashi of the Tigers wearing one of these hats on the inside cover).  Since Kobayashi is wearing a home uniform on the Calbee album and Oh is wearing an away uniform on his card, I'm going to assume that they used the hats for all the All Star games that year.

2009 BBM Sadaharu Oh Memorial #50