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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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RIP Masaaki Koyama
Hall of Fame pitcher Masaaki Koyama passed away from congestive heart failure last week. He was 90 years old.Koyama failed in a tryout with the Taiyo Shochiku Robins in 1953 before signing with the...
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Card Of The Week April 27
There were two walk off wins today in NPB and, luckily, they were both in the Pacific League so I can share video of them. First up, Takeya Nakamura of the Lions came through in the bottom of the...
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Mel Bailey Postcards
I got an email a few weeks back from someone who was trying to put together a comprehensive list of Mel Bailey postcards. Mel Bailey was a US Air Force captain stationed in Japan in the mid to late...
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Card Of The Week May 4
2004 BBM Golden Arms #008I came across the above card of Masaaki Koyama when I was preparing the memorial post I did for him last week and I found it very intriguing. I've had this card for years but...
View ArticleTeam Sets Galore!
Once again it's time to do a run-down of the sets that have recently been announced:- BBM has announced four more of their "comprehensive" team sets for 2025. I will just repeat the general details...
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Card Of The Week May 11
There was a no-hitter in Japan last Monday but you may not have heard much about it. There's two reasons for that. The first is that it was a combined no-hitter which NPB does not count as an...
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Rookies and Players On New Teams In Calbee Series One
Calbee released this year's Series One last week, about six weeks later than the set usually comes out. I had wondered back in March when I had learned from Calbee what their release plan for the set...
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Dayan Viciedo
I had had a list of players that I had intended to do retirement posts for this past off season but between not having time and not having 2024 cards for them yet, I've pretty much decided against...
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