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Chihiro Kaneko
I had to hold off on some of the retirement posts I wanted to do until I had the 2022 BBM team sets since a number of the players only appeared in them (or at least they were the only sets I was...
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Shun Yamaguchi
Former Baystars and Giants pitcher Shun Yamaguchi formally announced his retirement last week. Yamaguchi was Yokohama's first round pick in the high school portion of the 2005 draft out of Yanagigaura...
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Tetsuya Utsumi
Another 2022 retiree was Tetsuya Utsumi, pitcher for the Yomiuri Giants and Saitama Seibu Lions. Utsumi was a first round pick of the Orix BlueWave in the 2000 draft but he refused to sign. His...
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Shoichi Inoh
Former Baystars and Giants pitcher Shoichi Inoh is another player who retired at the end of last year. Inoh attended Jobu University and then joined the NTT East Japan corporate league team after...
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Card Of The Week April 9
Former Softbank Hawk and current Chicago White Sock Oscar Colas hit his first MLB home run on Friday. Colas spent a couple years as a development player for the Hawks before moving on to their 70 man...
View ArticleThe Return Of Topps, Another WBC Set and More Team Sets
I wanted to do a quick post about some recently announced sets...- Topps is back with the third edition of their NPB set. Like the previous ones, the base set for this year's version will contain 216...
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Sasaki Perfection Cards
A year ago today, Roki Sasaki pitched a perfect game.Hmm, that doesn't really seem to capture what he did. I mean, yeah, it was a perfect game but it wasn't just a perfect game. He struck out 19...
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Motohiro Shima
Former Eagles and Swallows catcher Motohiro Shima announced his retirement at the end of last season. Shima was the third round pick of the Eagles out of Kokugakuin University in the...
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Hiroyuki Fukuyama
Another player who hung up his spikes after the 2022 season was pitcher Hiroyuki Fukuyama. Fukuyama had played second base in high school but lied on his entrance examination to Osaka University of...
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Ken Togame
Here's a quick retirement post for Lions pitcher Ken Togame. He had spent a couple years playing for JR East of the corporate leagues after attending Nihon University and was taken in the first round...
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Card Of The Week April 16
In honor of yesterday being Jackie Robinson Day, Jim Allen's blog post today had a couple paragraphs on why Dragons' outfielder Kenta Bright wears uniform number 42. His father is from Ghana and...
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Ayatsugu Yamashita
The Hawks' 2010 NPB draft was probably one of their best ever. They took a generational talent, Yuki Yanagita, with their second round pick and hit the jackpot in the development player portion of the...
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Yuta Shirahama
Long time Carp farmhand Yuta Shirahama retired at the end of last season. Shirahama was born in Sakai but went to high school at Koryo High School in Hiroshima. He played in four consecutive Koshien...
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Kohei Miyadai
Like Yuta Shirahama, Kohei Miyadai might seem like an odd player to devote a retirement post to. He only spent five years as a professional baseball player and only made three appearances at the...
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2013 BBM Tokyo Big Six Set - Where Are They Now?
Ten years ago this month BBM released the 2013 edition of their Tokyo Big Six set. It was their tenth and final set for the league and eleventh (and also final) collegiate set overall.This was a box...
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Card Of The Week April 23
It was a weekend of walk offs for the Eagles and it extended to former Eagles players as well.On Friday night Tsuyoshi Yamasaki came to bat in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded and the...
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Chinese Players On The Baystars
Last year when I did a post reviewing 20 years of BBM's Rookie Edition sets I discovered that the Baystars had signed two Chinese players to development (ikusei) contracts in 2009. And by "Chinese" I...
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Topps Retro NPB Cards
When Topps initially announced their license with NPB about a year and a half ago, I said that I thought the most interesting thing they could do would be to use their classic card designs, maybe doing...
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Card Of The Week April 30
Fighters pitcher Seigi Tanaka got the first save of his career last Wednesday. Tanaka was the first round pick of the Hawks in the 2016 draft* and had spent six injury plagued years with them before...
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Trying To Make Sense Of The 2017 AIAIO JWBL Cards
A little while ago I did a post about some Japan Women's Baseball League (JWBL) cards that Ryan had sent me. This included both a 2011 BBM card from when the league was still called the Girls...
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