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2016 BBM Fusion
Last month BBM released a new set called Fusion. This set apparently is taking the place of the annual "Historic Collection" sets that BBM has done since 2001. Like the "Historic Collection" sets,...
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Card Of The Week December 11
When I did my post on the 2016 NPB Award winners a few weeks back, I neglected to mention that Kris Johnson of the Carp had won the Sawamura Award. The award was announced in late October and it just...
View ArticleBBM's Back In The Ultra High End Set Business
BBM issued the first Japanese ultra high-end set almost two years ago with a set called "Master Of Insert". This set was issued in packs of six cards (well, five cards plus a checklist card) for...
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Masaru Takeda
Another player who retired at the end of the 2016 season was Fighters pitcher Masaru Takeda. Takeda went undrafted out of college (Rissho University) in 2001 and played with SHiDAX of the industrial...
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Card Of The Week December 18
Kia Tigers pitcher Hyeon-Jung Yang was strongly considering making a move to NPB this off season and was close to a deal with the Yokohama DeNA Baystars but he backed off at the last minute. He...
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Nagisa Arakaki
Pitcher Nagisa Arakaki who was released by Yakult at the end of the season announced his retirement a few weeks ago after failing to get any offers after the "12 team tryout" session in late November....
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RIP Hajime Katoh
Former Lions and Giants pitcher Hajime Katoh has passed away from rectal cancer. (He actually died on December 11 but his passing was just announced today.) He was originally signed by the Nishitetsu...
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More Ohtani Rookies Plus Promos and Stadium Give Aways
I did a post a few months back on various Shohei Ohtani cards from 2013 - basically anything that could be considered a rookie card for him. Most of the cards I mentioned in that post were base set...
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Akihisa Makida
Akihisa Makida of the Eagles decided to retire after being released at the end of the season. Makita was drafted out of high school in the fifth round of the fall 2000 draft by the Osaka Kintetsu...
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Spring Training In The US For NPB Teams
1983 NST #1472004 BBM Tigers #T95The NPB Champion Fighters are returning to Peoria Arizona next February for spring training. They won't be there quite as long as this past year due to the World...
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More Memories Of Uniforms - Giants Edition
The oldest continuous professional baseball team in Japan started life in late 1934 as the Dai Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Kurabu or "Great Japan Tokyo Baseball Club". The team was made up primarily of the All...
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Card Of The Week December 25
Hideki Matsui and I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!2002 BBM The Legend Of Hideki Matsui #50
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Ed Broder Sets
In the card collecting hobby parlance, a "broder" is an unlicensed card. The name somewhat unfairly comes from the Broders, a father and son duo who were famous/infamous for publishing unlicensed...
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Card Of The Week January 1
Happy New Year to everyone!2016 was bookended for me by a couple business trips to Arizona. I spent about two weeks in Yuma back at the end of January and beginning of February and had two trips to...
View Article2016 In Review - BBM
BBM issued 41 sets in 2016, down slightly from the 42 they published in 2015 (I'm counting sets that have "2016" on the front, even if they were actually published in 2015). 23 of these sets were the...
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RIP Daryl Spencer
Former Hankyu Brave (as well as New York & San Francisco Giants, St Louis Cardinal, Los Angeles Dodger and Cincinnati Red) Daryl Spencer has passed away at the age of 88. Spencer joined Hankyu in...
View Article2016 In Review - Calbee
Calbee's been generally very predictable from year to year. Each year since about 2003 or so, Calbee has issued their cards in three separate Series. While they still did that for what is essentially...
View Article2016 In Review - Everything Else
There were 21 sets issued in Japan by outfits other than BBM or Calbee last year, which is probably a record. Actually I need to caveat that a bit because one of the sets I'm counting was a joint issue...
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Card Of The Week January 8
Several years back I discovered that the Lotte Orions had employed a former Olympic sprinter named Hideo Iijima as a pinch runner between 1969 and 1971. I compared Iijima to Herb Washington, the...
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Fake Ohtani Card
I've been resisting pointing this out because (1) I shouldn't draw attention to it and (2) it's not like it's not obvious but there's a Shohei Ohtani card being sold on Ebay that depicts him as a high...
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