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Epoch One Draft Pick Cards
Epoch started doing their on-demand Epoch One cards in 2018 and for several years after that, they included cards of that year's draft picks for a few teams. What's significant about this is that...
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Card Of The Week March 2
We're in the middle of the qualifiers for the 2026 World Baseball Classic. Last weekend saw Nicaragua and Taiwan finish first and second in the qualifying round held in Taiwan and this afternoon...
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Great Records
The Great Records insert set has been a staple of BBM's annual Fusion set since its debut in 2016. Each year, this has been a 24 card set that features two players from each team reaching some sort of...
View ArticleEpoch One Cards For Samurai Japan
It appears that my suspicion that Epoch now has the license to do cards for Samurai Japan has proven correct. Epoch announced last week that they would be publishing their on-demand Epoch One cards...
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Card Of The Week March 9
Samurai Japan played two friendlies against the Netherlands this past week at Osaka Dome and it went very well for them. On Wednesday, they shut out the Dutch 5-0 with starter Hiroya Miyagi pitching...
View ArticleSome News From Calbee
I've gotten a little concerned lately about Calbee. Their Series One set is normally released in late March but we're almost halfway through the month and there's been no announcement about the set...
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2000 Upper Deck Ovation Rising Stars
I had mentioned a few months back that, thanks to Scott Kaneko, I had completed the "Rising Stars" subset from the 2000 Upper Deck Ovation set. Now that I have the full subset, I decided to take a...
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Card Of The Week March 16
The Dodgers and Cubs are in Tokyo right now, preparing for their regular season games on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. They spent this weekend playing exhibition games against the Hanshin Tigers...
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Cracking The Code - Konami's Baseball Collection Card Numbers Explained?
I've been involved in a discussion on Reddit over the past week or so regarding a 2021 Konami Baseball Collection "SR" (super rare) card of Roki Sasaki. I won't rehash the discussion here - you can...
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Wei-Yin Chen
Taiwanese pitcher Wei-Yin Chen announced his retirement a few weeks back (H/T NPB on reddit). You'd be forgiven for thinking he had already retired as it's been three years since his last appearance...
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Card Of The Week March 23
About a week or so ago, the Tokyo Yakult Swallows announced that Masanori Ishikawa would be the starting pitcher for their home opener on April 1st. At 45 years old, Ishikawa is the oldest active...
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Upcoming Milestones
With Opening Day 2025 arriving in less than a day and a half, I thought I'd roll out my now-traditional post about which players are approaching the career milestones that will ensure them admission to...
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Play Ball (2025)
I'm continuing my Opening Day tradition of doing a post showing a baseball card from the last year that each of the 12 NPB teams won the Nippon Series which was inspired by (or stolen from)Â the series...
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Oldest BBM Set With An Active NPB Player - 2025 Edition
Time for my OTHER Opening Day tradition (and this one will continue) - which is the oldest BBM flagship set to have a currently active NPB player?I got confirmation today that Hiroyuki Nakajima has...
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Card Of The Week March 30
NPB's Opening Day was Friday and Hiroya Miyagi of the Buffaloes came within six outs of making history. He took a bid for a perfect game into the eighth inning against the Eagles before giving up a...
View ArticleCalbee, Some Team Sets, the return of "Pro Baseball Deforme" and the...
I feel like I just did a roundup of new sets but it's actually been almost five weeks since the most recent one. There've been a bunch of set announcement since then so let's dig in...- One of the...
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RIP Hidetoshi Hakamada
The news broke last week that former Lotte Orions catcher Hidetoshi Hakamada had passed away from a cerebral hemorrhage in early February at age 69.Hakamada was born and raised in Shizuoka and attended...
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Card Of The Week April 6
Last Thursday, Yasuhiro Ogawa of the Swallows threw a "Maddux" against the Carp. He had a complete game, 2-hit shutout on only 92 pitches. What's more, he hit a double and since the Central League is...
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Zippy Zapped Yet Again
Got a surprise envelope in the mail from Japan the other day - once again I have been the recipient of the generosity of Kenny - aka Zippy Zappy. Unlike some of his previous packages, this envelope...
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RIP Tony Blanco
Devastating news out of the Dominican Republic today - a roof collapse at a night club in Santo Domingo has left at least 66 people dead and over 150 injured. Among the dead were merengue musician...
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Hiroyuki Nakajima
Long time NPB star Hiroyuki Nakajima officially announced his retirement a few weeks ago. He'd been hoping to continue playing after being released by Chunichi last fall but, with the beginning of the...
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Card Of The Week April 13
The Lions and Fighters had a scoreless tie going into the bottom of the twelfth inning Friday in Hokkaido. With two outs and pinch runner Go Matsumoto on second, though, pinch hitter Yuya Gunji...
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Card Of The Week April 20
The Hawks went hitless in Tokorozawa last Friday night but you won't see that game added to the roster of NPB no-hitters for two reasons. The first is that Softbank was held hitless by two pitchers...
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Yet Another Zippy Zapping
I was traveling for work all of last week and when I returned home late Friday night, I discovered that I had once again received an envelope from Kenny - aka Zippy Zappy - in Japan. I was somewhat...
View ArticleAn Introduction
About a year or so ago, I was approached by someone on Reddit about collaborating on some sort of introduction to Japanese baseball cards. He was very enthusiastic about it and I tried to be, but I...
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