Card Of The Week January 7
A week or so ago I was sitting in one of the local brew pubs, nursing a beer and perusing Twitter when I came across a thread from Gaijin Baseball about the Pacific League adopting the Designated...
View ArticleRIP Chang Chih-chia
Former Seibu Lions pitcher Chang Chih-chia passed away last week from a heart attack at age 43. Chang had burst on the scene during the 2001 IBAF Baseball World Cup when he went 4-0 for the Taiwan...
View Article2023 Topps Japan Edition WBC Cards
I mentioned a few weeks back that the 2023 Topps Japan Edition set included some WBC related items. I guess to be completely accurate, it included some Samurai Japan related items. There was a 25...
View ArticleBowman Silliness
I've ranted a couple of times about how silly I think the "1st Bowman" cards are in the Bowman NPB sets. To briefly recap, the two Bowman NPB sets have each included 180 cards which are split evenly...
View ArticleShota Imanaga Of The Chicago Cubs
Former Yokohama DeNA Baystars pitcher Shota Imanaga signed a four year deal this past week with the Chicago Cubs. Imanaga was the Baystars top pick in the 2015 NPB draft out of Komazawa University....
View ArticleCard Of The Week January 14
Last week the news broke that the Lions would be selecting pitcher Tsuyoshi Wada from the Hawks as compensation for Softbank signing free agent Hotoka Yamakawa. This was met with a lot of disbelief in...
View ArticleNaoyuki Uwasawa of the Tampa Bay Rays
Last week pitcher Naoyuki Uwasawa, formerly of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, signed a minor league deal with the Tampa Bay Rays. His signing was official right around the time his posting window...
View Article2023 Topps World Baseball Classic Cards
Last month Topps issued yet another and probably their last set for the 2023 World Baseball Classic. The cards were only available in 10 card packs on line for $80-ish and the set had a 100 card base...
View Article2024 Hall Of Fame Class
The 2024 Japanese Baseball Hall Of Fame class was announced today. The Player's Division elected former Hiroshima Toyo Carp (and Dodger and Yankee) pitcher Hiroki Kuroda and former Yokohama Taiyo...
View ArticleYariel Rodriguez Of The Toronto Blue Jays
This week former Cuban National Team and Chunichi Dragons pitcher Yariel Rodriguez signed a four year deal with the Toronto Blue Jays. He had defected from Cuba last spring after playing in the World...
View ArticleCard Of The Week January 21
I picked up a card of an obscure Japanese Hall Of Famer this past week - Shinji Hamazaki. Hamazaki is best known for having held the records for oldest player to both win a game and appear in a game...
View ArticleBonus Players In High End Sets
I got some 1997 Diamond Heroes cards from Dan - aka Korean Cardboard - a few months back. A couple of the cards were for players who didn't appear in BBM's flagship set that year and it got me to...
View ArticleThe Goddess Of First Pitch
I did a post a month or so ago on the history of BBM'a "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards and in it I mentioned that the person who has appeared the most number of times on these cards was Ami Inamura....
View Article2024 Is Here!
It's been a pretty dead couple of months for Japanese baseball cards. I think the last release was Topps' 206 set back at the beginning of December and the first 2024 set won't be released until next...
View ArticleCard Of The Week January 28
I was rereading all of the late Roger Angell's baseball books a while back and came across a passage in Late Innings that piqued my curiosity. The essay "Walking into the Picture" is centered around...
View Article2023 Topps 206
Topps released the NPB version of their 206 set back at the beginning of December. This is Topps' take on the classic T206 tobacco set. They've done three or four MLB versions of this over the past...
View ArticleCalbee Hawks Team Set
There was a bit of a surprise over the weekend when some Twitter users in Japan started reporting that they saw bags of potato chips for a new Calbee set in stores in Fukuoka. It was a 36 card team...
View ArticleWhoa!
2020 Epoch One #6692023 was the sixth year that Epoch has been doing their on demand Epoch One cards. In four of the previous five years, Epoch produced Epoch One cards for that year's draft picks for...
View ArticleMore Panini Suganos
Last summer I discovered that Panini had included two cards of Tomoyuki Sugano of "Yomiuri" in their Prizm set - a base card and an insert card. I recently realized that they had included him in at...
View ArticleCard Of The Week February 4
Two ex-NPB players found new homes this past week. Former Tigers pitcher Shintaro Fujinami, who split last season between Oakland and Baltimore, has signed with the Mets where he will be reunited with...
View Article