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RIP BBM All Star Set Part One

September 15, 2013, 1:19 pm
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It's looking more and more like BBM has decided to discontinue the annual All Star box set.  BBM had produced this box set featuring all the players who had made the All Star teams each year they produced cards, starting in 1991.


That first set in 1991 included 62 cards - for each of the two leagues' teams there were 28 cards for the players, a card for the manager (as in MLB the manager is the manager from the previous year's Nippon Series team) and 2 cards for the coaches for the team (two other managers from the league - so half the managers in NBP appear in each set).  This established the pattern for the base cards that would continue for the rest of sets - the only things that would change were the number of player cards (since the number of players on the teams would rise and fall) and additional subsets, inserts and parallels would be added.

The 1991 set also established a pattern that would last 10 year - the card design of the base cards would closely resemble that of the "flagship" set for that year.  There was one thing though that BBM did with the 1991 set that they never did again - they numbered the set as a continuation of the "flagship" set, starting with number 401.

91 BBM All Stars #404
The 1992 set would grow to 66 cards as apparently the number of players on each team went to 30 that year.  The Central League player cards had a gold border while the Pacific League cards had a silver border.

1992 BBM All Star #A49
In 1993, the team size dropped back to 28 although for some reason - probably an injury to someone - the Central League team had 29 players, so the set had 63 cards.  As in 1992, the CL cards had gold borders and the PL had silver.

1993 BBM All Stars #A28
BBM decided to try to punch things up a little in 1994.  Each box contained two of six possible "All Star Electric MVP" insert cards.  The cards included the six players who had been named MVP of the All Star games from 1991 to 1993 (there were actually seven games but Atsuya Furuta was the MVP of two of them).  In addition, BBM added a big graphic on the card indicating that the player was selected to the team via the fan vote - previously there had just been a small line of text on the card.  I believe that this 64 card set (62 regular cards plus 2 inserts) contains the first card where Ichiro Suzuki is only referred to by his first name.

1994 BBM All Stars #A42

1994 BBM All Stars Insert #E3
The 1995 set also included inserts but this time each box only contained one of two possible cards (in addition to the 62 regular cards).  The inserts were the MVPs from the two All Star games in 1994.

1995 BBM All Stars #A14

1995 BBM All Stars Insert #E1
Some more changes were in store for the 1996 set.  Instead of insert cards, BBM included two cards showing the award winners (including the MVP) for each of the 1995 All Star games.  In addition the set also included an oversized (2.5 inch by 4.74 inch) card of Ichiro in honor of him getting the most votes overall).  With the addition of these cards and each team growing to 30 players again, the set grew to 69 cards.

1996 BBM All Stars #A37

1996 BBM All Stars #A68

1996 BBM All Stars #A69
The 1997 set was very similar to the 1996 set.  The subset for the previous year's All Star game award winners was included again, although since there were three games in 1996 there were three cards in the subset.  There was an oversized card (same size as the year before) of Hideki Matsui included labelled "Monster Season" - it's not for getting the most votes as the back of the card shows that Matsui got the fourth most votes - Ichiro got the most again.  Since the team sizes dropped to 28 again, the set actually shrunk a card to 66 cards.

1997 BBM All Stars #A41

1997 BBM All Stars #A63

1997 BBM All Stars #A66
For the 1998 set BBM decided that one oversized card was not enough, so they included three in the set - two for the 1997 All Star MVPs (Kazuo Matsui and Kazuhiro Kiyohara) and one for Kazuhiro Sasaki (like the Hideki Matsui card in 1997, this was not for being the top vote getter).  The oversized cards increased to post card size (3.5 by 5 inches).  Despite the big MVP cards, the set still contains the group Award Winner subset.  With the teams remaining at 28 players, the set contained 67 cards in all.

1998 BBM All Stars #A15

1998 BBM All Stars #A66
The 1999 set is a little busier than the earlier sets.  The teams went back to 30 players so there were 66 "regular" cards of players, coaches and managers.  The 1998 All Star MVPs (Kenshin Kawakami and Hideki Matsui) were commemorated with the postcard sized cards again.  But the group Award cards were not included (and really wouldn't be included ever again).  Instead BBM included a card of Daisuke Matsuzaka labelled "Super Rookie".  There was a parallel version of this card included in roughly a quarter of the boxes - I'm not sure what the nature of the "parallel" was (gold text?  kira?).  There was also a card included in the set that commemorated Yutaka Enatsu's performance in one of the 1971 All Star games (nine consecutive strikeouts in a game that the CL nohit the PL - he also homered in the game) - no idea why this card was included in the set unless it was some sort of "best All Star game moment of the 20th Century" thing.  The set reached a total of 70 cards for the first time.

1999 BBM All Stars #A11

1999 BBM All Stars #A69

1999 BBM All Stars #A67
For the tenth All Star set in 2000, BBM released a set that pretty much set the pattern for the remainder of the sets.  In addition to the 66 "regular" cards (the teams remained at 30 players), there were three cards (regular sized) for the MVPs of the 1999 All Star games along with a single card (also regular sized) for the top vote getter (Ichiro again).  The set did included two more oversized cards for "All Star Game Memorial Scenes" - two top scenes from the previous 10 years.  One of these was Ichiro pitching in one of the 1996 games (he was supposed to pitch to Hideki Matsui but since Katsuya Nomura has no sense of humor, he ended up pitching to Shingo Takatsu instead).  The other was for Atsuya Furuta becoming the first player to ever hit for the cycle in an All Star game in 1992.  The set ended up containing 72 cards.

2000 BBM All Stars #A43

2000 BBM All Stars #A69

2000 BBM All Stars #A71

I'll cover the rest of the sets in another post in the next few days.
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RIP BBM All Star Set Part Two

September 17, 2013, 7:11 pm
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Continuing my review of the until this year perennial All Star box set from BBM...

Some changes were in effect for the eleventh edition of the set in 2001.  The biggest change was that instead of the regular cards having a design that resembled the "flagship" set, they would have a whole new design that was completely unrelated to the "flagship".  The other change is that for the first time since 1995 there would be no oversized cards included with the set.  The All Star rosters grew to 32 for each team so there were 70 "regular" card (when you included the managers and coaches).  BBM also included another five cards in the set - a "Number One Vote Getter" card for Hideki Matsui, a card showing the MVPs for all three of the All Star games from 2000, two cards celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the first All Star game in 1951 (one showing the team from each league), and an odd two-sided card with Hideki Matsui on one side and Alex Cabrera on the other.  This pushed the number of cards in the set to 75, the largest yet.

2001 BBM All Stars #A71

2001 BBM All Stars #A73

2001 BBM All Stars #A42
The big innovation for the 2002 set was that for the first time BBM included random memorabilia cards.  There were rare versions of each of the three 2001 MVP cards - 500 possible Roberto Petagine bat cards, 40 possible Kazuo Matsui autographed cards and 10 possible Norihiro Nakamura autographed cards.  The more common version of each card had a facsimile autograph in for the Matsui and Nakamura cards and a picture of a piece of wood for the Petagine card.  Once again the set featured a card of the "Number One Vote Getter" (Hideki Matsui again).  The rosters dropped to 28 again (and the Pacific League had an extra player this time) so there were 63 "regular" cards to go with the other four for a total of 67 cards in the set.

2002 BBM All Stars #A65 (Not the real bat)

2002 BBM All Stars #A48
The 2003 set also included possible memorabilia cards.  Each set included some form of signed cards for Tuffy Rhodes and Makoto Imaoka.  The "regular" version just had a simple facsimile autograph.  There were also a set of facsimile autograph cards that were serially numbered to 300 for each player.  Lastly, there were 50 cards for each player that were actually signed by the player.  These cards were not the "regular" cards for the two - they weren't even numbered as part of the set.  The team rosters were 28 again but once again one of the teams (the CL this time) had an extra player for some reason.  Since the 2002 All Star series only had two games, there was only two MVP cards along with another "Number One Vote Getter" card (Imaoka).  All this added up to 68 cards in the set.

2003 BBM All Stars #TR

2003 BBM All Stars #A4
The 2004 through 2009 sets are all very similar.  In addition to the "regular" cards (62 in each set except 2007 which had 66), each set had a card for the "Number One Vote Getter" and the MVPs of the two All Star games from the previous year (so each set was 65 cards except 2007 which was 69).  The big innovation in the sets was the addition of a parallel version of the "Fan Selected" cards - 100 serially numbered versions of the card of each of the "Fan Selected" players on the teams - the text on the front of each card was gold instead of just black text. (NOTE - I don't know for sure if the 2009 set has them.)  Starting with the 2008 set a graphic was added to each card indicating if it was the player's first All Star appearance.

Sanyo stopped sponsoring the All Star games after 2006.  Gulliver was the 2007 sponsor after which Mazda picked it up.

Oddly, BBM's logo does not appear on the front of the cards after 2003.

2004 BBM All Stars #A65

2004 BBM All Stars #A41 (Parallel Version)

2005 BBM All Stars #A65

2005 BBM All Stars #A24

2006 BBM All Stars #A63

2006 BBM All Stars #A06 (Parallel Version)

2007 BBM All Stars #A67

2007 BBM All Stars #A50

2008 BBM All Stars #A64

2008 BBM All Stars #A46

2009 BBM All Stars #A65

2009 BBM All Stars #A60
BBM had a big new idea for the 2010 set.  All the sets previously were released in mid to late July, to coincide with the actual All Star games.  The pictures were all just random shots of the players taken during the season.  In 2010, BBM decided that they would delay the release of the set until late August so that they could use pictures taken during the All Star games themselves (kind of like how for the Nippon Series sets they use pictures from the Series itself).  They also decided to have possible memorabilia cards in this set - there's a version of the "Number One Vote Getter" and MVPs cards that contain a piece of a ball.  (Not sure how many of the memorabilia cards were available.)  The more common, non-memorabilia version of the card was labeled a "Non-Ball" card.  The MVPs were the ones from the 2010 All Star games, so the MVPs from the 2009 games were never commemorated in a set.  The set contained 67 cards in all.

2010 BBM All Stars #A67

2004 BBM All Stars #A59
More changes were in store for the 2011 set.  As with 2010, the set featured photos taken during the 2011 All Star games (three for the first time since 2001).  The All Star rosters grew to 32 so there were 70 "regular" cards in the set.  There were cards for the MVPs of the three games but there was no card for the "Number One Vote Getter" for the first time since 1999.  (I don't know if there were any parallel or memorabilia cards available in the sets.)  BBM decided that they didn't have enough icons on the cards so they added new ones to indicate if a player had been voted in via the payer vote or the "+1" vote.

2011 BBM All Stars #A73

2011 BBM All Stars #A66
For what apparently was BBM's final All Star set in 2012, BBM kind of went back to the basics of the first few sets.  The set only contained the 70 player cards - no subsets of the game MVPs, no "Number One Vote Getter" card, no nothing.  BBM indicated the MVP winners by putting yet another icon on the player's card.  Like the 2011 set, I don't know if there were any parallel or memorabilia cards available.

2012 BBM All Star Game #A33

2012 BBM All Star Game #A39
I have mixed feelings about BBM ending this set.  On the one hand, it was an easy set to pick up if you just wanted to get a sense who some of the top players in Japan were.  Since there's only six teams in each league and they play two to three games, there's a lot less chance that a good player is going to get snubbed the way it happens in the US.  On the other hand, there's also a lot of guys who aren't necessarily the top tier who end up making the team as well for the same reason (I'm looking at you Yu-Chan).  And I have to say that some of the designs in the past 12 years have been remarkably ugly.  I think I will miss the set, but if BBM chooses to end the annual Nippon Series set as well, I will miss that set much more.

I want to credit the 7th Edition of Gary Engel's "Japanese Baseball Cards Checklist And Price Guide" for help with information about the 1991 to 2007 editions of the set.
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Tomonori Maeda

October 20, 2013, 12:02 pm
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Yet another player who has retired as of the end of the season is Tomonori Maeda, longtime Hiroshima Toyo Carp.  Maeda was drafted by the Carp in the fourth round of the 1990 draft (held in the fall of 1989).  He made his debut with the ichi-gun Carp in the 1990 season and has played for no one else during his entire 24 year career (well, 23 years according to Baseball Reference as he missed the entire 2009 season).

Maeda's rookie card is from the debut BBM issue in 1991 (#14).  He is one of only four players who have appeared in at least one of BBM's flagship's sets each year since 1991 - he, Takeshi Yamasaki and Masa Yamamoto have been in either a 1st or 2nd Version set from 2002-2013 as well as the regular set from 1991-2001.  Motonobu Tanishige has been in every regular set from 1991-2001 as well as each 1st and 2nd Version set from 2002-2013.  His first Calbee card was #99 in the 1992 set.

1991 BBM #14

Except for time missed with injury, Maeda was one of the starting outfielders for the Carp from 1991 to 2008.  He hit over .300 several times and hit more than 30 home runs once, in 2005.  He ended up with a career batting average of .302 with 295 home runs.

1994 Calbee Hokkaido #C-5

1999 The TV Sports

2003 Calbee #113

2005 Lotte #12

2008 BBM 2nd Version #607

After coming back from injury in 2010, Maeda was a full time pinch hitter/DH for interleague games.

2012 Hiroshima Athlete Magazine Starting Lineup #13

Maeda never led the league in any category that BBM does Leader subset cards for.  He did lead the Central League in doubles twice (1993, 1998) and total bases once (1993).  He also won the Comeback Award in 2002 (which gave him his sole Leader subset card in 2003).

2003 BBM 1st Version #403

He reached 2000 hits on September 1, 2007.

2010 BBM 20th Anniversary #248

He made the All Star team 7 times - 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2005, 2007 and 2008.

1996 BBM All Stars #A10

The Carp only made the Nippon Series once during his career in 1991 (and unfortunately won't be returning this year), losing to the Seibu Lions in seven games.

1991 BBM Nippon Series #S55

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Shingo Ono

October 21, 2013, 5:36 pm
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With the Eagles defeating the Marines today I no longer have an excuse to not do posts on the last two retirement players (not that either was playing for the Marines in the playoffs).  I'll do Ono tonight and try to get to Yabuta tomorrow.

Shingo Ono was a sixth round pick of the Marines back in the 1994 draft (and I always I feel compelled to mention that this draft was held in the fall of 1993).  His rookie card was from the 1994 BBM set (#528).  He did not have a Calbee card until his breakout season of 2000 (#157).

1994 BBM #528

Ono spent most of his first five seasons with the Marines pitching in the minors.  He had two appearances at the ichi-gun level in 1997 and 1998.  He make it into 10 games in 1999 and moved into the rotation as a regular starter in 2000.  As I mentioned before, 2000 was a breakout season for him as he went 13-5.  He remained in the rotation for much of the following 12 seasons (although there were a few that he mostly worked out of the bullpen).  The only season that he approached the win-loss record he had in 2000 was 2005 when he went 10-4.  He spent all of 2013 playing for the Marines ni-gun team and decided to retire partly because he had not been able to return to the top team.

1998 BBM #266

2006 BBM Marines #M86

2008 BBM Lotte 40th Anniversary #88

2010 Calbee #183

Not to keep harping on it, but 2000 was far and away his best season.  It was the only year that he made the All Star team and it was the only year that he lead the league in any category that BBM commemorates (Winning Percentage).

2000 BBM All Stars #A54

2001 BBM #26

He played in two Nippon Series for the Marines - 2005 and 2010, both won by the Marines.

2005 BBM Nippon Series #05

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Delay Of Game

October 22, 2013, 2:00 am
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2009 Epoch All Japan Baseball Foundation #38

Today is the 35th anniversary of an interesting event in a Nippon Series game.  On October 22, 1978 the Hankyu Braves played the Yakult Swallows in Game Seven of the Nippon Series.  (Curiously it looks like the Swallows were playing their home games in the Series at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo rather than their normal home stadium of Meiji Jingu Stadium, probably due to the higher capacity of Korakuen, home of the Giants.)  During the game, Katsuo Osugi of the Swallows hit what the umpires called a home run down the left line.  Hankyu manager Toshiharu Ueda came out and argued that the ball was foul.  And argued.  And argued.  Ueda eventually pulled his team off the field as he continued to argue that the ball was foul.  Finally, after an hour and nine minutes, the umpires appealed to the NPB commissioner who concurred with their call.  Osugi would hit another home run later in the game for good measure (he hit four in the Series, winning the MVP award) and Charlie Manuel contributed one as well as the Swallows won 4-0 to win their first ever Nippon Series.

The Japanese Wikipedia entry on the 1978 Nippon Series appears to go into a lot of detail on why Ueda felt the ball was foul although the Google translation is a little confusing.

I looked around a little on YouTube but I couldn't find any video of the home run.  I do have a couple pictures from the argument from a couple of books.  This first picture is from the 1999 NPB publication "The Legend Of 50 Years" celebrating the first 50 years of the two league system.


This second picture is from a mook I bought last March at Shosen Grande in Jinbocho about the Hankyu Braves:



UPDATE - found an interview with Ueda from 1989 or 1990 (when he was still managing the Braves only now they were the Orix Braves) where he talks about this game.  There's a couple clips from the game itself but nothing that's definitive at all.  It looks like Osugi didn't know if it was fair or foul either.

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Yasuhiko Yabuta

October 22, 2013, 5:20 pm
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There's one last player who retired at the end of the season that I wanted to do a post about and that player is Yasuhiko Yabuta of the Chiba Lotte Marines.

I did a post for Yabuta back in 2007 when he signed with the Royals so I won't be showing too many cards here.

He was a second round draft pick of the Marines in the 1996 draft.  His rookie card was #501 from the 1996 BBM set.  He also has a card in the Takara Marines set from 1996.  His first Calbee card was not until 2006 (#006).

Yabuta spent much of the first eight years of his career as a starter (when he wasn't injured or in the minors).  He switch to the bullpen pretty much full time in 2004 and had a lot more success that way.  He appears to have mostly pitched in middle relief before he left for the US for the 2008 season.  After two seasons with the Royals, he returned to the Marines.  He was back in middle relief in 2010 but became Lotte's closer in 2011 and 2012.  I'm not entirely sure what happened to him this year but he didn't make any appearances at the ichi-gun level.  I suspect that he was injured all year.

2000 BBM #554

2007 Calbee #247

2013 BBM 1st Version #279

Yabuta made two All Star teams (in 2005 and 2007) and played in two Nippon Series (2005 & 2010).  He only lead the league in a category that BBM cares about once, in 2007 (Hold Points).

2008 BBM 1st Version #458

2010 BBM Nippon Series #S12

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2014 NPB Draft

October 24, 2013, 5:12 pm
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NPB held their draft today and as usual, Deanna and Gen each live blogged it - Deanna pulling an all-nighter to do so as the draft started at 1 AM California time.  Deanna also did a photo-post previewing the players eligible for the draft.  Gen has a list of picks broken down for each team in the Central and Pacific leagues.

As usual there were a handful of guys from the Tokyo Big Six who got drafted.  Here's my annual list of guys drafted today that already have baseball cards from BBM's Tokyo Big Six sets.

All sets are from BBM.  I'm only listing regular cards as I don't have a complete list of the insert cards.

Akihiro Hakumura, Keio (Fighters #6)


2013 Tokyo Big Six Version #16 (Shown)

Tomoya Mikami, Hosei by way of JX-ENEOS (Baystars #4)


2009 Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #02 (Shown)
2011 Tokyo Big Six Spring Version #13
2011 Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #13

Naomichi Nishiura, Hosei (Swallows #2)


2013 Tokyo Big Six #04 (Shown)

Hiromi Oka, Meiji (Fighters #3)


2012 Tokyo Big Six #01 (Shown)
2013 Tokyo Big Six #20

 If it wasn't obvious from how I put it, Mikami is a former Hosei player who's been playing for JX-ENEOS in the industrial leagues the last year or so.  I think I've missed some players like him in previous years but now that I have my cards in a real database I should be able to find these guys as well.

UPDATE - One more card I forgot about.  Well, not really a card, more a "card".  Sports Card Magazine #95 last fall had  a two page spread featuring "fictional cards" - front and backs of four cards that only existed on these pages.  There were three female athletes - Kasumi Ishikawa (table tennis), Saori Kimura (volleyball) and Yoko Tanaka (soccer) as well as Toko Gakuen High School pitcher Yuki Matsui, who had struck out a record 22 batters in a game during the 2012 Koshien tournament.  Matsui was taken by the Eagles in the first round:


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Nippon Series Substitute Ballparks

October 25, 2013, 7:53 am
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1992 BBM #482

Weather permitting, tomorrow Miyagi Baseball Stadium in Sendai, home of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles,  will host a Nippon Series game for the first time.  This is not, however, the first time that the tenants of the ballpark will play in the Series.  The Lotte Orions called Sendai home from 1973 to 1977.  They won the Pacific League pennant in 1974, however NPB decided that the ballpark's capacity was too small for the Series and relocated the Orions' home games to Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo, home of the Giants and Fighters.  (The Pacific League Playoff between the Orions and the Hankyu Braves was allowed to take place in the ballpark however.)  Between reading about this and noting in this post the other day that the Swallows used Korakuen Stadium as their home ballpark in the 1978 Series instead of their normal home ballpark of Jinju Stadium, I got curious to see how often it has happened that the Nippon Series has moved a team to another ballpark.  It turns out that it's happened a handful of times.

- 1962 - the Toei Flyers beat the Hanshin Tigers four games to two (with one tie).  The Flyers played their home games at Meiji Jingu Stadium in 1962 and 1963 (I think they got displaced from the ballpark they were playing in in Setagaya ward in Tokyo by a stadium being built for the 1964 Olympics).  Games Three and Four of the Series were played in Jingu but Game Five was moved to Korakuen Stadium (where the Flyers would move in 1964 and remain until the ballpark was replaced in 1987).  Bizarrely, it looks like the Game Five was moved due to a schedule conflict with college baseball being played at Jingu.

- 1974 - the Lotte Orions beat the Chunichi Dragons four games to two.  Lotte's home games in the Series (Games Three, Four and Five) were moved from Miyagi Baseball Stadium in Sendai to Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo due to the low seating capacity in Sendai.

- 1978 - the Yakult Swallows beat the Hankyu Braves four games to three.  Yakult's home games (Games One, Two, Six and Seven) were moved from Mejii Jingu Stadium to Korakuen Stadium due again to scheduling conflicts between the Series and college baseball games.

- 1979 - the Hiroshima Toyo Carp beat the Kintetsu Buffaloes four games to three.  Kintetsu played their home games in Fujiidera Stadium in Osaka.  Fujiidera did not have lights at the time and so was unable to host any night games for the Series.  The Buffaloes home games in the Series (Games One, Two, Six and Seven) were moved to Osaka Stadium, home of the Nankai Hawks.

- 1980 - the Hiroshima Toyo Carp beat the Kintetsu Buffaloes four games to three (again).  Once again, Kintetsu's home games (Games Three, Four and Five) were moved to Osaka Stadium.  Lights were added to Fujiidera Stadium in 1984 so that the next time the Buffaloes lostmade the Series in 1989, they were able to play at their home park.

1992 BBM #109

There were two other Nippon Series that were played in ballparks other than the home parks of the two teams involved.  The first Nippon Series in 1950 was apparently played as a tour across Japan.  The six games between the Mainichi Orions and the Shochiku Robins (Orions won 4 games to 2) were played in Jingu, Korakuen, Koshien, Nishinomiya (home of the Hankyu Braves), Nagoya and Osaka Stadiums.  The 1953 Series between the Giants and the Hawks had a very odd breakdown of games.  Instead of the standard 2-3-2 pattern the schedule was quite different.  The first two games were played in Osaka (home of the Hawks), the next two were played in Korakuen.  Game Five was played back in Osaka, Game Six was played in Koshien(!?) and Game Seven was played in Korakuen.  I have no idea why this Series and only this Series has this weird schedule.

I got some of the information for this from the Nippon Series page on Japanese Wikipedia, specifically a section on "Irregular Schedule".
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Fly Eagles Fly

October 26, 2013, 10:47 am
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BBM announced a couple Eagles-related sets this past week:

- First Crown is a box set commemorating the Eagles's first ever Pacific League championship (if I'm not mistaken, NPB treats the 1st place teams for each league as the League Champion, regardless of whether or not the team wins the Climax Series).  The set will contain 27 base set cards for the Eagles players (and manager Senichi Hoshino I assume) and one "special" card - possibly an autograph, memorabila, foil autograph or photo card.  The set will be out in late November.

- I'm to assume that what BBM wants to call this next set is something like "Invincibility Legend" but Google translate is coming up with "Invincibility Myth" which doesn't sound as good.  This is another 28 card box set dedicated to Masahiro Tanaka.  I think it's to celebrate Tanaka going 24-0 this year rather than a biography set for Tanaka (which BBM did for him back in 2010).  You've probably already guessed that the set contains 27 base set cards and one "special" card.  In addition to the usual autograph cards, it looks like the "special" card could also be a metallic card or a card with part of the pitching rubber from Miyagi Baseball Stadium.  This set will also be released in late November.
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Card Of The Week October 27

October 27, 2013, 2:30 am
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I saw some interesting Nippon Series trivia on Yakyu Baka regarding Takehiro Norimoto of the Eagles.  Norimoto was only the third rookie pitcher ever to start Game One of the Nippon Series.  The first one was Nobuo Oshima, who started the very first Game One ever in 1950 for the Shochiku Robins.  The second was Taketoshi Ogami for the Nankai Hawks in 1952.  I thought it would be great to feature these guys this week but I don't have cards for either of them - both players' careers were rather short (Oshima was done after 1955 and Ogami was done after 1956) so neither have made any of BBM's OB sets.  And I don't happen to have any vintage cards of either (I know Oshima had at least one bromide card - don't know about Ogami).

Norimoto is the first rookie pitcher to start any Nippon Series game since Mitsuo Yoshikawa started Game Four for the Fighters in the 2007 Series.  I've got cards of Yoshikawa - here's his 2007 BBM Nippon Series card (#S35):


We won't have to wait six years for the next rookie pitcher to start a Nippon Series game - Tomoyuki Sugano is starting Game Two.  Norimoto actually pitched quite well in Game One - going eight innings with ten strikeouts and only giving up two runs.  Unfortunately the Eagles could not score any runs for him so he took the loss.  But I would expect him to get another start later in the Series - assuming the Eagles manage to win a game or two.
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BBM on Facebook

October 28, 2013, 1:29 pm
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Just noticed an ad on BBM's website labelled "Cards Navi".  Turns out that this is link to BBM's Facebook page which is called "BBM Cards Navi".  It looks like they just launched it about 10 days ago.  So far the posts look like the web pages for their new set announcements.  And, of course, it's all in Japanese.
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End Of An Era

October 28, 2013, 5:13 pm
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2008 BBM Hawks 70th Anniversary #04

I'm a couple weeks late on this but October 15th was the 25th Anniversary of the final game ever of the Nankai Hawks.  After 50 years of being owned by Nankai, the Hawks had been sold to Daiei and were moving from Osaka to Fukuoka.

I've been doing a lot of snooping around on YouTube lately, doing searches based on Kanji text and finding a lot of interesting clips.  One of the items I came across was a video of the closing ceremonies at Osaka Stadium that day.





It was a very moving ceremony.  After the team walked the team flag around the outfield, they all stood in a line from first to third across the infield.  One by one, each player and coach was announced - when each person was announced, they would step forward, bow in each direction to the fans and then walk off the field.  The roster was arranged in the typical Japanese style - coaches by number followed by pitchers by number, catchers by number, infielders by number and outfielders by number.  This meant that the Hawks biggest star at the time, Hiromitsu Kadota, an outfielder wearing uniform number 60, would be the last player on the field.  Once Kadota left, the only person left on the field was manager Tadashi Sugiura, who had been a star pitcher for the Hawks in the late '50's and early '60's.

1998 BBM Hawks #FD4

I attended the Baltimore Orioles final game at Memorial Stadium in 1991 and you would not have found a dry eye in the place - and the Orioles were only moving downtown.  As you would expect, the fans and some of the players were openly crying at this game, especially Kadota.  He actually refused to go to Fukuoka with the team and remained in Osaka for the next two years with the Orix Braves.

1987 Calbee #104

I had picked up a mook on the Nankai Hawks last March at Shosen Grande.  The first picture you see when you open it up is Kadota walking off the field that night:


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2013 Sawamura Award

October 29, 2013, 5:06 pm
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RIP Tetsuharu Kawakami

October 30, 2013, 2:03 pm
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Hall Of Famer Tetsuharu Kawakami passed away at age 93 on Monday of this week but the story did not make the news until today.  I did a post on Kawakami a few years back on the occasion of his 90th birthday so I won't say much more here, just show some cards:

1948 JCM 2

1948 JCM 102

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #T-13

2002 BBM Giants #G87

2011 Epoch All Japan Baseball Foundation Managers #01

Hmm, that's odd - that 1948 JCM 2 card of him shows him batting right handed when he was a left hander.  An uncorrected error card perhaps?

I found it interesting that both the Giants and the Eagles wore black ribbons on their uniforms in Game Four of the Nippon Series today in memory of Kawakami.
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Dual Champions Updated

November 2, 2013, 8:15 am
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I did a post a few years back listing all the guys who had played on both a World Series Champion and a Nippon Series Champion.  At the time, there were 10 players - five Westerners and five Japanese players.  On Wednesday of this week, Koji Uehara of the 2013 World Champion Boston Red Sox (sorry - as a Red Sox fan I really enjoy saying that phrase) became the eleventh player to do it, so I figured I should update the list.  Plus I actually now have Japanese cards of all eleven guys (thanks partly to the two gaijin OB sets BBM did last year) so I figured I could illustrate it a little better this time.

1964 Marukami JCM 14g

The first guy to pull the double was Johnny Logan.  Logan was the shortstop of the 1957 Champion Milwaukee Braves and played second and third for the Nankai Hawks in 1964.  He was also the first player to hit a home run in both in the World Series and the Nippon Series.

2013 BBM Legendary Foreigners #09

The next player was Jim Lefebvre, who had won a World Series with the 1965 Dodgers and a Nippon Series with the 1974 Lotte Orions.

2013 BBM Deep Impact #08

Roy White was the regular left fielder for the New York Yankees for most of the 1970's.  He moved to the Yomiuri Giants (the Japanese equivalent) in 1980 and spent three years in Tokyo. He won two World Series with the Yankees (1977 and 1978) and a Nippon Series with the Giants in 1981.  He was the second player to hit home runs in both the World Series and the Nippon Series.

1981 Calbee #366

Gary Thomasson was a teammate of Roy White's on the 1978 Champion Yankees and again on the 1981 Giants.

2013 BBM Deep Impact #37

Dan Gladden is the only other guy on this list (after Roy White) to play on multiple World Series winners.  He won with the Twins in both 1987 and 1991 and with the Giants in 1994.  Gladden is the final Westerner on the list.

2010 BBM Nippon Series #S18

Tadahito Iguchi was the first Japanese player to join the group.  After two Nippon Series Championships with the Hawks in 1999 and 2003, he joined the Chicago White Sox in 2005 just in time for them to win their first World Series since 1917.  He returned to Japan in 2009 and won a fourth Championship with the Chiba Lotte Marines in 2010 (making him the third guy on the list with four championships between the two leagues).

1996 BBM Nippon Series #S23

So Taguchi won a Nippon Series with the Orix Blue Wave in 1996 and a World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2006.  He was also on the World Series roster for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008 but did not appear in the Series.  (Iguchi briefly played for the Phillies that season as well but did not play in the post-season.)

2004 BBM Nippon Series #06

The 2007 World Champion Boston Red Sox (another of my favorite phrases) featured two players on this list.  Daisuke Matsuzaka had previously won a Nippon Series Championship with the 2004 Seibu Lions.

2006 BBM Nippon Series #S10

Hideki Okajima was the other player on this list on the 2007 Red Sox.  Okajima was the first four time Champion on the list - he had won two Nippon Series Championships with the Giants in 2000 and 2002 and another with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in 2006.

2002 BBM Nippon Series #S23

Another member of the 2000 and 2002 Nippon Series Champion Yomiuri Giants who also won a World Series (with the 2009 Yankees) was Hideki Matsui.  He also won a Nippon Series as a teammate of Gladden's in 1994.  Matsui is the only player to be named MVP of both the Nippon Series (2000) and the World Series.  He was the third player to homer in both the Nippon Series and the World Series (Andruw Jones this year became the fourth player to do although Jones never won a World Series.)  He was the second player on the list to have four championships.

2000 BBM Nippon Series #S5

Uehara is yet another member of the 2000 and 2002 Giants to also win a World Series.

As I had in the original post, I'll mention that George Vukovich could also be included on this list.  He was on the roster for the 1980 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies but did not appear in the World Series.  He also won Nippon Series with the Seibu Lions in 1986 and 1987.
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2013 BBM Genesis Box Break #2

November 2, 2013, 12:31 pm
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A month ago I did a post about a box break for a box of the new BBM Genesis set.  The box break was done by a reader named Pete who took a bunch of pictures for me.  I got a message from Pete earlier this week - he had bought another box of Genesis and was willing to again share information about what he got.

Each box of Genesis contains 20 five card packs for a total of 100 cards in the box.  Pete did almost as well on unique cards on the second box as he did on the first - 97 unique cards with only three doubles.

He got 69 cards from base set (66 singles plus the 3 doubles).  He also got 23 Cross Wind and 3 of the team checklist cards.  He got three parallels of the base set - green ones for Ryo Hijirisawa (47/100) and Kazuki Mishima (52/100) and a silver on for Shinnosuke Abe (9/25) plus a parallel for the Cross Wind subset for Naoya Masuda (69/100).  The top special card was an authentic autograph card of Takehiro Okada (T-Okada).  It was called Cross Signing and was numbered 14 of 20.

Here's some pictures that Pete was gracious enough to send:

#005 Silver Parallel

Back of #005 Silver Parallel

Cross Wind Parallel #CW097

Back Of Cross Wind Parallel #CW097

Cross Sign Autograph Card for T-Okada

Back Cross Sign Autograph Card for T-Okada

Pete reports that after buying two boxes, he is 15 cards short of the complete base set and 4 cards short of the complete Cross Wind subset.

He also passes on that he bought the box from Rakuten Global Market again for the same price ($95.97) as the first box.  He bought a couple other boxes for other sets (which I'll be doing a post about shortly) so the shipping charge was higher for the EMS shipping than it had been for the first box.

In addition to the two boxes, Pete had also picked up a couple Masahiro Tanaka memorabilia cards from Genesis off of Ebay and sent pictures of them along as well:





Thanks again Pete for passing along the information and the pictures.
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Card Of The Week November 3

November 3, 2013, 10:56 am
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The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles beat the Giants today 3-0 in Game Seven of this year's Nippon Series, clinching the Eagles' first ever Championship.  All 12 NPB teams have now won at least one Nippon Series.  The Eagles entered NPB in 2005 as an expansion team, replacing the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes who had merged with the Orix Blue Wave.  Ironically, Kintetsu had never won a Nippon Series during their 55 years of existence.

Akihisa Makida hit a home run in the fourth in today's game, increasing the Eagles lead from 2-0 to the final 3-0 score.  Makida is one of eight players who had been with the Eagles in their first season who were still active in either NPB or MLB in 2013 (according to a tweet by Jim Allen).  The others are Hisashi Iwakuma (Mariners), Takeshi Yamasaki (Dragons), Akihito Fujii (Hanshin Tigers), Katsuhiko Saka (Hanshin Tigers), Shinichiro Koyama (Eagles), Yosuke Takasu (Eagles) and Toshiya Nakashima (Eagles).  (Saka and Nakashima only played at the ni-gun level in 2005.)

Makida had been drafted in the fifth round of the 2001 draft by the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes.  His rookie card was from the 2001 BBM set (#508):


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Final 2013 Sets?

November 3, 2013, 11:21 am
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The 2013 NPB season wrapped up today but it looks like there's still a couple more sets due out this year.  BBM's website listed a couple new ones last week and there's apparently a couple non-BBM ones coming soon as well.

- BBM is putting out two box sets to celebrate the careers of Shinya Miyamoto and Shinjiro Hiyama.  Both sets are 28 cards - 27 cards in the base set plus a "special" card - Miyamoto has possible autograph or photo cards, Hiyama has possible jersey or autograph cards.  The Miyamoto set has three subsets - 9 cards for Miyamoto's career, 15 cards for other Swallows players (I think it's the 2013 team but might be previous teammates) and 3 cards for "last year allies" which I'm not sure what are - maybe for Atsunori Inaba who reached 2000 hits last year just like Miyamoto did.  Hiyama's subsets are 22 cards for his career and five cards for "Episodes of Hiyama".  Both sets will be out in late November.

- I'm not sure who is publishing this set but there's a "Season Summary 2013" set coming out for the Yokohama DeNA Baystars.  This appears to be a box set containing 31 cards - 30 base set cards plus one autograph card.  There appear to be a wide variety of the autograph cards - some commemorate milestones reached in 2013 (Ramirez and Nakamura reaching 2000 hits) while others are for the 1998 Baystars Nippon Series championship.  Not sure if the autographs are all authentic or if some are facsimile.  The set will be released at the end of November.

- Sports Graphic Number magazine is putting out a set commemorating Tomonori Maeda's career.  This is a packed based set with a 90 card base set, 18 insert cards and (I think) possible autograph and jersey cards.  It looks like the set actually will not hit the shelves until January.
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Mr. Giants - Victory Flag

November 4, 2013, 3:00 am
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1962 Doyusha JCM55

I've been spending a lot of time lately doing kanji-based searches in YouTube to see what I can find.  I came across the following clip that contains seven minutes of highlights of Games Five through Seven of the 1963 Nippon Series between the Nishitetsu Lions and the Yomiuri Giants:



Game Five was played at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo and the other two games were played at Heiwadai Stadium in Fukuoka.  Shigeo Nagashima is featured prominently in the clip (as he was MVP of the Series - spoiler alert - the Giants won) as is Sadaharu Oh.  Other players who are fairly obvious are Isao Shibata of the Giants and Futoshi Nakanishi and Kazuhisa Inao of the Lions.

BTW - Game Seven was played 50 years ago today.  Shigeo Nagashima was 27 years old.  Sadaharu Oh was 23(!).

The footage is a little odd.  Most of the game action appears to have been filmed with only one camera - high in the stands on the first base side at both ballparks.  After doing a little more searching, I discovered that this sequence is actually part of a movie about Nagashima made by Toho Studios called "Misutan Jyaiamatsu - Shori No Hata" or "Mr. Giants - Victory Flag".  According to the book The Toho Studios Story, the film was released on February 14, 1964 and is "apparently a baseball drama starring real-life stars Nagashima (the Babe Ruth of Japanese baseball) and teammate Oh - known collectively as ON - from the Yomiuri Giants."

A little more searching on YouTube revealed a multitude of clips from the movie, some more interesting than others.  Without speaking Japanese, it's difficult to figure out what the plot is - if the film actually has a plot.  There's a couple scenes where Nagashima appears to be having issues with his hitting but I don't know if that's a major plot element or not.

I picked out a handful of scenes that I thought were interesting - you can check the search results yourself to see some more.

Here's the opening credits:




Nagashima consults manager Tetsuharu Kawakami about his slump (I actually meant to include this with the memorial post I did on Kawakami last week):





This may be my favorite scene - Nagashima and Oh check their batting forms in the mirror:





Tatsuro Hirooka (#2), Isao Shibata (#12), Motoshi Fujita (#18) and Oh joke in the locker room:





Hirooka, Shibata, Oh and Nagashima coming off the field:




Giants Victory reception:


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NPB Players in the Australian Baseball League

November 4, 2013, 2:51 pm
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The 2013-14 Australian Baseball League season kicked off last week and once again there are a handful of NPB players who will be playing in it.  It looks like the Saitama Seibu Lions are the only team sending players this year and they're actually only sending four - Makoto Aiuchi, Komei Fujisawa, Toshihiro Iwao and Yasuhiro Tanaka.   All four will be playing for the Melbourne Aces.

2013 BBM 2nd Version #432

Aiuchi appears to have only had three cards so far.  He was drafted by the Lions last year but his signing got delayed until March due to some legal issues.  He has cards in this year's 2nd Version set, the Lions team set and the recently released "Young Lions" box set, all from BBM.

2012 BBM Rookie Edition #024

Fujisawa also appears to only have a limited number of cards.  He was drafted by Seibu in the 2012 draft so he has a card in the 2012 BBM Rookie Edition set.  He also appears in both the 2012 and 2013 BBM Lions sets as well as the "14 Stars" (or "RY Stars") "Lions Rookies and Young Stars" set put out by someone last summer.

2010 BBM 2nd Version #690

Iwao has been around a little longer and so has more cards that the previous two players.  He was a 2010 draft pick of the Lions and shows up in the 2010 Rookie Edition set from BBM as well as both the 1st and 2nd Version sets that year.  He's made the Lions BBM team set each year from 2010 to 2013 as well as this year's "Young Lions" box set.  He also appears in the non-BBM "Lions Rookies and Young Stars" box set from this past summer.

2006 BBM 1st Version #105

Tanaka has been toiling for the Lions ni-gun team for a while now.  He was drafted by the Lions back in 2006.  He's in both the 2006 BBM Rookie Edition and 1st Version sets but he hasn't appeared in a flagship set since.  He's been in the Lions BBM team set each year since 2006 and showed up in game cards for both Konami's Baseball Heroes and Bandai's Owners League sets in 2010.

I haven't gotten this to actually work yet, but I believe that you can watch ABL games for free on their streaming website.  I tried unsuccessfully to get this to work on my iPad last Friday morning but it may just not be set up for mobile devices.

Speaking of the Australian Baseball League, I just discovered that there were actually official baseball cards for the teams released last year.  A company called Select Australia put out a 12 card team set for each of the six teams.  I have no idea how to go about getting these cards from the States as Select Australia appears to only ship to Australia and New Zealand and I'm not sure if the cards are listed in any of the team's online shops (I only checked a couple).  The OZ Cards blog has a series of posts showing some of the cards and giving a checklist for each team.

UPDATE:  I am not paying close enough attention to what's going on.  There was an announcement made last week that the 2013-14 ABL cards were being released.  OZ Cards has the details here - the cards are being done by a company called Dingo Trading Cards.  A set for each team is being issued as a three eight card packs.  The first packs have just been released, the second packs will be released on December 1 and the last packs will be released on January 1.  Each pack is $5.  In addition, there's a 40 card set for last year's ABL Champion Canberra Cavalry.  Sets can be ordered from the ABL's online store and they will ship to the US.  Just for grins I put together an order for the Canberra Cavalry championship set - the set was $30 but when the Australian tax was taken off because it was an international order it went down to $27.27.  International shipping was $26.10.  So you can get them, but it'll run you.  Note that the ABL Store has an incorrect listing for the new team sets - they are 8 card packs not 3 card packs.  OZ Cards is promising to do checklists and reviews so keep checking with them for more details.  With $5 for each team pack and $30 for the Cavalry set, the full set should end up being $120 (minus the Australian tax if you're overseas).  I personally would recommend waiting until January and ordering everything in one shot to save on shipping (if that isn't obvious).

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