Victor Starffin (, 1 May 1916 – 12 January 1957), nicknamed , was a Japanese baseball player. While playing in Japan, he became the first professional pitcher in Japan to win 300 games. With 83 career shutouts, he ranks number one all-time in Japanese professional baseball. Biography Early years Victor (or Viktor) Starffin (Starukhin) 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. 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. 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. 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,