Sports Card Magazine #116

March 29, 2016, 7:25 pm

≫ Next: 2016 Calbee Series One

Instead of writing the paragraphs I used to write on these, I'm going to try a bullet point outline.

Color Section:
- Summary of Yoshinobu Takahashi's BBM baseball cards (3 pages0
- Contest(?) (2 pages)
- Ads for 1st Version (2 pages), Eagles, Giants, Marines, Tigers, Icons - Speed (1 page each), Dragons Dash, Fighters 2016 Opening, Dragons Gate (Pro Wrestling) and Japan Way (Japan National Rugby Team set) (1/2 page each)

Monthly "Bests":
Best Card Of This Month: 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Louis Okoye red parallel facsimile autograph card
Best Item Of This Month: 2016 BBM Rookie Edition box

Hot Card Lists
Rookies:
1. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Louis Okoye (#051)
2. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Shinnosuke Ogasawara (#094)
3. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Taiga Hirosawa (#020)
4. 2013 BBM 1st Version Shohei Ohtani (#183)
5. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Shun Takayama (#081)
6. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Junpei Takahashi (#001)
7. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Kenta Uehara (#012)
8. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Toshiki Sakurai (#066)
9. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Juri Hara (#060)
10. 2011 BBM 1st Version Tetsuya Yamada (#265)

Autograph & Memorabilia:
1. 2016 BBM 24karat Yoshinobu Takahashi Patch card
2. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Louis Okoye red parallel facsimile autograph card
3. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Louis Okoye Exchange card (I think these are sent in for an autographed card)
4. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Shinnosuke Ogasawara red parallel facsimile autograph card
5. 2016 BBM Rookie Edition Shinnosuke Ogasawara Exchange card
6. 2016 BBM Retirement Set Masahiro Yamamoto Autograph card
7. 2016 Sumo set Chiyonofuji Mitsugu Autograph card
8. 2016 BBM Fighting Spirit 3 Joichiro Tatsuyoshi Autograph card
9. 2016 BBM Chess On Ice Ayumi Ogasawara Autograph card
10. 2015-16 Japan National Football Team Keisuke Honda "Big Patch Jersey" card

"Newsprint" Section:
- New foreign players (2 pages)
- New Release info contains checklist for Calbee Series One along with some info on some MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL issues (all US releases)
- New Card List contains checklists for 1st Version, Eagles, Giants, Marines, Tigers, Icons - Speed, Dragons Dash, Fighters 2016 Opening, Dragons Gate and Japan Way sets (all the sets that had the full color ads listed earlier)
- "Vintage" Checklist and Price Guide is for BBM baseball issues (as well as recent sets for all sports)

SCM Original Cards:
Tetsuto Yamada 1st Version promo card
Louis Okoye Eagles promo card
Yoshinobu Takahashi Giants promo card
Shohei Ohtani Icons - Speed promo card
Kazuhiro Kotoshigiku Sumo bonus/variant card
Ayumu Goromaru Japan Way promo card

SCM #362

SCM #366

SCM #367

Notes:

- The Kotoshigiku sumo card is kind of an oddball. He was originally card #06 in the sumo set which I think is numbered according to the rankings of the wrestlers. From his wikipedia page, it looks he moved up in the rankings in January so the SCM card is #03 in the sumo set. Does that make sense?

- I got a purple facsimile autograph parallel of the Goromaru card

- Most of the items in the "newsprint" section are difficult for the non-Japanese reader like myself to figure out but one item did stand out - BBM and Nippon Ham are teaming up to produce a set of cards for the Fighters that will be distributed with Nippon Ham's "Home Run Sausage" products starting April 20th. I think there are 68 possible cards in the set. Details are here.

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2016 Calbee Series One

April 2, 2016, 6:59 pm

≫ Next: Card Of The Week April 3

≪ Previous: Sports Card Magazine #116

The first "flagship" set of the year was released by Calbee a few weeks back and my copy of the set arrived today in the mail courtesy of Yahoo! Japan Auctions by way of JAUCE. At 94 cards in the base set, this year's Series One is the smallest Calbee Series in recent memory.

Calbee's "regular" card design has stayed fairly constant over the years so just like it was a big deal last year that the names were written in black text instead of white, it's a big deal that this year the cards have the player's names in Japanese, not English. I think this is the first time that the cards haven't had the names in English on either the front or the back since 1989 (at least for the standard sets - off hand I know that the 1994 Calbee Hokkaido set had only Japanese as well).

There are 72 "regular" player cards in the set - 6 per team. Since this is only a third of what the Calbee set will eventually have in it, it's kind of silly to nit-pick it but it seems that almost none of the biggest NPB stars appear in the "regular" player cards - no Shohei Ohtani, no Tetsuto Yamada, no Yuki Yanagita, no Shogo Akiyama, etc. The biggest names are probably Seiichi Uchikawa, Shinnosuke Abe, Kazuo Matsui and Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh. The set does include a couple guys who changed teams over the winter (Toshiaki Imae and Tomotaka Sakaguchi) and two players returning to NPB from overseas (Kyuji Fujikawa and Tsuyoshi Wada). Louis Okoye of the Eagles is the sole rookie included.

As usual, the photography is outstanding and the cards are beautiful:

#002 Kenta Imamiya

#011 Daiki Asama

#014 Kazuya Fukuura

#024 Kazuhisa Makita

#034 Louis Okoye

#040 Yuhei Takai

#053 Kyuji Fujikawa

The set includes two subsets (or non-premium insert sets). The first is the 18 card "Title Holder" subset. This is a subset that Calbee does somehow each year - lately it's been as a box set only available as some sort of mail-in premium but as recently as 2013 it was included as part of the base set for Series One. Each player in the subset either won a major award or lead the league in a major category (or both in a number of cases). This subset is where all the stars I felt were missing from the "regular" cards showed up - Ohtani, Yamada, Yanagita and Akiyama are all included as well as Takeya Nakamura, Shintaro Fujinami, Dennis Sarfate, etc. The only league leaders that are not included are three pitchers who left for the US over the winter - Kenta Maeda (lead the CL in wins), Tony Barnette (tied for the CL lead in saves) and Seung Hwan Oh (tied with Barnette for the CL save title).

#T-12

The other subset is the ubiquitous checklist subset. As usual, there are four checklist cards. Each card features a highlight from late last season - the Hawks winning the Nippon Series, the Swallows clinching the Central League pennant, Shohei Ohtani having a game winning hit last August, and Hayato Sakamoto scoring during Game Three of the First Stage of the Climax Series against the Tigers last fall.

#C-4

Jambalaya has scans of all the cards in the base set as well as a number of the Star and Legend inserts.

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Card Of The Week April 3

April 3, 2016, 6:46 pm

≫ Next: More Memories Of Uniform - Orix Edition

≪ Previous: 2016 Calbee Series One

One of the interesting aspects of Pacific League TV is that they have some coverage of farm team games. While it looks like in the past they've carried Fighters ni-gun games from Kamagaya, all I've seen so far this year had either been Lions games from Seibu #2 Stadium (right next door to Seibu Dome) and Hawks games from their new farm team ballpark in Chikugo. Since most of these games start at 1 PM in Japan which would be midnight here on the East Coast of the US, I'm not watching these games live but I've been trying to at least catch the highlights (which admittedly I'll probably stop once the novelty wears off).

One of the games from last week featured Nao Higashihama on the mound for the Hawks. Higashihama was a first round pick for the Hawks out of Asia University back in the fall of 2012 (he was actually selected by three teams - the Hawks, the Lions and the Baystars but Softbank won his rights in the lottery). This is the same round that Shohei Ohtani, Shintaro Fujitani and Tomoyuki Sugano were taken in. My impression is that Softbank expected great things from Higashihama but it hasn't exactly happened that way. After three seasons, he has a 6-5 record with the ichi-gun Hawks and a career ERA of 3.82. His ERA has actually gone up a run each season - 2.83 in 2013, 3.82 in 2014 and 4.82 last year. His ni-gun ERA's have done the opposite - 3.30 in 2013, 2.11 in 2014 and 2.05 in 2015. So far this year he's 1-0 with an 0.53 ERA in three starts. I'm not sure if he's doing something wrong or if it's just difficult to break into a very deep Hawks rotation.

Here's a card of Higashihama from on of the team issued "Hawks Players Card" sets in 2014:

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More Memories Of Uniform - Orix Edition

April 9, 2016, 7:09 pm

≫ Next: Card Of The Week April 10

≪ Previous: Card Of The Week April 3

I really did plan to get back to doing these posts faster but it's already been two months since the last one...

The team that is now the Orix Buffaloes began life in 1936 as Hankyu and played their home games at Hankyu Nishinomiya Stadium in Nishinomiya, Hyogo - just west of Osaka and just north of Koshien Stadium. The team added "Braves" to their name in 1947. The team was sold to Orix following the 1988 season and renamed the Orix Braves. In 1991, Orix (despite having promised to stay in Nishinomiya) moved the team to Kobe Sports Park Baseball Stadium in Kobe (which has a corporate name now but I see no compelling reason for me to use it) and renamed the team the Orix Blue Wave. Following the 2004 season, the team "merged" with the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes (really they assimilated them into the Orix collective) and the team was renamed the Orix Buffaloes (and moved to Osaka Dome which also has a corporate name that I don't seem any reason to use).

I am not including Kintetsu's uniform history here - I will do that in a separate post.

Once again I am using The History Of Uniform and Professional Baseball Uniforms Encyclopedia 1936-2013 as my primary sources as well as Yakyu Baka's Uniform posts.

1936 Home

1936 Away

1937-40 Home

2012 BBM No-Hitters #10

2012 BBM No-Hitters #04

1937-40 Away

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #061

1940-44 Home

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #004

1940-44 Away

2012 BBM No-Hitters #13

1945-46

2012 BBM No-Hitters #15

1947-49

1947-50 Home

1947-52 Away

1951-54 Home

1951-54 Away

1955-59 Home

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #132

1955-59 Away

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #094

1960-61 Home

1960-61 Away

2009 BBM Hankyu Braves Memorial #37

1962-63 Home

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #250

1962-63 Away

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #104

1963-69 Home

2014 BBM 80th Anniversary Pitchers Edition #24

1963-69 Away

1969-71 Home

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #073

1969-71 Away

2014 BBM 80th Anniversary Batters Edition #32

1972-74 Home

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #074

1972-74 Away

2011 BBM Legend Of The Bs #38

1975-79 Home

2011 BBM Legend Of The Bs #22

1975-79 Away

1978 Yamakatsu JY6

1980-84 Home

1983 Calbee #481

1980-83 Away

1980 Calbee #282

1984 Away

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #075

1984-88 Home

1988 Takara Braves #17

1984-88 Away

2009 BBM Hankyu Braves Memorial #36

1989-90 Home

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #076

1989-90 Away

1990 Lotte #34

1991-2000 Home

1999 BBM #452

1991-2000 Away

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #077

2001-04 Home

2001 Upper Deck #103

2001-04 Away

2002 BBM 1st Version #289

2005 Home

2005 BBM 1st Version #173

2005 Away

2005 BBM 1st Version #177

2005 Home Alternate

2005 BBM 2nd Version #629

2006-08 Home

2006 BBM 1st Version #125

2006-08 Away

2006 BBM 1st Version #116

2006-10 Home Alternate

2007 BBM 2nd Version #575

2009 Away

2009 BBM 2nd Version #583

2010 Away

2011 BBM Hometown Heroes #143

2010 Bs

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #078

2010 Throwback

2011-14 Home

2011 BBM 2nd Version #542

2011-14 Away

2012 BBM 1st Version #097

2011 Hankyu Throwback

2012 BBM Pedigree #16

2011 Kintetsu Throwback

2012 BBM Pedigree #20

2011 Orix Throwback

2011-13 Alternate

2012 Calbee #166

2011 Bs

2012 Hankyu Throwback

2012 Kintetsu Throwback

2012 Red

2013 Bs

2013 Orix Throwback

2013 Front Runner Orix Season Summary #07

2013 Kintetsu Throwback

2013 "Shining Red"

2013 Front Runner Orix Season Summary #19

2014 "Stream Blue"

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #084

2014-15 Alternate Navy

2014 Calbee #202

2015- Home

2015 BBM 1st Version #049

2015 Away

2015 BBM 2nd Version #CP54

2015 Alternate Gold

2015 Calbee #175

2015 "OriHime Day"

2015 Calbee #ES-14

2015 Orix Throwback

2016 BBM The Ballpark Stories #081

2015 Osaka Classic

2015 "Natsu-no Jin"

2016- Away

2016 Alternate Blue

2016 "Orihime"

2016 "Oritachi"

Notes:

This is the only team so far that PBUE designates home and away uniforms for anything earlier than 1952 although HOU does not. I decided to use PBUE's designations.

There are a lot of differences between HOU and PBUE for the uniforms in the late 40's. I tried to make as much sense of it as I could although ultimately it really didn't matter that much as I didn't have any cards for those uniforms.

Orix has had more alternate and throwback uniforms since 2010 or so than Carter has pills (as my father-in-law used to say). I have no idea if I've got them all listed or not.

Some of the differences between uniforms are pretty subtle. The logo on the hat changed between 2005 and 2006 so that's the only real difference in the away and home alternate uniforms. Hankyu added player names to the back of the uniforms after 1974 - that's the only difference in the home uniforms that I can see. The away uniforms changed from grey to blue but that change doesn't always show up clearly in the cards of the era. I also can't tell the difference between the away uniforms used from 1951-54 and 1962-63. I'm pretty sure that every card I have showing this uniform is from the latter period but I could be wrong.

The 1937-40 uniforms had two different caps - since I had cards showing both for the home uniform I used both of them.

↧

Card Of The Week April 10

April 10, 2016, 3:57 pm

≫ Next: Card Of The Week April 17

≪ Previous: More Memories Of Uniform - Orix Edition

In honor of Kenta Maeda homering in his Dodger debut last week, here's a card of Maeda batting with the Carp:

2010 BBM 2nd Version #794

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Card Of The Week April 17

April 17, 2016, 6:41 pm

≫ Next: More Memories Of Uniforms - Lions Edition

≪ Previous: Card Of The Week April 10

It was a rough days for closers today in NPB. Yasuaki Yamasaki of the Baystars gave up three runs in the bottom of the ninth to the Swallows, handing them a 5-4 victory. Over in Nagoya, Koji Fukutani of the Dragons blew a save in the ninth inning against the Tigers, although the Dragons ultimately won the game in the 10th. Up in Sapporo both closers had issues - Lotte's Yuji Nishino blew the save in the bottom of the ninth against the Fighters but ended up the winner when the Marines scored three runs in the top of the 10th against Nippon Ham's closer Hirotoshi Masui.

But the game of the day was in Fukuoka between the Hawks and the Eagles. The Eagles had a 7-3 lead going into the bottom of the ninth with their closer Yuki Matsui on the mound. He had given up a run but had gotten two outs when pinch hitter Yuki Yoshimura came to the plate with two on. With a full count, Yoshimura did this:

He hit a three run home run into the right field terrace seats to tie the game up.

Three innings later, Yoshimura came up again with Nobuhiro Matsuda on first and he struck again:

Two run sayonora home run for a 9-7 Hawks victory.

Yoshimura was originally drafted by the Baystars back in 2002. He was traded to the Hawks in 2012 in the deal that sent Hitoshi Tamura back to Yokohama. Here's Yoshimura's rookie card:

2003 BBM 1st Version #180

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More Memories Of Uniforms - Lions Edition

April 21, 2016, 6:39 pm

≫ Next: Card Of The Week April 24

≪ Previous: Card Of The Week April 17

I thought I'd knock out another one of these while I wait for my 1st Version set to get delivered...

Following the 1949 season, the eight team Japanese Baseball League transformed into Nippon Professional Baseball with 15 teams split between the Central (8 teams) and Pacific (7 teams) Leagues. Two of the new teams would play in Fukuoka - the Nishi Nippon Pirates of the Central League and the Nishitetsu Clippers of the Pacific League. Neither team was particularly successful and after the season the two teams merged to form the Nishitetsu Lions who would replace the Clippers in the Pacific League. (I've been a bit confused on one point with this - it appears to me that Nishi Nippon and Nishitetsu are actually the same company so it would appear that one company had owned two teams in 1950.) Following the 1972 season, Nishitetsu sold the team to the Fukuoka Baseball Company who essentially sold the naming rights for the team to a golf resort so the team became known as the Taiheiyo Club Lions. Before the 1977 season, the naming rights were sold to the lighter manufacturer Crown Gas Lighter and the team became the Crown Lighter Lions. After 1978, however, the Fukuoka Baseball Company sold the team to the Seibu corporation who moved them to a new stadium in Tokorozawa, Saitama and renamed the team the Seibu Lions. In 2008 the team added the prefecture name to the team name and the team became the Saitama Seibu Lions.

I'm going to include the Nishi Nippon Pirates uniforms here since they were only around for one year.

As before I am using The History Of Uniform and Professional Baseball Uniforms Encyclopedia 1936-2013 as my primary sources as well as Yakyu Baka's Uniform posts. (I may not have previously pointed out that HOU was published in 2005 so obviously it is no help for the post-2005 uniforms.)

1950 Nishitetsu Clippers Home

1950 Nishitetsu Clippers Away

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #076

1950 Nishi Nippon Pirates (2 different)

1950 JBR 87A

1950-51 Home

2011 BBM Lions Classic #03

1950 Away

1951-52 Home (2 different)

1951-52 Away (2 different)

1952-54 Home

1952-54 Away

2009 BBM Lions Memorial #10

1954-59 Home

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #027

1954-57 Away

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #032

1958-59 Away

2010 BBM Lions 60th Anniversary #14

1960-61 Home

2009 BBM Lions Memorial #03

1960-61 Away

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #102

1962-65 Home

1964 Morinaga Standup

1962-65 Away

2009 BBM Lions Memorial #06

1966-68 Home

1966-68 Away

~1966 Mel Bailey Postcard

1968-69 Home

1968-69 Away

1970 Home

2011 BBM Hometown Heroes #055

1970 Away

1971-72 Home

2006 BBM Draft Stories #014

1971-72 Away

1973-75 Home

2010 BBM Lions 60th Anniversary #84

1973-75 Away

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #122

1973-74 Home

2010 BBM Lions 60th Anniversary #83

1973-74 Away

1976 Home (2 different)

1975/76 Calbee #703

1976 Away (2 different)

1975/76 Calbee #911

1975/76 Calbee #978

1977-78 Home

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #124

1977-78 Away

1978 Yamakatsu JY6

1979 Home

1979 Calbee "July Best" #11

1979 Away

2010 BBM Lions 60th Anniversary #22

1980-00 Home

1995 BBM #66

1980-95 Away

1991 BBM #219

1996-01 Away

1997 BBM #125

2001-03 Home

2002 BBM 1st Version #261

2002-03 Away

2002-03 "3rd"

2003 BBM 1st Version #BN12

2002-08 Away

2002 BBM 2nd Version #700

2004-08 Home

2005 BBM 1st Version #7

2007 Alternate

2008 BBM 1st Version #484

2007 Lions Classic

2008 Alternate

2008 Lions Classic

2008 BBM Lions Classic #16

2009-14 Home

2010 BBM 1st Version #327

2009-14 Away

2010 BBM 1st Version #562

2009 Training Home

2009 BBM 1st Version #011

2009 Training Away

2009 BBM 1st Version #012

2009 Lions Classic

2009 BBM Lions Classic #17

2010 Lions Classic

2010 BBM Lions 60th Anniversary #86

2011 Lions Classic

2011 BBM Lions Classic #11

2011 Alternate

2012 BBM Lions #L85

2012 Alternate (2 different)

2012 Lions "Victory" #49

2012 Lions Classic

2012 Calbee #158

2013 Lions Classic

2013-14 Saitama

2014 Jungle Taisei

2015 Calbee #ES05

2014 Lions Classic

2014 BBM Impact Of Lions Blue #08

2015- Home

2015 BBM 1st Version #126

2015- Away

2016 BBM The Ballpark Stories #127

2015 Alternate Yellow

Notes:

I'm not sure why there would be uniforms with "Lions" on them dated 1950 when I didn't think the name change came until 1951 but there's obviously something going on that I don't fully understand.

There's a bunch of discrepancies between PBUE and HOU. The biggest one is that PBUE lists two uniforms in the 1951-52 time frame that HOU does not. For the most part I've gone with the PBUE listings.

If I didn't have the card with that 2011 Alternate that Hiroyuki Nakajima's wearing, I wouldn't know it existed - somehow both PBUE and YakyuBaka missed it.

There's a lot of subtle differences between uniforms. The 1979 uniforms appear to only differ from the 1980 ones in that the later ones had belts. And I'm not sure there's a difference between the Saitama alternate jerseys from 2013-14 and the away jerseys worn from 2015 on.

I'm not positive that the two "training" uniforms from 2009 are really uniforms only worn in training camp. But the only cards I've seen that include those uniforms are cards of new Lions players in the 2009 1st Version set - photos that had to have been taken during 2009 spring training.

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Card Of The Week April 24

April 24, 2016, 6:16 am

≫ Next: Lots Of New Stuff

≪ Previous: More Memories Of Uniforms - Lions Edition

One of the regular player cards in the latest Calbee set was of Yomiuri Giants "outfielder" Takahiro Suzuki. I say "outfielder" as he's really pretty much just a pinch runner nowadays. The inclusion of Suzuki in the set is significant as it's his first regular player card in a flagship set from either Calbee or BBM since 2011. But it's probably because, after all, he was an All Star last year :-)

2016 Calbee #044

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Lots Of New Stuff

April 24, 2016, 6:41 pm

≫ Next: RIP Koji Yamamoto

≪ Previous: Card Of The Week April 24

BBM's website is apparently a mess. They had been doing updates of their new set listings about once a month. In March they did their regular update which disappeared a few days later. Now the site is apparently down completely. Since I don't know when it will be back up, I figure it would be best to go ahead with what I know about what's coming up in the next few months:

- BBM will be releasing the next three of their pack-based team sets in mid to late May. The sets for the Baystars, Carp and Lions will contain 81 cards in their base sets (broken into around 70 cards for the manager and players plus several subsets). The Baystars and Lions sets have a couple different insert sets containing 18 additional cards while the Carp set has 36 insert cards spread over five sets. Packs for all three sets have randomly inserted autograph cards while the Carp packs could also have memorabilia cards.

- BBM is releasing a box set for Tatsunori Hara called something like "Wakadaisho Of My Heart" this upcoming week. This will be a 36 card box set celebrating the career of the recently retired Giants manager. As you should expect from BBM, the box set contains the 35 card base set plus one "special" card that apparently could be from a wide variety of options - autograph cards, die cut autograph cards, "Super Metallic Silver" cards, "Super Metallic Gold" cards and I'm not completely sure what else.

- In late June BBM will be publishing a box set called "Go Higher" featuring Shohei Ohtani and Shitaro Fujinami. There will be 20 cards in the set - 18 cards for the base set plus one insert card and one "special" card. It looks like the insert card is one of four possible "RIVALS" card based on the insert cards of the same name from the 1997 BBM set. Once again there's a wide variety of possible "special" cards - memorabilia, autograph and metallic cards are possible.

There are some other additional releases to take note of:

- Epoch is releasing their second "Stars & Rookies" set this week - this time for the Baystars. Like the earlier Lions set, this set's a bit of a high end set. Each box (with an MSRP of 12,960 yen!) contains two mini-boxes that contain 5 base set cards and 1 autograph card. There are 30 cards in the base set and around 69 different possible autograph cards.

- I've been remiss in mentioning a couple new Korean sets that are actually already out. The first set is the 2016 version of the "Baseball's Best Players" set. This set is very similar to last year's set - including the design of the cards, the number of cards (10 cards for each of the 10 KBO teams or 100 cards in the base set) and the parallel cards (kira parallels for card #03 for each team, gold kira parallels for card #02 for each team and either gold signature or "clear" parallels for card #01 for each team). Probably the only real difference is that the "clear' parallels aren't actually clear plastic cards this time around. Not only has this set already been released but I already have a box of it - I'll try to get a post up on it in the next few days.

- The same company that released the "Baseball's Best Players" set (SMG Holding?) has also released box sets for two teams - Samsung and Doosan. Taking a cue from how BBM has been doing box sets, these box sets contain the complete 44 card base set for each team plus some sort of "special" card. There are 10 possible "Super Stick" cards that are a clear plastic card along with 5 possible memorabilia cards and 6 possible autograph cards. It is unknown at the moment whether there will be team sets made for the other eight KBO teams.

I want to mention here that Dan Skrezyna has started a blog about Korean Baseball cards and pretty much everything I wrote about the team sets is based on what he's found out about them. Dan doesn't have a lot of posts at his blog yet but he's got a number of pages up with useful information about the recent KBO sets along with videos of box breaks.

↧

RIP Koji Yamamoto

April 25, 2016, 7:04 pm

≫ Next: 2016 BBM 1st Version set

≪ Previous: Lots Of New Stuff

Former Giant and Orion Koji Yamamoto passed away from liver cancer a few days ago. Yamamoto attended Hosei University and was drafted by Yomiuri in the fifth round of the fall 1975 draft from Honda Suzuka of the industrial leagues. He and Kiyoshi Nakahata split the starting first baseman job with the Giants in 1981 following Sadaharu Oh's retirement but Nakahata won the role by hitting .322 that year and Yamamoto started playing more in the outfield. He was traded to the Lotte Orions between the 1983 and 1984 seasons and was their regular first baseman for the next two seasons. He retired following the 1988 season and became a coach for Lotte. He managed the team (now called the Chiba Lotte Marines) from 1999 to 2003, finishing fourth three times and fifth twice before being replaced by Bobby Valentine. He coached for the Giants for a couple years after that and then became a baseball commentator.

His son Musashi is on Yokohama's ikusei roster.

1980 Yamakatsu JY12

1984 Takara Kids

2001 Upper Deck Victory #066

2009 BBM The Premium Malts #28

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2016 BBM 1st Version set

April 27, 2016, 7:03 pm

≫ Next: 1st Version Fighters Arizona Photos

≪ Previous: RIP Koji Yamamoto

2016 BBM 1st Version Set Summary

Size: 372 cards numbered 1-336, CF01-CF36
Cards Per Team:  28 (team card, manager + 26 players)
Team Card Theme:  Spring Training
Number Of Leader Cards:  N/A
Checklists:  None
Subsets:  Cross Freeze (36)
Inserts:  Infinite Talent(12), 3D Cross Freeze(12)
Memorabilia Cards:  Jersey cards for Tetsuto Yamada and Yuki Yanagita (as well as a combination card with both of them). Each individual jersey card is serially numbered to 200 plus some sort of parallel version numbered to 20. Not sure of the counts on the dual card. There are a large number of autograph cards available as well.
Parallels:  108 of the regular player cards have facsimile autograph parallel versions - silver, gold (#'d to 100), holograph (#'d to 50), red (#'d to 25) and green (#'d to 10). There is also a parallel to a number of the rookie cards (looks like the top seven for each team) that's #'d to 100 plus a "1of1" parallel for the top pick for each team. There's also parallel versions of the insert cards. The Cross Freeze cards have two parallels - one that's serially numbered to 100 and the other that's a "1of1".
Notable Rookies: Shun Takayama, Louis Okoye

This year's 1st Version set is an awful lot like last year's 1st Version set - same size set (smallest ever 1st Version set), same number of players per team (27), same kind of cross set subset ("Cross Freeze" this year instead of "Cross Plasma" last year). Even the parallels look pretty much the same as last year's.

None of which is necessarily a bad thing, although I still would like there to be more players per team and I really miss the perennial "Leaders" subset that's been gone for the last three years. I'll repeat the complaint I made last year - with the 27 cards for each team including the manager and all the non-ikusei draft picks for each team, there's bound to be significant players left out of the set (although most of the guys I can think of off hand like Daisuke Matsuzaka and Tony Blanco haven't played at the ichi-gun level this year yet).

The cards themselves are up to BBM's usual high standards. There's a little more fluff in the design than BBM usually has with this curly-cue thingy with the team's initial in it but the design doesn't take away from the photos. Here's some examples:

#173

#060

#041

#304

#238

The backs are pretty much the standard BBM backs:

Back of #125 (T-Okada)

Most of the photography in the set appears to have been from last year with the exception of new players on teams (rookies, new imports and players who switched teams over the winter) - those photos were taken in early training camp. The exception this year are the Swallows who have new uniforms this year - all their photos were taken in training camp and show off the new uniform (as you can see in the above Yamanaka card).

I noticed an odd thing in the Lions cards. The Lions kinda-sorta have new uniforms this season. Their uniforms last year were made by Nike but this year they are made by Majestic. The design of the uniform is pretty much the same, however (H/T to Graveyard Baseball for pointing this out to me after I did my Lions uniform post last week). The big difference in the uniforms is that last year's jerseys had the Nike swoosh in the upper right (as seen here) and this year's have the Majestic logo in that location instead. What's odd is that it looks like almost all the photos of Lions players that were taken last year have the Nike logo removed, as you can see in Kona Takahashi's card:

#086

I'm not sure I've ever noticed a case before where BBM has photoshopped photos although I won't swear it's never happened.

I do want to mention that this is the first BBM flagship set in which Motonobu Tanishige does not appear as a player. He is only in the set because he's the Dragons' manager, which puts his streak of appearing in BBM's flagship sets at an even 40 (11 "regular" sets between 1991 and 2001 and 29 1st and 2nd Version sets since 2002). Unless BBM adds manager cards to the 2nd Version set this year (which they haven't done since 2005), his streak will end with this set.

#271

For the first time since 2012 (and only the second time since 2008), the theme for the team cards is NOT mascots, which makes me very happy. This year's theme is training camp and there's a number of really good photos - so many that I couldn't pick just one card to show:

#330

#332

#325

The sole subset in the set is the umpteenth cross set sub set that BBM has done. It's called Cross Freeze and has the usual image of a player projected on a repeated background with the full picture on the back. I assume that like last year this subset will be continued in only the 2nd Version set and not Genesis but I don't really know that for sure. I personally am getting a bit tired of these types of subsets (this is the fifth one in the last seven years) but someone must like them since BBM keeps doing them.

#CF28

Back of #CF28

You can check out all the cards at Jambalaya (as usual).

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1st Version Fighters Arizona Photos

April 28, 2016, 6:22 pm

≫ Next: 2016 KBO "Baseball's Best Players" Set

≪ Previous: 2016 BBM 1st Version set

I mentioned in my post about the new 1st Version set that typically BBM will use photos from last season for the cards (unless the team changes uniforms over the winter) when they can. They have to get photos in training camp, however, for anyone who is new to a team - draft picks, new foreign players and players who switched teams over the winter. I left unmentioned the implications of this for this year's set - anyone who is new to the Fighters this year likely had their picture taken for their card when they were in Arizona.

Actually let me caveat that a bit - not everybody who was new to the team went to Arizona so obviously some of the new players had their photos taken in Okinawa. But I'm pretty sure that the cards of the Fighters top two draft picks (Kenta Uehara and Takayuki Katoh) and their two new foreign players (Anthony Bass and Chris Martin) feature photos taken in Arizona:

#047

#048

#035

#036

(Actually I just found the photo for Bass's card in the Fighter's photo gallery for February 7th in Peoria.)

Another thing that I mentioned in the post is that the theme of the team cards was training camp. There's absolutely no question about where the photo on the Fighters' team card was taken:

#326

I found this photo on the Fighter's web site as well. It shows Yuki Saitoh pitching against the Lotte Giants on February 8th.

I'm kind of hoping that there will be a subset in the Fighter's team set devoted to their trip to Arizona but that's probably unlikely.

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2016 KBO "Baseball's Best Players" Set

April 30, 2016, 7:49 pm

≫ Next: Card Of The Week May 1

≪ Previous: 1st Version Fighters Arizona Photos

As I mentioned the other day, I picked up a box of one of the latest Korean baseball card sets recently. This is the second of the "Baseball's Best Players" sets and it's very similar to the previous one.

Each box contains 20 eight card packs. Each of the eight card packs contains seven base cards and one parallel card. There are no short print, autograph or memorabilia cards available with this set.

Unopened Box

Opened Box

Stacks of packs

Wrapper

I'm not sure I'm going to say anything about this set that Dan hasn't already said but let's give it a shot. The base set has 100 cards split evenly among the 10 teams in the KBO. The 10 cards for each team appear to be a lineup for the team (each team inludes only one pitcher) although I can't say that for sure. Each team is numbered separately - the Doosan Bears cards are numbered PA02-DO001 to PA02-DO010, the Samsung Lions cards are numbered PA02-SA001 to PA02-SA010, etc). The cards are designed to be used in a collectible card game - the fronts have "ATK" and "DEF" numbers that I assume mean "Attack" and "Defend" and the backs of the cards are all identical.

If all of this sounds familiar it's because the previous set had all these same features. In fact, the design of the front of this year's cards is identical to the design of last year's cards. And the backs are also exactly the same so if you were actually playing this game you could use cards from either set interchangeably.

Here's some example base set cards:


#PA02-DO004 (Jae-Won Oh)

#PA02-KI009 (Suk-Min Yun)

#PA02-LG010 (Kyang-Cheol Choi)

#PA02-LO002 (Jeon-Suk Choi)

#PA02-NC009 (Jae-Hak Lee)

#PA02-SK005 (Ju-Hwa Na)

Card Back

There are four types of parallels and they break down pretty much the way that the parallels in the first set do. From most common to least common they are "kira" (which are only for card #003 for each team), "gold kira" (only for card #002 for each team), "gold signature kira" (which are only for card #001 for each team) and "clear card" (which are also only for card #001 for each team). Here's an example for each:

#PA02-SA003 (Han-Yi Park)

#PA02-NE002 (Seok-Min Yun)

#PA02-HA001 (Geun-Yu Jung)

#PA02-KT001 (Kyoung-Soo Park)

The big difference between this set and the previous one is in the previous one, the "Clear Card" was actually a translucent plastic card while this one is "just' a regular card. I think the reason for that is so that the card can be used in game play. Take a look at the "ATK" and "DEF" values on the Park card above. One the "regular" card of Park, those values are 50 and 40 respectively so the parallel version of this card is much more powerful than the regular card. These are the only parallel cards that have boosted values.

As I said above, the box contains 20 packs of 8 cards - 7 base set cards and 1 parallel. There are 100 cards in the base set and 40 possible parallels. The box should contain 140 base set cards and 20 parallels.

Here's what I got:

139 base set cards (100 unique)

10 "kira" parallels (8 unique)

5 "gold kira" parallels (5 unique)

4 "gold signature" parallels (3 unique)

1 "clear card" parallel (1 unique)

Like last time, I'm short a base set card. Somehow one of my packs must have been short a card but I didn't notice while I was opening the packs. The good news is that I got a complete base set.

I haven't spent a lot of time looking at the players in the set but there is overlap between the players in this set and the players in the previous set. Dan added a checklist for the set over at The Trading Card Database which is how I identified the players in the samples above. As usual there are no foreign players in the set.

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Card Of The Week May 1

May 1, 2016, 6:21 pm

≫ Next: Takahiro Arai

≪ Previous: 2016 KBO "Baseball's Best Players" Set

In addition to Trey Hillman's talents as a manager, he apparently had also trained as a gymnast. This was expressed in Japan by occasionally doing backflips, as shown here:

2004 BBM Fighters #F99

I'm curious when this photo was taken. Hillman's wearing a Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters home uniform so I'm assuming that the photo was taken in Sapporo Dome. The set is from 2004 which was the first year the Fighters played their home games in Hokkaido. Giabbit, the mascot for the Yomiuri Giants, is in the background so the obvious suggestion is that the Giants were playing the Fighters. That may be true, but it must have been an exhibition game as interleague play didn't start in NPB until a year later in 2005.

According to Hillman's Japanese wikipedia page, he did a backflip with the Fighters' mascot BB on Fan Appreciation Day at the end of the 2004 season and hurt some ligaments. I suspect that put an end to his backflipping days.

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Takahiro Arai

May 5, 2016, 6:09 pm

≫ Next: Card Of The Week May 8

≪ Previous: Card Of The Week May 1

I'm late getting around to this but Takahiro Arai of the Carp got his 2000th hit last week. Arai was born and raised in Hiroshima but went to college at Komazawa University in Tokyo. He was drafted by his hometown team the Carp in the sixth round of the fall 1998 draft. He left the Carp following the 2007 season as a free agent and signed with the Hanshin Tigers. He returned to the Carp as a free agent again before the 2015 season.

Arai made the All Star team four times - three times with the Carp (2002, 05 and 07) and once with the Tigers (2008). He's been named to a Best 9 team once (2005) and won one Golden Glove (2008). He lead the Central League in home runs in 2005 and RBI in 2011. He played for the Japan National Team in the 2006 World Baseball Classic and the 2008 Olympics. He has never played in a Nippon Series - he was on the roster for the Tigers for the 2014 Series but a back injury kept him from playing.

His brother Ryota has played for the Dragons and Tigers - the two were teammates with Hanshin from 2011-14.

Here's a sampling of cards from his career (his rookie card is 1999 BBM #374 but I don't have it):

2000 BBM #474

2002 Calbee #SH-8

2006 BBM 1st Version #440

2006 Upper Deck Future Watch #WBC-52

2008 BBM 1st Version #095

2008 BBM All Stars #A18

2011 BBM Tohto 80th Memorial #47

2012 BBM 1st Version #334

2015 Epoch Red Helmets 40th Anniversary #21

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Card Of The Week May 8

May 9, 2016, 6:53 pm

≫ Next: Card Of The Week May 15

≪ Previous: Takahiro Arai

Busy weekend so I'm a day late on this...

Jonny Gomes asked for and received his release last week from the Eagles. He apparently had a family matter to deal with and hopefully everything will work out well for him. His exit, however, brings to mind other foreign players who had a quick exits from Japan - Mike Greenwell (7 games with Hanshin in 1997), Frank Howard (1 game with the Lions in 1974 before getting injured), Brian Bannister (left before the 2011 season following the Tohoku Earthquake), etc.

For some reason though (and it's probably unfair to Gomes), I keep thinking about Brad Penny, who the Hawks signed for the 2012 season. He made one start for them, going 3 1/3 innings against the Eagles and giving up 7 hits and 6 runs (4 earned) while walking three and only striking out one. He complained of shoulder pain although MRIs in both Japan and the US were negative. The Hawks released him in late April that year.

Gomes did not appear in this year's 1st Version set and apparently is not in BBM's Eagles team set either. His only card is in the team-issued Eagles set. Penny similarly did not make the 1st Version set in 2012 but he did show up twice in the BBM Hawks team set. He had a regular player card plus a card in the 1968 Topps "Game" card-esque "Newcomers" subset (#H90):

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Card Of The Week May 15

May 15, 2016, 12:06 pm

≫ Next: RIP Mikio Kudoh

≪ Previous: Card Of The Week May 8

The Marines and Eagles played two crazy games the last two days in Chiba. Yesterday, the Marines beat the Eagles 13-12 in 10 innings, winning on a walk off single by Tadahito Iguchi. Today was another extra inning victory for Lotte, coming back from being down 5-1 after 5 innings to win 9-8 on a game winning single by Alfredo Despaigne in the 11th. One of the stars for the Marines over the two games was left fielder Katsuya Kakunaka, who went 5 for 7 with four walks over the two games, scoring six runs and knocking in four. Oh, yeah and he homered in each game as well.

Here's his rookie card from the 2007 BBM 1st Version set (#143):

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RIP Mikio Kudoh

May 15, 2016, 12:41 pm

≫ Next: Fumiya Nishiguchi And The 1995 Sioux City Explorers

≪ Previous: Card Of The Week May 15

Former Nippon-Ham Fighters pitcher Mikio Kudoh has passed away from liver failure at age 55. Kudoh was drafted out of high school by the Fighters in second round of the fall 1978 draft. He debuted with the ichi-gun team in 1979, going 0-1 with one start in three appearances. He spent the entire 1980 season with the ni-gun team and lead the Eastern League in wins. He returned to the top team in 1981 and went 2-9 during the regular season - but then he matched that win total in the Nippon Series that season, winning Games One and Three in relief (the only two games the Fighters would win in the Series). He had by far his best season in 1982, going 20-4 with an ERA of 2.10. Those 20 wins lead the Pacific League that year and he was named to both the All Star team and the Best 9 team for the only time in his career. He suffered a finger injury late in the season but was still available to pitch in the Pacific League playoffs* against the Lions - getting the win in Game Three (which was the only win the Fighters would have in the Series) and winning the "Fighting Spirit" award (basically the MVP for the losing team). He went 8-8 in 1983 and suffered what ended up being a career ending injury to his shoulder. He only made one appearance at the ichi-gun level in 1984 (going only a third of an inning and giving four runs on a walk, a hit batsman and two hits including a home run) and spent the rest of his career with the ni-gun team. He briefly converted to being an infielder before retiring after the 1988 season.

*The Pacific League did a split season playoff format between 1973 and 1982 with the first half winner playing the second half winner in a best of 5 playoff series. If the same team won both halves, there would be no playoff - which is what happened in 1976 and 1978 when Hankyu did it.

For some reason, Kudoh does not have a lot of baseball cards. He appeared in the Takara Fighters sets between 1981 and 1984 (along with the 1984 Takara Kids set) and he had three cards in the 1983 Calbee set. To my knowledge, that's all the cards that were released of him during his career. He only has one BBM cards that I know of - a "Legend Of Champion" subset card from the 2003 BBM Fighters set. He has not appeared in any of the annual "Historic Collection" sets and since the Fighters have never had an OB team set other than the one that celebrated their 10th Anniversary of their move to Hokkaido, there's never been an OB team set for him to appear in.

Here's the BBM card (the only one of the cards mentioned above that I have):

2003 BBM Fighters #111

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Fumiya Nishiguchi And The 1995 Sioux City Explorers

May 18, 2016, 5:25 pm

≫ Next: BBM's Website Is Back!

≪ Previous: RIP Mikio Kudoh

A couple months back I did a post on Lions pitcher Fumiya Nishiguchi on the occasion of his retirement. I mentioned that I had learned while researching the post that the Lions had sent Nishiguchi to the Sioux City Explorers of the Northern League for six games during 1995 season to learn how to throw a change-up. I figured that with having only spent six games with the team, he wouldn't have made the card set that was produced for the team by Collect-A-Sport that season but I couldn't find an on-line checklist to confirm or deny it.

It occurred to me a couple weeks after I published the post that I should ask Bill Tyler, the web's foremost authority on the resurrected Northern League (1993-2011) and the independent American Association (2006-present), about the team set. He confirmed that Nishiguchi actually WAS in the set. Now all I needed to do was to find a copy of the set. I lucked into one for a reasonably cheap price on Ebay the other day and it showed up in the mail today.

Here's the front and back of Nishiguchi's card:

The bio is actually pretty accurate - although it was Rissho University, not Ritsho and if you didn't know that collegiate baseball in Japan has a Spring and Fall season, you wouldn't understand what the "Fall League" was.

Nishiguchi was one of three players that the Lions sent to the Explorers that summer. Pitcher Hisaki Tomioka and third baseman Jun Yamada also played for the team. Yamada made the team set but Tomioka - despite appearing in twice as many games as Nishiguchi - did not. Here's Yamada's card:

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BBM's Website Is Back!

May 21, 2016, 6:49 pm

≫ Next: Card Of The Week May 22

≪ Previous: Fumiya Nishiguchi And The 1995 Sioux City Explorers

After being down for the better part of a month, BBM's website is back on line. They've moved their list of new sets to a new page. They've added info for a couple of the sets I mentioned last month - the Tatsunari Hara box set and the Carp and Baystars team sets - but not for the Lions team set and the Ohtani/Fujinami box set. The Lions set is scheduled to be released this coming Friday so BBM better get moving.

BBM did add information for two more of the team sets - the Buffaloes and the Fighters. Both sets have base sets of 81 cards featuring around 70 cards for the players and manager and several subsets. Both sets have four insert sets - the Fighters have 27 cards over the four sets while the Buffaloes have 18. Both sets have the usual collection of autograph cards available. I'm amused that the Fighters set has an 11 card subset featuring the players in street clothes - I guess BBM felt threatened by the AI set that came out recently. Both sets will be out in mid-June.

Epoch has also recently announced a couple new products. The latest of the team based "Stars & Rookies" sets is for the Buffaloes and will be released on June 25. It's pretty much the same idea as the Lions and Baystars sets Epoch has released earlier this season - each box (that retails for 12,960 yen or roughly $118) contains two mini-boxes containing 6 cards each - one or two will be autographed cards and the others will all be base set cards. I think it breaks down to 9 base set cards and three autograph cards per box. There are apparently some "hot boxes" that will contain four autograph cards. There are 27 cards in the base set and a boatload of possible autograph cards.

The other Epoch set is their latest ultra high end set done in conjunction with the OB Club (aka the Japan Baseball Promotion Association). The theme of this one appears to be "League Leaders". Once again, it's a very expensive box (16,200 yen or around $147) for a one pack box containing two base set cards, one insert/parallel card and two autograph cards. There are 27 players featured in the set - each player has a base set card, two different insert/parallel cards, two different autograph cards and a autographed booklet card available. The set will be out on July 9.

There's something on Jambalaya's upcoming release schedule that is intriguingly called "Kabaya Central League Baseball gum". I finally did some Googling of the Hiragana text for it (カバヤセントラルリーグベースボールガム) and discovered that this is a Epoch set being packaged with banana flavored gum from Kabaya. There's 36 cards in the set (six for each of the six Central League teams). The set is being sold in boxes of 20 1 card packs. The boxes have an MSRP of 2160 yen (about $19.60). I'm including this link to Amazon Japan's listing of the set so that you can see all the cards - the boxes are not eligible to be shipped outside of Japan though.

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