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RIP Gene Bacque
Former Hashin Tigers pitching great Gene Bacque passed away this weekend at age 82. The story at the link does a better job summarizing his career than I can so I'll just hit the high points. He...
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Brad Eldred
I wanted to do a quick post on the retirement of Carp slugger Brad Eldred. Eldred joined the Carp in mid-2012 after 11 seasons in major league organizations - mostly with the Pirates but he also spent...
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Trip Overview Part 12 - Day 15 - Tokyo
After a couple of very busy days involving traveling outside of Tokyo, I was looking forward to a couple low-key days for my final weekend in Japan. My only firm plans for Saturday, June 8th was an...
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Card Shops In Japan: Mint Odawara
Please check my "Card Shops in Japan" page before planning a trip to this store to verify that it's still where it was when I visited.Odawara is a city in Kanto located southwest of Tokyo. It's...
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2019 SCC KBO Premium set
The second Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) set from SCC (really Daewoo Media) this year came out about a month ago. This is SCC's "Premium" set and features a variety of autograph and memorabilia...
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Card Of The Week September 22
The Europe/Africa Baseball Qualifier for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics took place this past week in Italy. Team Israel won the tournament and will be playing in Japan next August while the Netherlands...
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2009 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version Set - Where Are They Now?
In September of 2009 BBM issued their fourth set for the Tokyo Big Six collegiate league and their fifth collegiate set over all. The 2009 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version box set contained 36 cards -...
View ArticleEarly Fall Releases
One again I've put off doing a "New Releases" post long enough that one of the sets I'm going to talk about is being published as I write this...- BBM is releasing two more of their "Brilliant" team...
View ArticleComplete Run Of BBM Sets For Sale
I've been contacted by an American collector living in Japan who has a complete run of all BBM sets from 1991 to 2019. What I think they mean by that is a complete run of all the "flagship" sets but...
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Card Of The Week September 29
It was reported last week that Fighters manager Hideki Kuriyama will resign as of the end of the season. Kuriyama was the longest tenured manager in NPB, having lead the Fighters since 2012 (Giants...
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Trip Overview Part 13 - Day 16-17 - Tokyo, Kamagaya and Departure
The weather forecast for the Kanto area for Sunday, June 9th, was cloudy with a good chance of rain in the late afternoon. My plan for my last full day in Japan was to catch a Fighters' farm team game...
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Talking Baseball Cards, Japanese Style
I don't usually do posts about stuff I just won on Ebay but every so often there's something I'm so excited to get I can't resist bragging. What I picked up were two cards from the "JBR 64: 1962 Showa...
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Card Shops In Japan: Sports Card BITS!
Please check my "Card Shops in Japan" page before planning a trip to this store to verify that it's still where it was when I visited.I met up with Sean in Nagoya and we went to a couple card shops....
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Randy Messenger
It's that time of year again - time for me to do posts for players who have retired. I thought I'd start out with Randy Messenger of the Tigers.Messenger announced his retirement a few weeks back. He...
View ArticleMore Fall Releases
There were a couple of sets announced in the last week that I thought I'd mention quickly. Two of these are sets from BBM that were expected while the other is a Calbee set that I was kind of...
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Masato Akamatsu
Hiroshima Toyo Carp outfielder Masato Akamatsu announced his retirement at the beginning of September (I think). Akamatsu was a sixth round pick of the Hanshin Tigers in the fall 2004 draft out of...
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Card Of The Week October 6
Things were looking a bit grim for the Yokohama DeNA Baystars today. The Tigers had tied the score in the top of the ninth when Kosuke Fukudome hit a solo home run off of the Baystars ace closer...
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RIP Masaichi Kaneda
Masaichi Kaneda, the winningest pitcher in Japanese baseball history, passed away today at age 86. Kaneda dropped out of high school at age 17 and joined the Kokutetsu Swallows midway through their...
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Card Shops In Japan: Mint Ponyland
Please check my "Card Shops in Japan" page before planning a trip to this store to verify that it's still where it was when I visited.After finishing up at Sports Cards BITS!, Sean and I headed to our...
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2019 Calbee Series Three
Series Three, Calbee's third set for the year (or the third part of Calbee's 2019 set which is probably the more correct way to think about it) was released just about a month ago. The base set for it...
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