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Kazuhisa Makita of the San Diego Padres
Kazuhisa Makita, formerly of the Saitama Seibu Lions, has signed a two year deal with the San Diego Padres. Makita was originally drafted by Seibu in the second round of the 2010 draft out of Nippon...
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Yuji Iiyama
Back to the retirements after almost a month and a half...Longtime Fighters backup infielder and farm hand Yuji Iiyama announced his retirement back in September. Iiyama was drafted out of his high...
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Takehiro Donoue
Giants outfielder Takahiro Donoue retired back in October after the team told him he wasn't in their plans for 2018. Donoue was originally the property of the Chunichi Dragons - he was their sixth...
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Tomoya Yagi
Tomoya Yagi had a really good rookie year. Yagi was drafted by the Fighters in the "preferred entry frame" (which I still don't quite understand) of the 2005 draft out of Soka University. He went...
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Yasuyuki Kataoka
Yasuyuki Kataoka of the Giants announced his retirement back at the beginning of October. Kataoka was the youngest of three brothers to play for the Utsunomiya Gakuen High School baseball team. After...
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Seung-Yeop Lee
One last retirement post (for now)...Long time Samsung Lion (and one time Chiba Lotte Marine, Yomiuri Giant and Orix Buffalo) Seung-Yeop Lee retired at the end of last season. I did a post for Lee...
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Card Of The Week January 14
I was surprised to discover last spring when I was researching NPB players who had been loaned to the San Francisco Giants organization back in the 1960's and early 1970's that Makoto Matsubara (who...
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2018 Hall Of Fame Class
The 2018 Hall Of Fame inductees were announced today. The inductees from the Players Division ballot were Hideki Matsui and Tomoaki Kanemoto. Both players were inducted in their first year of...
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Fighters In Arizona, 2018 Edition
For the third year in a row the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters will be doing the early part of their spring training in Arizona. After two years using the Padres' facilities in Peoria, however, the team...
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Study Abroad - The Whales Of Montana
The Salt Lake City Trappers were not the only Pioneer League team to have a working agreement with an NPB team in the late 1980's. The Butte Copper Kings had one with the Yokohama Taiyo Whales between...
View ArticleNew Stuff From BBM
BBM has recently announced three sets that will be released in the next month or so.- The annual "Retirement" or "Farewell" box set will be released in late January. I never really know what to call...
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Card Of The Week January 21
BBM has issued three Anniversary sets for the Chunichi Dragons - a 70th Anniversary set in 2006, a 75th Anniversary set in 2011 and an 80th Anniversary set in 2016. The most prominent player who was...
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RIP Shinsaku Katahira
Former Hawk, Lion and Whale Shinsaku Katahira passed away today from pancreatic cancer. Katahira was the fourth round pick of the Nankai Hawks in the fall 1971 draft out of Tokyo Agricultural...
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Tatsuyuki Uemoto
I decided to do a couple more retirement posts. This one was requested by the guys over at Graveyard Baseball. (I feel like a DJ..."Here's a long distance dedication to Christian and Wes...")Longtime...
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Package From Alex
I've been writing this blog for over 10 years now and the one thing I've discovered is how amazingly generous card collectors can be. I got an email a couple weeks back from Alex who told me he had a...
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Card Of The Week January 28
Marines pitcher Hideaki Wakui had been testing the international free agency waters this off season but he's apparently not received an offer from an MLB team that he's willing to take. He's expected...
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2017 BBM Fusion
I'm finally getting around to writing about this set - it was issued a little over two months ago in late November but I didn't get my set until about a week ago. There's a bunch of reasons for that -...
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2017 Calbee Samurai Japan
For the second year in a row Calbee issued a 36 card Samurai Japan set late in the year. This year's set has cards for 35 players plus a checklist card and covers almost all the players who played for...
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Card Of The Week February 4
Daisuke Matsuzaka had a try out with the Chunichi Dragons a few weeks back and did well enough to merit a place on the team's ichi-gun roster for spring training. Matsuzaka has been fighting injuries...
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2018 BBM Time Travel 1989
BBM's first set labeled as a 2018 set was actually released in late December of 2017. The set is entitled "Time Travel 1989" and is the second retro set BBM has issued highlighting a past season - the...
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