Card Of The Week September 27
Last Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Queens defeated the San Francisco Firebells to wrap up the inaugural championship of the Women's Pro Baseball League (WPBL). The two teams had split the first four...
View ArticleAutumn Offerings
I've been needing to write a round up of recently announce sets for a few weeks now but I kept either being to busy to write it or wanted to write something else first. I was thinking that it was fine...
View ArticleMore Cards From Kenny
Earlier this week, I received the latest envelope full of baseball cards sent from Kenny (aka Zippy Zappy) in Japan. Most of the cards in the envelope were another batch from this year's Topps Stadium...
View ArticleRIP Brian Wolfe
Retired pitcher Brian Wolfe tragically passed away last week at age 45 after fighting leukemia. Wolfe spent parts of nine seasons in NPB with three different teams.He was originally drafted by the...
View ArticleCard Of The Week September 20
I had always been under the impression that the late Isao Harimoto was the only survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing that ever played professional baseball. I discovered, however, while...
View ArticleRIP Isao Harimoto
Another Japanese baseball legend has died. Isao Harimoto, NPB's career hits leader with 3085, passed away on the Wednesday of last week at age 86.  Harimoto was born in Hiroshima to Korean parents who...
View ArticleMail Days
I am blessed to have some generous friends who occasionally send me baseball cards out of the blue. I received a couple deliveries in the past week and thought I'd do a quick post to share what I got...
View ArticleCard Of The Week September 13
The Hawks were leading Nippon-Ham 4-1 going into the bottom of the eighth inning last Tuesday night in Fukuoka when the wheels fell off for the Fighters. SoftBank battered reliever Shoma Kanemura for...
View ArticleRaidel Martinez
On Thursday of this week, Raidel Martinez of the Yomiuri Giants became the second pitcher this season to reach the 250 career saves mark. Martinez did it in 411 career games, the fastest in NPB...
View ArticleSamurai Japan WBC Team Members Who Have Played In MLB
I mentioned in my post the other day about the new Topps Chrome Samurai Japan set that I had researched how many players on Japan's six WBC team rosters have played in MLB. There are 37 so far (with...
View ArticleCard Of The Week September 6
On Friday night at Jingu Stadium, Hiroki Fukunaga of the Chunichi Dragons led off the game against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows with a home run, his seventh of the season (and third lead off one). Last...
View Article2026 Topps Chrome Samurai Japan set
I feel like there's been a dearth of World Baseball Classic cards from Topps this year so I was intrigued when I heard that Topps was going to release a Samurai Japan set. The initial promo...
View ArticleCard Of The Week August 30
Last Thursday saw the 2026 debut of another one of my favorite players, 46 year old Swallows pitcher Masanori Ishikawa. To say it didn't go well would be an understatement - he started against the...
View ArticleJMC 2003
Last week when I did my memorial post for Toshio Kanbe, I included a card that I thought was probably Kanbe from what I described as a set "of uncataloged, blank backed cards from around 1975". I got...
View ArticleCard Of The Week August 23
My favorite NPB player is slugger Takeya Nakamura of the Saitama Seibu Lions. I had been tracking him as the NPB player most likely to reach 500 home runs for some time, although unfortunately it's...
View ArticleRIP Toshio Kanbe
Former Kintetsu Buffaloes and Yakult Swallows pitcher Toshio Kanbe passed away at age 83 about a week ago. Kanbe's path to professional baseball was kind of circuitous as he signed on with the...
View ArticleRIP Baek In-chun
Former baseball player Baek In-chun passed away late last week at the age of 82 in Cheonan, South Korea. Baek had a 20 year career in NPB under the name "Jinten Haku" and then played in the KBO's...
View ArticleNaoya Masuda
I'm a little late getting to this since I was out of town for a bit but on August 4th, Naoya Masuda of the Chiba Lotte Marines became the latest member of the Meikyukai or "Golden Players Club" when he...
View ArticleCard Of The Week August 16
Livan Moinelo of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks made his first start of the 2026 season last Tuesday. The reigning 2025 Pacific League MVP had a late arrival to Japan in the spring due to the World...
View ArticleThree Envelopes From Kenny
I got an email a few weeks back from Kenny (aka Zippy Zappy) informing me that there were three(!) envelopes containing cards that were working their way across the Pacific to me from Japan. Two of...
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