Japanese Baseball Cards

Several new sets have been announced recently:

- The last time I did a "new cards post" I mentioned that Sports Graphic Number was releasing a set in September featuring Hiroki Kuroda and Takahiro Arai of the Carp to celebrate the two of them reaching the Meikyukai this season (actually I left out that part). BBM apparently has decided to rush a similarly themed box set out next week to preempt the Sports Graphic Number set. BBM's box set will be called "200 Wins & 2000 Hits" and will also feature Kuroda and Arai. Each box will contain 25 cards - 23 cards in the base set, an insert card (one of seven possible foil signed cards) and a "special" insert card (one of 11 possible memorabilia cards or one of three possible "super metallic" cards or one of an unspecified number of autograph cards).

- BBM's annual premium set will be released in late September. For the fifth year in a row the set is called Genesis (I make the distinction simply because the set was previously known as Diamond Heroes from 1996 to 2001 and Touch The Game from 2002 to 2011). The base set contains 120 cards - 108 player cards (9 from each team) and 12 team checklists - and there will be three 12 card insert sets - ELITE OF NINE, STADIUM JEWEL and CROSS FREEZE - but honestly no one really cares all the much about the base set or the insert sets - Genesis is all about the chase cards. As always there is a bewildering amount of what BBM refers to as "Premium insert cards" - memorabilia cards including "big patch", "super patch", and "bat grip end" plus cards with more than one piece of memorabilia on them and a wide variety of autograph cards including autographed memorabilia cards (at least autographed balls) and multi-player autographs. There is also some sort of booklet card available. There's also the usual crazy parallel versions of the base sets. I think the insert cards are all serially numbered to 50 but I don't know for sure.

- The checklist for Calbee's Series Three appeared on line recently. Like the two previous Series this year there will be 72 player cards in the set (six per team). There's also a 12 card "Exciting Scene" subset and the usual four card Checklist subset meaning that the base set will be 88 cards again (like it was for Series Two). As always there is also a 24 card "Star" premium subset/insert set. I haven't seen a release date for the set yet but it usually comes out in mid to late September.

- The Dragons are celebrating their 80th Anniversary this season. BBM snuck out a kind of lousy Anniversary set last winter and now Epoch has decided to try their hand at one. The set is called something like "Chunichi Dragons 80th Anniversary Record Breakers" and will be out in late August or early September. I'm a little confused on the details but I think it's sold by the box (and a box has an MSRP of 11,200 yen or roughly $112). Each box contains two mini-boxes and each mini-box has 11 cards. I think there's a guarantee of two autographs in each box (which would probably be one in each mini-box) which I think means that the other 10 cards in the mini-box would be base set cards. There are 49 cards in the base set which includes Dragons manager (at the time the set went to press anyway) Motonobu Tanishige and both active and OB Dragons players. There's a number of different autograph cards available including autographed parallels of the base set cards and "booklet" cards featuring multiple player autographs on baseballs.

I went to the Cardinals - Phillies game last Friday night up in Philadelphia. I was hoping to get a chance to see former Samsung Lion and Hanshin Tiger reliever Seung-Hwan Oh pitch for the Cardinals - especially since Oh has been the Cardinals closer lately and seeing him would imply the Cardinals were winning the game (and the Cardinals are my favorite MLB team after the Red Sox).

It didn't look good for seeing him, however, as the Phillies were leading 3-1 going into the ninth inning. But then Jedd Gyorko hit a two run home run to tie the game up. Oh came in the bottom of the ninth. He gave up a single and an intentional walk that inning but kept the Phillies from scoring. He pitched the bottom of the tenth as well with the game still tied and retired the side in order, striking out two in the process. The Cardinals took the lead in the top of the 11th and Oh was replaced on the mound by Alex Reyes, who got the save. Oh ended up as the winning pitcher.

Here's Oh's card from the 2015 BBM Tigers set (#T11):

One of the things I've noticed when I've been leafing through Sports Card Magazine's Price Guide listing for BBM's baseball issues is that there are a number of variants listed among the flagship sets. I noticed a number of times in the Price Guide where there would be an 'a' and a 'b' version of the card (and two times where there was a 'c' version as well). I thought I'd do a list of what I know about the variants.

Research for this was a bit difficult. Engel only lists one of these variants and really doesn't go into any detail about it. I did some searches on Yahoo! Japan Auctions to see what I could find but that only really helped with one card. Luckily, however, I had been contacted by a Japanese card collector named Takashi last year who was interested in a trading cards. One of the cards that Takashi was looking were the Hideki Irabu cards I'll be mentioning in a moment. I asked him what the story was with those card and he told me. He also offered to answer any other questions I had about BBM cards and I took him up on the offer and asked about the other cards as well. While he didn't know about all the cards, he knew much more than I did about them so most of the following should be credited to him.

Here's the list:

1993 BBM #417 Takashi Wada

The original ('a') version of the card has a headshot of Goichi Inokubo on the back rather than Wada. I'm pretty sure what I have is the corrected ('b') version of the card:

I don't have a copy of the 'a' version but oddly enough, this is the card that Gary Engel uses as an example card for his listing of the 1993 set:

SCM #116 has the 'a' version of the card at 50 yen and the corrected version at 300 yen.

1993 BBM #477 Masanori Murakami

This is the variant that is listed by Engel. Takashi says "There is a notation error on the back side of the sentence" that was corrected on the 'b' version. I don't know which version I have but here's the back side of it:

SCM #116 has both versions of this card at 500 yen

1995 BBM #216 and #604 Hideki Irabu

These are kind of odd - technically the variation is with the gold signature parallel versions, not the base card. The 'a' version of the card is the base version. The 'b' version of the card has an incorrect gold signature on it - it's Ken Hirano instead of Irabu. The 'c' version of the card has the corrected signature. It's weird that the mistake was made on both the regular version of the card (#217) and the "Late Series" version (#604). I have the 'c' version of card #217 and the 'a' version of card #604.

SCM #116 has the 'a' and 'b' versions of card #216 at 400 yen while the 'c' version is 3000(!) yen. Version 'a' of #604 is listed at 500 yen while version 'b' is 1000 yen and version 'c' is 800 yen.

1999 BBM #464 Koichiro Yoshinaga

Takashi says that the original version of this card has an incorrect photo but he didn't know any more details about it. I don't have this card but I found this image on Yahoo! Japan Auctions. I don't know which version of the card this is although I'm pretty confident that this is Yoshinaga so it's probably the corrected version. SCM #116 has both versions listed at 50 yen.

1999 BBM 485 Naoyuki Ohmura

This is another case with an incorrect photo (kind of) but I think I understand what happened here. Notice in the above card that while the player's number on the card is 7, the player's uniform shows #60. Ohmura had worn #60 prior to 1999 when he switched his number to 7 so I think this is a picture of him with his old number (there's a possibility that this is a picture of Hironori Fujisaki who took uniform #60 in 1999 but it's unlikely as the little bit of the left sleeve patch looks like the one on the 1998 uniforms and Fujisaki was a pitcher). I don't have the corrected card but I found it on Yahoo! Japan Auctions (and the auction indicated that it was the corrected version):

SCM #116 has both versions of the card at 50 yen.

(And just so you know, Yoshinaga didn't change his number for 1999 so I don't think his card was corrected for that.)

2000 BBM #360 Seigo Fujishima

I've talked about this one before. This is the only one of these cards that I have both version of. The one on the left is the original while the one on the right is the corrected version (obviously). Takashi did not know why the change was made although I think he thinks that the original photo is not Fujishima. SCM #116 has both cards at 50 yen.

2000 BBM #374 Takashi Yoshida and #377 Yuji Yoshioka

This is another issue with the head shots on the back of the cards - the head shots of the players are switched on the original ('a') version of the cards. So Yoshioka is on the back of Yoshida's card and Yoshida is on the back of Yoshioka's card:

Yoshioka's facial hair makes it kind of obvious. I don't have the corrected version of the cards and I couldn't find an image of them. SCM #116 has all four of the cards at 50 yen.

2001 BBM #284 Taka Miura

This is a fairly straight forward one - the original version of the card has the player's name as "Takashi Miura" rather than "Taka Miura". Here's the corrected version (from Yahoo! Japan Auctions):

SCM #116 has both versions of the card at....wait for it...50 yen yet again.

I don't know for sure but I'm pretty confident in saying that the corrected versions of the 1999-2001 cards were released as part of BBM's Late Series releases those years. I don't know how the corrected versions were released for 1993 and 1995 but the corrections may have been somewhat limited which would explain why some versions are more expensive than others.

SCM does not list the Reader/Leader variants from the 2000 BBM set as separate versions but obviously these are another example of corrected cards.

Thanks again to Takashi for all his help. Anything incorrect here is my fault, not his.

Thursday's game between the Eagles and Hawks took a kind of unexpected turn late in the game. The Hawks were up 5 to 4 going into the top of the ninth which is normally time for Dennis Sarfate to come in and close the door. Unfortunately for the Hawks, Sarfate hurt himself two days earlier and was not available and the closing responsibility fell on Robert Suarez. The Eagles got two of the first three guys on base in the inning and then Eigoro Mogi stepped to the plate...

Mogi hit a low sinking line drive that center fielder Yuki Yanagita attempted to do a sliding catch of and missed. The ball skipped by him and rolled all the way to the wall. By the time Yanagita ran the ball down and threw it to the infield, Mogi had made it around the bases for a three run inside-the-park home run. The Eagles ended up winning the game 7 to 5 which coupled with the Fighters 4-1 win over the Marines knocked the Hawks out of first place for the first time since April 18th.

Mogi's home run (which probably should have been ruled an error) was only the second one of his career and I suspect was his first inside the park one. Here's his Calbee rookie card from this year's Series Two (#104):

2016 BBM 2nd Version Set Summary

Size: 313 cards (cards numbered 337-600, then 12 cards of "Ceremonial First Pitch" subset are separately numbered FP01-FP13 and 36 cards for "Cross Freeze" subset are separately numbered CF37-CF72)
Cards Per Team: 19 (team card + 18 players)
Team Card Theme: Mascots
Number Of Leader Cards: N/A
Checklists: 0
Subsets: 1st Version Update (36), Ceremonial First Pitch (13), Cross Freeze (36)
Inserts: One And Only
Memorabilia Cards: Undershirt cards for Louis Okoye, jersey cards for Shun Takayama and a "Combination" undershirt & jersey card with both of them. The single jersey cards are numbered to 100 while the "Combination" card is numbered to 10. There's 30 different players who have autographed cards (3 per team but none from the Giants or Carp). Seven of those 30 have what I think is a separate autograph card. Four of the "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards have an authentic autograph version.
Parallels: 15 of the 1st Version Update and 57 of the regular player cards have five different facsimile autograph parallels. I think that they are silver (unnumbered), gold (numbered to 100), hologram (numbered to 50), red (numbered to 25) and green (numbered to 10). There are two parallels for the "Cross Freeze" cards - one is limited to 100 and the other is a "1 of 1". There is a parallel (limited to 100) for the One And Only insert cards.
Notable Rookies: Jun Hasegawa

This year's edition of BBM's 2nd Version set came out a couple weeks back. The regular cards in the set feature something a bit rare for BBM's flagship sets - borders. I don't necessarily view this as a good thing as one of the things I like most about BBM's flagship sets is the full bleed photos. This is the second year in a row where the 2nd Version set has had borders and I don't like the trend.

On the positive side, however, this set appears to signal a change in the "batters batting, pitchers pitching" photo monotony that's been common in BBM's sets lately. There's not a small number of photos featuring players fielding and base running and even a couple candids. I also like that there's a variety of uniforms represented in the photos - throwbacks for the Tigers and Baystars and alternates for the Swallows and Giants (and I'll be updating the uniform posts with some of these soon). So while I don't like the borders, I do like the photos. Here's a bunch of examples:

#442

#587

#570

#451

#548

#508

#417

#521

I will make my usual 2nd Version set complaint that some of the poses for players are very similar between their 1st and 2nd Version cards:

2016 BBM 1st Version #098 (left) and 2nd Version #444 (right)

2016 BBM 1st Version #173 (left) and 2nd Version #488 (right)

Here's what the back of the cards looks like. The stats are as of May 30th.

Back of #393 (Kohei Arihara)

The team cards were a bit of a disappointment for me - the theme was mascots. I guess it was too much to ask that we go an entire year without mascots as a flagship set team checklist theme from BBM...

#594

The set has the usual 36 card "1st Version Update" subset. This subsets features three cards per team of players who were left out of the 1st Version set for whatever reason. The cards are done using the design of the 1st Version set. This year's subset includes several foreign players (Drew Naylor, Pat Misch, Yamaico Navarro and Mike Zagursky) along with veteran players like Shota Dobayashi, Hitoki Iwase, Yuya Hasegawa, Shogo Kimura and Yoshihisa Naruse.

#368

#349

There's a rookie card for Jun Hasegawa of the Giants included in the subset. It's rare that the subset includes a rookie card as usually all the non-ikusei rookies get included in the 1st Version set. And in fact the reason that Hasegawa was not included in the 1st Version set was that he was ikusei up until late March when the Giants registered him to the 70 man roster. So his first flagship card is in this subset (he did also have a card in this year's Rookie Edition set).

#360

Like last year, BBM did not include Shohei Ohtani in the regular 2nd Version cards because they included him in the "1st Version Update" subset. His 1st Version card this year had him as a pitcher but the Update card has him as a batter and outfielder:

#340

The 2016 version of BBM's annual (practically) cross-set subset is called "Cross Freeze" and 2nd Version has the second (and possibly final) installment of the subset. Like the 1st Version set, 2nd Version has 36 cards in the subset (3 per team of course). As always, these cards feature the image of a player superimposed on a background (an icy one this year) and are numbered separately from the rest of the set.

#CF54

The other standard subset for the 2nd Version set is the "Ceremonial First Pitch" subset which features a number of Japanese celebrities throwing out the first pitch at a ball game. This year's group includes actress/model Norika Fujiwara, gravure idol Ami Inamura, singer Sachiko Kobayashi, actress Sari Kobayashi, model(?) Erika Matsumoto, gravure idol Shizuka Nakamura, gravure idol Hinako Sano, singer Mariko Shinoda, boxer Tomomi Takano, model(?) Momoka Tsukishima and model (and I think Sapporo Beer "image girl") Nagisa Yuzuki. The cards are numbered separately from the rest of the set.

#FP07

The subset also includes a couple of cards commemorating the first pitch ceremony featuring Sadako from "The Ring" and Kayako (and her son Toshio) from "The Grudge" at the Tokyo Dome on June 1. This was a promotion for the movie "Sadako vs Kayako" that came out in June.

#FP12 (left) & #FP13 (right)

I picked up the 12 card "One And Only" insert set with the set. There are 12 cards in the set (one per team) which includes a number of big stars (Ohtani, Yuki Yanagita, Tetsuto Yamada, Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh, Hayato Sakamoto).

#oo01

As usual, all the cards for the set (along with parallels and inserts) can be seen at Jambalaya.

I've been asked a couple times in the past few months what Shohei Ohtani's "best" rookie card is. I find this a difficult thing to answer as the question of "best" is pretty subjective, as is what actually constitutes a rookie card. I've decided to not really answer the question - instead I'm going to present a variety of Ohtani cards from his rookie year of 2013 and allow readers to make their own judgements. (For the most part I'm only listing the "regular" player cards although he had several appearances in subsets in some of BBM's sets that year.)

Ohtani's first card ever was actually an insert in Sports Card Magazine #97 which was released in late January 2013. It was a promo card for the 2013 BBM Rookie Edition set - I lucked into a silver facsimile autograph parallel of it:

SCM #206

He had two cards in BBM's Rookie Edition set that had the same number - one showed him pitching and the other showed him batting:

2013 BBM Rookie Edition #42

His first BBM "flagship" set cards were in the 2013 1st and 2nd Version sets. He had two cards in the 2nd Version set - his regular card and a "Cross Wind" cross set subset card:

2013 BBM 1st Version #183

2013 BBM 2nd Version #554

2013 BBM 2nd Version "Cross Wind" #CW058

He had two cards in the Fighters BBM team set that year, one showing him pitching (#F02a) and one showing him batting (#F02b). I only have the batting one:

2013 BBM Fighters #F02b

He appeared in a handful of other BBM sets that year - Icons - Hope (#14), Classic (#037), Young Fighters (#YF01), Genesis (#055), Rookie Edition Premium (#RP19& #RP43) and Fighters 10th Season In Hokkaido (#02). Here's the three I have from that list:

2013 BBM Classic #037

2013 BBM Young Fighters #YF01

2013 BBM Fighers 10th Season In Hokkaido

He had a number of parallel cards in the sets - I'm not entirely sure what all is available in the different sets as BBM's parallels are somewhat bewildering. I do have a pretty good sense for what's available in terms of autograph and memorabilia cards for him from BBM's 2013 offerings due to this page from SCM #117:

Assuming that this display is comprehensive, he had autograph cards in the Icons - Hope, 1st and 2nd Version, Fighters, Genesis, Young Fighters, Rookie Edition Premium and Fighters 10th Season In Hokkaido sets. He has memorabilia cards in the 2nd Version, Genesis and Rookie Edition Premium sets.

He didn't have a "regular" player card in any of the 2013 Calbee sets but he appeared in two subsets - the "Exciting Rookie" subset from Series Two and the "All Stars" subset from Series Three:

2013 Calbee #D-07

2013 Calbee #AS-22

According to The Trading Card Database's listings, he also had a card in the second Owners League set from Bandai that year (#072).

There was a discussion between Sean and Ryan Laughton a little while back in which I learned that there was a book on the 1973 Calbee set available on Yahoo! Japan Auctions. I found the book for sale on Amazon's Japanese website and ordered a copy for myself (my copy was roughly $25 plus about $12.50 for shipping). It took about a month to arrive but it was well worth the wait.

It's a hard back book that was published in 2001 and is about 7 1/2 inches by 5 inches. Inside it shows the front of every Calbee card from the 1973/74 set - all 368 cards (note that the first 91 cards in the 1973/74 set have identical fronts to the 1973 set). The book also shows the text from the back of the card (the text on the first 91 cards appears to be the same in both the 1973 and 1973/74 sets but the design of the backs is different).

I could show all the pages in this book and it wouldn't do it justice so I'll just share a couple to give you the idea:

pp 44-45 - Morimichi Takagi (#71), Yukiharu Shibuya (#72), Koichi Tabuchi (#73), Takenori Emoto (#74), Katsuya Nomura (#75), Taira Fujita (#76)

pp 90-91 - Mikio Sendo (#209), Wally Yonamine (#210 & #211), Morimichi Takagi (#212 & #213), Tatsuhiko Kimata (#214)

While the 1973/74 set is the only baseball set that has every card featured, there's also a gallery of ephemera from all the Calbee sets from the 1970's - chip bags, wrappers, albums and some items that I'm not quite sure what are:

pp 8-9

The book also contains checklists for the all the Calbee sets from 1973-80. I'm pretty sure it's the source that Gary Engel used for his checklists for the 1977-79 Calbee sets in the most recent version of his price guide.

There is another set that the book shows all the card fronts as well as the text from the back but it's not a baseball card set. It turns out that Calbee did a 36 card sumo set in 1973:

pp 156-157

It's a great little book and thanks to Sean and Ryan for letting me know it existed!

The battle for the Pacific League Home Run crown has been getting entertaining in the last week or so. Ernesto Mejia of the Lions and Brandon Laird of the Fighters both hit their 30th home run of the season last week end. Both of them homered on Thursday to stay tied for the lead at 31. Laird homered on Friday to take the lead but Mejia tied him on Saturday afternoon. The Fighters didn't play until Saturday night and Laird ended up hitting three home runs that evening against the Buffaloes in the rain in Kobe to put himself back in the lead with 35 home runs. (Mejia hit #33 today so he's only two back).

Here's a video of Laird's three home runs from yesterday:

and here's Laird's card from the 2015 BBM Fighters set (#F48):

I had gotten a recommendation a few momths back from Dani to try Noppin, the proxy service that she uses to order merchandise from Japan. I've tried them a couple of times now and I think it is possible to save money using them rather than JAUCE and kuboTEN to buy stuff from Yahoo! Japan Auctions but it's not entirely clear to me how much.

There are a couple things I like about Noppin right off the bat. Like JAUCE they offer "live bidding" - when I submit a bid request on an auction through them, they go ahead and make the bid. With kuboTEN you have to wait up to 12 hours or so for your bid to actually go up (or at least that was the case the last time I used kuboTEN which was probably last winter). I also like the fact that they use a multiplier on the deposit for the bid limit - so if you deposit 2000 yen your bid limit is 6000 yen. Other services use the actual amount of your deposit as your bid limit. One drawback is it isn't as easy as it is with kuboTEN and JAUCE to apply you deposit to your payment - I'm pretty much just leaving the 2000 yen I have on deposit with Noppin there for future use.

The only things I haven't liked so far is that they aren't real good at sending out emails when they've received your items - I usually have to log in to see if they've gotten my stuff. I was also kind of annoyed when they basically shut down in mid-August for a long weekend for Marine Day - including turning off live bidding. It coincided with the release of BBM's 2nd Version set and I had to use JAUCE instead (I could have waited but I like to get the new stuff as soon as it comes out).

Noppin's auction fees are calculated a bit differently than the other outfits. They have a set fee (500 yen) for auctions that end at 4000 yen or less. For auctions that end between 4000 yen and 40000 yen, the fee is 12.5%. Auctions that end for more than 40000 yen have a fee of 5000 (12.5% of 40000) plus 7.5% on the amount over 40000 yen. Note that the auction fee is only calculated using the ending value of the auction - domestic shipping (from the seller to Noppin) is not used in the calculation.

In addition to the auction fee, Noppin also charges a 250 yen "bank wire fee" per payment to a seller - so if you won multiple items from a single seller but Noppin only has to send money once to the seller, you only pay this once.

Noppin also charges 3.5% "payment handling" when you make a payment to them.

This is a lot of numbers to throw at you so let me give you an example. The first item I bought through Noppin was this year's 1st Version set back in April. The auction ended with a price of 4800 yen. Domestic shipping from the seller to Noppin's office in Fukuoka was 510 yen. Noppin's auction fee was 600 yen and the "bank wire fee" was 250 yen. The "payment handling" fee worked out to about 215 yen. So the total cost was 6375 yen.

Doing the math on the other proxy companies I've used (or at least still use :-)), JAUCE would have had an auction fee of 1184 yen (800 yen plus 8% of 4800), a "bank wire" fee of 300 yen and a "payment handling" fee of 322 for a total of 7116*. kuboTEN would have had an auction fee of 1531 yen (1000 yen plus 10% of the auction price plus shipping total of 5310 yen) and a "payment handling" fee of 266 yen for a total of 7107 yen. So in this case Noppin gave a savings of over 700 yen. But our stuff is still in Japan - we haven't talked about shipping to the US yet.

*I need to point out that these are the fees that were being charged back in April when I first did these comparisons. Since then JAUCE has dropped their fees to 400 yen plus 8% so the auction fee would have been 784 and the "payment handling" fee would have been 205 for a total of 6699 which is still 300 yen more than what Noppin's fees were.

Last year I used kuboTEN to pick up the 1st Version set. EMS shipping for it and the Tigers 80th Anniversary set was about 1300 yen. So imagine my surprise when Noppin charged me 2800 yen for EMS shipping for this year's set! That ate up any savings over the other two companies. In fairness to Noppin, however, their shipping costs appear to be in line with what JAUCE charges as well - I just paid 3140 yen to have JAUCE ship the 2nd Version set to me. I haven't done an EMS shipping request through kuboTEN since last winter so I don't know if their prices have gone up as well.

To sum up, I think Noppin is a good outfit to use that may save you a bit of money over JAUCE and kuboTEN (both of whom I would still recommend as well) but be ready to pony up for shipping to the US.

One of the new professional teams to join the Central League in its debut season of 1950 was the Taiyo Whales who played in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi. The team merged with the Shochiku Robins after the 1952 season and were known as the Taiyo Shochiku Robins for the next two seasons. The team played their home games in Osaka those two seasons. Following the 1954 season Shochiku sold their interested in the team and the name reverted to the Taiyo Whales. At this time the team moved to Kawasaki, Kanagawa where they would remain for the next 22 seasons. The team moved a little south to Yokohama in time for the 1978 season and became known as the Yokohama Taiyo Whales. The team name changed to the Yokohama Baystars following the 1992 season due to the parent company changing their name from Taiyo to Maruha. Maruha sold the team to the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) in 2001 but the team name remained the same. TBS sold the team to DeNA prior to the 2012 season and the team name became the Yokohama DeNA Baystars.

I rounded up the usual suspects as my sources for this - 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. Don't panic - the blank spots don't mean there's a photo your browser isn't loading.

1950-51 (2 different)

~1950 Uncataloged Bromide

1950 JBR 2

1950-52

1951 (2 different)

1952 Home

1952 Away

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #447

1953 (4 different)

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #088

1954 Home

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #066

1954 Away

1955 Home

1955 Away

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #328

1955-56 (2 different)

1955-58 Home

1957 JBR17

1955-58 Away

1959 Doyusha Game Set

1959 Home

1961 Marukami JCM 14d

1959 Away

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #098

1960-62 Home

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #043

1960-62 Away

2006 BBM Nostalgic Baseball #042

1961-62 Home

1963 Home

1963 Marukami JCM 14f

1963 Away

1964-67 Home

1964-67 Away

2004 BBM Golden Arms #007

1964-67 Home "Kawasaki"

1968-72 Home

1973 Calbee #56

1968-72 Away

2005 BBM Glorious Stars #040

1968-72 Home "Kawasaki"

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #038

1973 Home

2002 BBM All Time Heroes #042

1973 Away

2015 BBM Whales Achievement #17

1974-77 Home

1977 Yamakatsu JY3

1974-77 Away

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #039

1978-92 Home

1979 Yamakatsu JY8 #74

1978-92 Away

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #040

1993-95 Home

1993 BBM #367

1993-95 Away

1993 BBM #359

1996-08 Home

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #041

1996-05 Away

1998 BBM Nippon Series #S6

2000-10 Shonan Searex Home

2001 BBM #329

2000-10 Shonan Searex Away

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #042

2004 Home April

2004 BBM 2nd Version #792

2004 Home September

2005 BBM 1st Version #462

2004-05 Alternate

2006 BBM 1st Version #312

2005-06 Interleague Home

2005 BBM 2nd Version #813

2005-06 Interleague Away

2006 BBM 2nd Version #655

2006-07 Alternate

2007 BBM Baystars #YB040

2006-08 Away

2007 BBM 2nd Version #674

2007-08 Interleague Home

2007 BBM 2nd Version #668

2009-11 Home

2009 BBM 2nd Version #732

2009-11 Away

2010 BBM 1st Version #207

2010-11 Alternate

2011 BBM 1st Version #313

2010 Great Central

2012-2014 Home

2012 BBM 1st Version #312

2012-2013 Away

2012 BBM 1st Version #299

2012 Great Central

2012 Away "Old Style"

2013 3rd

2013 BBM 2nd Version #540

2013 StarNight

2014 Front Runner Trading Cards Baystars Rookies & Young Stars #14

2014-15 Away

2015 BBM Baystars #DB17

2014 StarNight

2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform #044

2015- Home

2015 BBM Baystars #DB58

2015 StarNight

2016- Away

2016 Calbee #142

2016 Throwback

2016 BBM 2nd Version #587

2016 StarNight

Notes:

I think I did pretty well on this one considering the multitude of uniforms and the fact that there really aren't any OB team sets for the Whales/Baystars that cover the years before 1978. Although I don't understand how I managed to do this without a card of Takuro Ishii.

The only difference between the 1964-67 and 1968-72 uniforms are the hats. Same thing with the 1993-95 and 1996-08 uniforms (1996-05 for Away). The Baystars also apparently had different hats that they wore in April and September of 2004.

The colors are wrong on the uncataloged bromide I'm using for one of the 1950-51 uniforms. "Whales" should be in navy not red.

I believe that the Whales were the first Japanese team to have ~~numbers~~ names on the back of their uniforms. They started in 1964. They also had a variant that had "Kawasaki" (the team's home city) on the back in place of the name.

There's numerous differences between the illustrations in HOU and the photos in PBUE. For the most part I went with what PBUE said.

The Baystars farm team was sponsored by a company called Shonan from 2000 to 2010 so the team was known as the Shonan Searex. They had a uniform that was different than the parent team. (Orix did something similar but I've never seen a baseball card of a player wearing a Kobe Surpass uniform.)

I'm making a best guess on the cards I'm using for the 1973 uniforms. Daisuke Yamashita was a rookie in 1974 so I'm theorizing that he wore the 1973 uniforms in training camp that season.

There are two uniforms on cards that I have not been able to identify. The first is this card of Toru Mori from the 2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform set (#037):

The Whales won the 1960 Japan Series and wore the patch you see on the left sleeve of Mori's jersey during the 1961 season. But Mori didn't join the Whales until 1962 and I've seen no pictures indicating that the Whales had a jersey at that time that did not have the player's uniform number on the front. All I can guess is that this was something he wore during training camp in 1962.

The other uniform I can't place is on this card of Masaji Hiramatsu from the 2002 BBM All Time Heroes set (#037):

The uniform looks very much like the Away uniform worn between 1964 and 1972 but I've only seen that hat with the 1973 Home uniform. I've got no idea unless there simply was another hat used in those years (or at least after Hiramatsu's rookie season of 1967).

Once again I have gotten far enough behind in the new set posts that one of the sets has been released. So let's get caught up...

- Hitting the stores today is the latest of BBM's Authentic Edition team box sets. This one is called "CLIMAX" and features the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. Each box contains 31 cards - the 30 card base set plus one "special" card which may be an autograph or memorabilia card - including jersey and patch cards. There are multi-player jersey cards available. You can check out the base set at Jambalaya - the Shohei Ohtani card has him both batting and pitching.

- BBM's putting out another team box set on September 15 - this is the latest Autograph Edition set and it's for the Carp. The set is entitled "Katsukoi". Each box contains 28 cards - a 27 card base set plus one autographed card. Multi-player autograph cards are possibilities.

- For the third year in a row BBM is releasing a box set dedicated to a team's cheerleader/dance squad. This year it's for Giants Venus, Yomiuri's cheerleaders and is called "Original Smile". The box contains 44 cards - 42 cards from the base set plus two "special" cards which could be autograph cards (including multi-person autograph cards), facsimile autograph cards and memorabilia cards. The base has 19 cards of the team members in their costumes, 19 cards of the team members wearing yukata and four cards that are group photos. The box also contains a "raw photo" that I think is essentially a parallel of one of the 38 cards that show a single team member. The set will be released on September 15.

- Epoch has three high end team sets coming out in the next month or so. The Swallows "Shadow Box Edition" will be out on September 24. It looks like one box (at 11,200 yen) only has five cards in it but it's not clear to me what the breakdown of those five cards is. I think there's three base cards and two "special" cards but I'm not sure. There are 27 possible cards in the base set and a bewildering variety of autograph and memorabilia cards available. The Carp "Stars & Rookies" set will be released on October 8. One box of this (MSRP of 11,200 yen) contains one 12 card pack containing 10 base set cards (of a possible 42) and either a parallel card and a "special" card or two "special" cards. The "special" cards could be autograph or jersey cards. The Fighters "Season Achievement" set will be out on October 22. Each box (MSRP of 11,700 yen) contains one 10 card pack - five base set cards (of a possible 36), one regular parallel card, one holo "Spectra" card, one "Crystal" die cut cards and two "special" cards - possibly autograph or jersey.

- On the more affordable end of the spectrum, Epoch is also releasing a set for the Japan Woman's Baseball League (JWBL) on October 10th. This is a more traditional pack based set (each box contains 20 packs of five cards each). There are 78 cards in the base set and possible autograph and "cheki" cards (not quite sure what those are). This will be the first major card set for the JWBL since BBM did some sets in conjunction with the GPBL (as the JWBL was known then) back in 2010-11.

(And in case you're wondering about the title of the post, it's how Google translated the title of the "upcoming sets" section on Jambalaya's web page - 今後の入荷予定)

I tweeted something about this earlier but I wanted to put it up here as well - I was at the Lancaster Barnstormers game this afternoon and I got a card autographed by former Baystars and Eagles pitcher Hitoshi Fujie who is on the Barnstormer's roster. He was nice enough to pose for a picture as well:

2009 BBM 1st Version #429

The Carp clinched first place in the Central League yesterday. This is the first time that the Carp will finish the season in first since 1991. I thought I'd share a couple cards that show the celebration from that year - one is from the 2008 BBM Hiroshima Memorial set that commemorated the closing of Hiroshima Municipal Stadium and the other is from the 2014 Epoch Carp The First Victory 40th Anniversary set that celebrated the 40th Anniversary of the Carp's first ever pennant in 1975:

2008 BBM Hiroshima Memorial #09

2014 Epoch Carp The First Victory 40th Anniversary #54

That's manager Koji Yamamoto getting tossed in the air on the Epoch card. If the Carp go to the Nippon Series this season it'll be the first time they've ever done it without Yamamoto in uniform - he was a player when they went to the Series the first five times and the manager the sixth.

I want to point something out about the Carp's 1st place drought but I need to clarify something first. When the Central League added playoffs in 2007 NPB decided that the pennant winner for each league would be the team that finished first, regardless of whether or not that team won the playoffs. So if you look at a list of Central League pennant winners, you'll see that the Giants are listed as the pennant winners in 2007 and 2014, despite the fact that the Dragons and Tigers won the playoffs in those two seasons and represented the league in the Nippon Series. So by virtue of this rule, the Carp are the winners of the 2016 Central League pennant. Their 25 year pennant drought was the longest current drought in the NPB (the new longest pennant drought is owned by Orix who last won in 1996 - I'm not counting Kintetsu's pennant in 2001 since Orix is not honoring Kintetsu's retired numbers).

There's a key thing to remember in NPB's definition of pennant winner - they started it in 2007 when the Central League adopted playoffs. But the Pacific League had started doing playoffs three years earlier in 2004. For those three years, the team that won the playoffs was considered the pennant winner (and just for completeness so were the teams that won the split-season playoffs the Pacific League had from 1973 to 1982). In 2005 the Hawks finished first but lost to the second place Marines in the playoffs. Thus the Marines were the 2005 Pacific League pennant winners. In 2010, the Hawks again finished first and again lost to the Marines in the playoffs. But because the definition of "pennant winner" had changed in 2007, the Hawks were the 2010 Pacific League pennant winners.

I say all this because I want to point out that while the Carp had the longest current pennant-less streak in NPB until yesterday, they did not have the longest current streak of non-first place finishes. That streak belongs to the Chiba Lotte Marines, who last finished first in 1974 (when they were the Lotte Orions). And actually that really shouldn't count - as I mentioned above the Pacific League had a split season from 1973 to 1982 and Lotte only finished first in the second half of the season before defeating Hankyu in the playoffs - although to be fair they did have the best overall record in the league that season. (They also finished first in the second half of the 1977 season and first halves in 1980 and 1981 but lost in the playoffs all three times.) The last time Lotte finished first in a full season was 1970.

Last week Seung Yeop Lee, currently with the Samsung Lions of the KBO and formerly with the Marines, Giants and Buffaloes in NPB, hit his 600th career home run between the two leagues:

Lee joined the Samsung Lions in 1995 and became a regular almost immediately at the age of 18. He had his breakout season in 1997 where he hit 32 home runs and had 114 RBIS, leading the league in both categories for the first time. He stayed with Samsung through the 2003 season, leading the league in home runes four more times and RBIs three more times. He set a KBO (and at the time Asian baseball) record with 56 home runs in 2003. Following that season, he signed with the Chiba Lotte Marines and headed for Japan.

1999 Teleca #80

1999 Teleca Premium #52

1999 Teleca Premium "Sniper" #S-3

2000 Teleca "Super Game"

Lee spent his first two season in Japan with the Marines. He had modest numbers his first season but hit 30 home runs with 82 RBIs in his second season while helping Lotte win the Nippon Series. He hit .545 with 3 home runs and 6 RBIs in the Marines' four game sweep of the Tigers and received one of the three "Outstanding Player" awards for the Series.

2004 BBM 1st Version #113

2005 Konami Baseball Heroes "White Edition" #B05W159

2005 BBM Nippon Series #18

He left the Marines and signed with the Yomiuri Giants for the 2006 season. His first season with the Giants was his best season in Japan - a .323 batting average with 41 home runs and 108 RBIs. He followed that up with another 30+ home run season in 2007 but a number of circumstances (injuries, the 2008 Olympics and I think the foreign player limit on the active roster) started taking playing time away from him after that, although he did appear for the Giants in both the 2008 and 2009 Nippon Series. The Giants released him following the 2010 season.

2006 BBM 1st Version #382

2008 Calbee "Opening Game" #OP-02

He signed with the Orix Buffaloes for the 2011 season, hitting only .201 with 15 home runs and 51 RBIs. After the season he returned to Samsung and the KBO.

2011 BBM 1st Version #123

Lee has pretty much returned to form in the past five seasons with Samsung. He's hit over .300 with at least 20 home runs each season except for 2013. He is the all time KBO home run leader with 441 (as of last Wednesday).

2014 Super Star Baseball Season Two #SBC02-004-AS

2015 Super Star Baseball Season Two Sticker

Lee has played for the Korean national team in two Olympics -2004 and 2008 and also played for them in the 2006 World Baseball Classic. He hit five home runs in the 2006 WBC but none of them was a big as the two run shot he hit against Japan in the last game of Round 1 in the Tokyo Dome.

2006 Upper Deck WBC Moments #CM-27

For more cards of Lee, check out Dan Skrezyna's page for Lee on his KBO Cards blog.

H/T KBO Reddit for the video.

The Shikoku Island League was the first independent minor league in Japan. It started up in 2005. While there's been sets issued for each team over the years (in a similar manner to how US minor league teams issue team sets), BBM has never issued much in the way of cards for the league. From what I've been able to tell, BBM has only issued three cards for the league - all of which were inserts in Sports Card Magazine. I just got a package from Ryan yesterday and among the goodies in it were two of these three cards (and I had gotten the other one in a trade last years).

The first two cards were issued in SCM #53 which was published in September of 2005. The cards are of Masatochi Kakuno of the Tokushima Indigo Socks and Masaki Hiyashi of the Ehime Mandarin Pirates:

SCM #56

SCM #57

I don't know anything about Kakuno but Hayashi led the league in batting that season with a .322 average. Neither player appears to have ever played in NPB (there was another Masaki Hayashi who played for the Carp from 2001 to 2011).

It's possible that these two cards are promos for a BBM Shikoku Island league set but I've never seen or heard of one. One the other hand, I had never seen or heard of BBM's cards for the GPBL until Ryan found them last year so maybe there is one.

The other card is from 2009 and features Hideki Irabu. Irabu has last played professionally with the Hanshin Tigers in 2004. He appeared in 10 games in 2009 with the Long Beach Armada of the Golden Baseball League before returning to Japan and signing with the Kochi Fighting Dogs and appearing in two games late in the season (I'm not sure when exactly he was with Kochi - Baseball Reference says his last appearance with Long Beach was August 5 and I think Japanese Wikipedia says he pitched with Kochi in September). This was his final professional appearance. The card was issued in SCM #77 which I believe was published in late September of 2009 (which is why I'm not convinced that he only pitched for Kochi in September). The card is in the style of the 2009 BBM 2nd Version set (well, the 1st Version Update subset so it's really the style of the 1st Version set) and has a number of 810 which makes it what I call a "bonus" card for the 2009 BBM sets:

SCM #130

I mentioned the other day that I had gotten a package from Ryan the other day. Among the goodies were four recent box sets - well, I say "recent' but most of them were actually from late 2015 - early 2016. I thought I'd talk briefly about all four of them.

2015 Epoch Swallows Victory Memorial #09

2015 Epoch Swallows Victory Memorial #20

First up is the 2015 Epoch "Swallows Victory Memorial" set from last fall. This set commemorates the Swallows 2015 Central League pennant. The base set has 30 cards - 28 cards of the Swallows players such as Tetsuto Yamada, Wladimir Balentien, Tony Barnette, Shingo Kawabata, Kazuhiro Hatakeyama and Yasuhiro Ogawa, 1 card for manager Mitsuru Manaka and 1 card showing the team's celebration after clinching on October 2 last year. I don't think much of the card design - it's a little busier than I like - but I thought the actual photos Epoch used were quite good. You can see all the cards at Jambalaya.

2016 BBM Spirit Of Legends #36

2016 BBM Spirit Of Legends #01

In December BBM put out a box set called something like "Spirit Of Legends" that exclusively featured pitchers who had won the Sawamura award. This sounds like a good idea (and is the kind of theme that Epoch has featured in several of the box sets they've done with the OB Club) but I'm not real impressed with the execution of it. As is pretty much typical of a BBM OB set, most of the 36 players featured in the set played in the 1970's or later. Actually pretty much every Sawamura Award winner since 1970 is in the set - the only ones missing are Kazumi Takahashi, Shigeru Kobayashi and Hideo Nomo. But there's only a handful of the earlier ones - Shigeru Sugshita, Masaaki Koyama, Gene Bacque and Hiroshi Gondoh, leaving out guys like Yutaka Enatsu and Masaichi Kaneda. Most of the OB players in the set have appeared in other recent BBM sets. A number of the players included are currently playing in the US - Yu Darvish, Hisashi Iwakuma, Kenta Maeda, Masahiro Tanaka and Koji Uehara. I guess I just feel the set's a bit uninspired - the design is kind of blah and many of the photos are grainy. You can judge them yourself by taking a look at the cards over at Jambalaya.

2016 BBM Farewell #08

2016 BBM Farewell #02

BBM issued their annual set for retiring ballplayers in January. I call this set "Farewell" but the translation of the official title is something along the lines of "Regret at Parting Ball Players". This year's edition has 38 cards featuring 38 different players (as opposed to previous years which featured multiple cards for certain players). Everyone you'd expect to be in the set is there - Masahiro Yamamoto, Yoshinobu Takahashi, Motonobu Tanishige, Michihiro Ogasawara, Kazuhiro Wada, Fumiya Nishiguchi, Satoshi Nakajima, Hirokazu Ibata. There's not really a lot to say about this set - the photos all seem to be from last year. Many of them are from the retirement ceremonies for the players. Notably missing is Nobuhiko Matsunaka because he didn't officially announce his retirement until February - a month after this set was released. I assume he will be in this winter's version of the set. Jambalaya (as usual) has all the cards from the set on-line.

2016 BBM Go Higher #3

2016 BBM Go Higher #5

2016 BBM Go Higher #9

2016 BBM Go Higher #16

The final box set that Ryan picked up for me is the "Go Higher" set that BBM released in June. This set features Shohei Ohtani of the Fighters and Shintaro Fujinami of the Tigers. The 18 cards in the set include seven of each player and another four showing both of them. Each card commemorates various events in the player's careers - their draft in the fall of 2012, each player's debut, first post season appearance, etc. I really like the card showing Ohtani batting against Fujinami (card # 5 from above) but the whole set is pretty nice. Once again you can see all the cards in the set at Jambalaya.

The Yokohama DeNA Baystars clinched a playoff spot last week, This is the first time that the Baystars have made the Climax Series since the Central League adopted the playoff format in 2007. The last time the Baystars played beyond the end of the regular season was 1998 when they defeated the Seibu Lions in the Nippon Series. This was only the second time that the franchise had appeared in the Series - the only other time was 1960 when they were known as the Taiyo Whales and defeated the Daimai Orions.

Here's a couple cards commemorating the 1998 Championship:

1998 BBM Nippon Series #S62

1999 BBM #36

Sports Card Magazine #119 was published in Japan yesterday and by way of Amazon Japan and DHL I had my copy today. Here's the summary:

Color Section:
- Three page overview of the cards available for gymnast Kohei Uchimura
- Ads for Genesis (4 pages), Masterpiece (2 pages), Classic (1 page), the Takahiro Arai/Hiroki Kuroda "200 Wins & 2000 Hits", the Carp Autographed Edition, the Fighters Authentic Edition (Climax) and the Rooke Edition Premium box sets (1/2 page each), Japan Rugby Top League set (2 pages) and Original Smile (Giants cheerleader/dance squad) box set (1 page)

Monthly "Bests":
Best Card Of This Month: 2016 BBM 2nd Version Louis Okoye & Shun Takayama Undershirt & Jersey card
Best Item Of This Month: 2016 BBM 2nd Version box

Hot Card Lists
Rookies:
1. 2016 BBM 1st Version Shun Takayama (#238)
2. 2016 BBM 1st Version Eigoro Mogi (#158)
3. 1993 BBM Ichiro Suzuki (#239)
4. 2016 BBM 1st Version Shota Imanaga (#318)
5. 2016 BBM 1st Version Louis Okoye (#156)
6. 2016 BBM 1st Version Masataka Yoshida (#126)
7. 2016 BBM 1st Version Taiga Hirosawa (#075)
8. 2016 BBM 1st Version Shinnosuke Shigenobu (#210)
9. 2013 BBM 1st Version Shohei Ohtani (#183)
10. 2016 BBM 1st Version Shinnosuke Ogasawara (#292)

Autograph & Memorabilia:
1. 2016 BBM Go Higher Shohei Ohtani Autograph card
2. 2016 BBM Classic Shohei Ohtani Autograph card
3. 2016 BBM Tigers Fumihito Haraguchi/Shintaro Fujinami Autograph card
4. 2016 BBM Tigers Autographed Edition Shun Takayama Autograph card
5. 2016 BBM 2nd Version Louis Okoye Autograph card
6. 2016 BBM 2nd Version Shinnosuke Ogasawara Autograph card
7. 2016 J-League Sei Muroya Autograph card
8. 2016 BBM 2nd Version Ami Imamura "Ceremonial First Pitch" Autograph card
9. 2016 BBM Classic Keishi Suzuki "Buy Back" Autograph card (2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9)
10. 2016 BBM Sumo Chiyonofuji Mitsugu Autograph card

"Newsprint" Section:
- Baseball players in the "Masterpiece" set (2 pages)
- Athletes from other sports in the "Masterpiece" set (2 pages)
- Photo shoot from "Original Smile" including all 19 of the yukata shots (2 pages)
- Box Break Contest - four collectors each open a box of 2016 BBM 2nd Version and are rated on what they pulled (2 pages)
- Card Shop Navi - Match Up in Nagoya
- New Card List contains checklists for the sets advertised in the color section
- "Vintage" Checklist and Price Guide is for J-League cards along with recent cards for all sports

SCM Original Cards:

Masterpiece promo (or bonus - not quite sure) cards for Shigeo Nagashima, Tomoaki Kanemoto, Tetsuto Yamada, Kazu (Soccer), Toshihiko Seko (Track & Field) and Hidehiko Yoshida (Judo)

SCM #382

SCM #383

Notes:

- BBM is celebrating their 70th anniversary as a magazine publishing house this year by publishing a multi-sport set called Masterpiece. I haven't seen anything about it on BBM's website yet but the details are up at Niki (and of course this issue of SCM). The base set has 128 cards - 36 OB baseball players, 36 active baseball players, 55 athletes from other sports and a checklist. There's four 18 card insert sets (Glorious 3D, Stay Gold, Super Star and Sparkling Hero) and a wide variety of autograph cards (which of course was the reason for the set). It'll be out in late October.

- The two page ad for Masterpiece includes a half page of something that could be a related set called "Fusion" but I'm not sure what it is exactly. There's no checklist for it in the New Card List. At the moment I'm much more interested in it than in Masterpiece but that's just me...

- Normally if the SCM card is a promo card it has the number from the set it's a promo for on its back. None of these do which makes me wonder if they're some sort of bonus card instead. I do know that all three baseball players are in the set (Nagashima is card #022, Kanemoto is #027 and Yamada is #057).

- I was surprised that a sumo card from early in the year made the "Autograph & Memorabilia" Hot Card list but I then discovered that Chiyonofuji Mitsugu had passed away at the end of July

I recently picked up a box of 2011 Bandai Owners League 04 from a seller on Amazon.com - and in this case I do mean the US Amazon.com. Jay Shelton had been telling me for a while that these were available fairly cheaply but I usually don't do much with the collectible card game cards so I never did anything about it. But I recently discovered a reason to be interested in these.

Let me explain. BBM issues two "flagship" sets each year - the 1st Version set that is published in mid-April and the 2nd Version set that is published in mid-August. Both sets go to press much earlier than that - I suspect that the 1st Version's cut off is mid February and 2nd Version's cut off is around the end of May. But the "trade" deadline for NPB is the end of July - this is the latest date in the season that a team can add a new player. So there's two months of the season where a team could sign a new player or make a trade that would not be reflected in one of BBM's flagship sets. Now BBM does publish their high end set in mid-September but that tends to be a small set and most likely won't include any newly acquired players. Calbee also puts out a set in mid-September but it is a small set too - and usually it contains players who were also in their earlier sets for the year. So the chances of one of these new or traded players making it on to a baseball card is pretty slim. Or are they?

Bandai started putting out the Owner League sets in 2010. They issued four sets a year through last year (looks like they have not published any cards this year) called "01", "02", "03" and "04". I don't know for sure what time of year the fourth series comes out, but it is apparently late enough in the season to get some of these players. For example - in 2010 the Eagles signed former Hanshin Tigers pitcher Keiichi Yabu to a contract on July 31st after he'd spent five seasons in North America. He appears in the 2010 Owners League 04 set - his only other card with the Eagles that I know of is the 2014 BBM Eagles 10th Year Memoral set. Similarly Alfredo Despaigne, Duente Heath and Nick Evans signed with the Marines, Carp and Eagles respectively in late July of 2014. The only BBM cards they had that year were in Sports Card Magazine #107 but they all three appeared in the Owners League 04 set (along with several others who signed after 2nd Version went to press).

So my curiosity about the "04" sets was piqued and I wondered if the 2011 edition could help answer a question I've had for a bit. On June 30th of 2011, the Yomouri Giants acquired long time Chiba Lotte Marine Saburo Ohmura. Saburo (his registered name) remained with the Giants for the remainder of the 2011 season but he resigned with the Marines for 2012. As far as I know, he never had a BBM card showing him with the Giants. So did he appear in the Owners League 04 set that year? I took a look at The Trading Card Database but unfortunately they did not have the checklist for the 2011 set. But I remembered that Jay had told me I could find these boxes on Amazon and I had just gotten a gift card for my birthday so I decided to give it a shot. I was able to find the box for about $14 and it was delivered a few weeks later.

The set itself has 156 total cards, although I think the base set really only has 132 cards - 48 of which are possibly short-printed. There are 12 "Legend" cards and 12 "Idol" cards that I think are considered inserts. The "Legend" cards feature OB players while the "Idol" cards feature mascots. The possible short-printed cards are 12 "Great" cards, 12 "Super Star" cards and 24 "Star" cards. All of these are active players. The remainder of the cards are either "white" (48 cards) or "black" (36 cards). If you hadn't already guessed, each of these groups of cards are split evenly between the 12 teams.

Wrapper

The box contained 20 3 card packs for a total of 60 cards. I was extremely surprised and pleased that I didn't get any doubles in the set. Here's the breakdown:

Legend - 1
Idol - 2
Great - 1
Super Star - 1
Star - 3
White - 29
Black - 23

So did I get Saburo? In the very first pack I opened:

#093

There are several other players in the set that were newly acquired by their teams - Brian Barden of the Carp, Ryan Mulhern of the Lions and Luis Garcia of the Eagles. Barden and Garcia would remain with their teams in 2012 and have BBM cards that year but Mulhern did not return to the Lions so this is his only NPB card that I know of. A number of the other players in the set did not appear in either of BBM's flagship sets in 2011 although they did not change teams. And the set also contains a number of bigger names like Masahiko Morino, Norihiro Nakamura, Tomoya Satozaki and Shinya Miyamoto. As you would expect, the short-printed "Great", "Super Star" and "Star" cards are all big names - Kenta Maeda, Yoshio Itoi, and Hisayoshi Chono are among the cards I got.

Here's some more example cards:

Legend #012

Idol #01

#057 "Great"

#089 "Super Star"

#113 "Star"

#019

#071

#132

#043

While this was fun, I'm still don't think I'm much of a fan of the Owners League cards. I like getting complete sets and I think the short prints would make it difficult to put these sets together. I will consider buying boxes of the other "04" sets however

The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters clinched the Pacific League pennant last Wednesday behind the outstanding pitching of Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani threw a complete game, 1 hit shutout of the Lions to give the team their first first place finish since 2012. He struck out 15 in the process. Here's his pitching highlights via Pacific League TV:

BBM's Fighters set this year included an 11 card subset called "Brilliant Stars" that showed several of the young Fighters players in street clothes. I assume this was BBM's answer to the Pro Yakyuu AI set from last spring. Here's Ohtani's card from the subset:

2016 BBM Fighters #F68

More New Stuff

Card Of The Week August 21

Variants In BBM's Flagship Sets

Card Of The Week August 28

2016 BBM 2nd Version Set

Shohei Ohtani Rookie Cards

1973 Calbee Book

Card Of The Week September 4

Noppin

More Memories Of Uniforms - Baystars Edition

The Future Will Be In Stock

Quick Report From Lancaster

Card Of The Week September 11

Seung Yeop Lee

Card Of The Week September 18

Recent Box Sets

Card Of The Week September 25

Sports Card Magazine #119

2011 Bandai Owners League 04 Box Break

Card Of The Week October 2