Song Sung-Mun Of The San Diego Padres

It kind of got lost among the other signings and the holidays but the San Diego Padres signed former Kiwoom Heroes infielder Song Sung-Mun to a four year contract.  Song was originally drafted by the then-Nexen Heroes in 2015 and made his top level debut that season.  He spent a lot of the next few years on the farm team and missed the entire 2020 season fulfilling his military obligations (which pretty much involved playing for the Sangmu Phoenix, a team associated with the military that plays in the KBO Futures League, KBO's farm league.  He became a regular with the Heroes in 2021 and had the best two years of his career the last two seasons - hitting .340 with 19 home runs and 104 RBIs in 2024 and .315 with 26 home runs and 90 RBIs in 2025.  I think his only experience with the Korean National Team was during the 2024 Premier 12.

Given that there aren't anywhere near as many KBO sets as NPB sets, he doesn't have a whole lot of baseball cards.  TCDB lists only 19 cards for him but I think ten of those are parallels or autograph cards - it's hard to be sure since KBO sets can be somewhat complicated with multiple base set cards sometimes having the same number, making it hard to tell if a particular card listing is a base card or a parallel.  His earliest known cards are from the 2018 SCC sets - #SCCR-01/157 in the KBO League Regular Collection, #SCCR-02R/058 in the KBO Collection 2 Red set and ##SCC-02/171 KBO Premium Collection.  It's possible there are earlier, team-issued cards of him but they are not listed in TCDB.  Here are all the cards I have of him - it's not many as I stopped getting KBO cards after 2021 and he was not in any of the 2020 or 2021 sets:

2018 SCC KBO League Regular Collection #SCCR-01/157

2018 SCC KBO Collection 2 Red #SCCR-02R/058

2019 SCC KBO Regular Collection 1 #SCCR1-19/074

2019 SCC KBO Premium Collection 1 #SCCP1-19/084

Card Of The Week January 11

I have this list of possible "Card Of The Week" topics in case of a slow news week when I have to figure out something to write about.  One of the ones for the past few years has been about Cy Sneed, the now former Swallows pitcher.  I've been reluctant to do it for two reasons.  The first is that it's kind of making fun of his name which I try to avoid (although I've done it before).  The other is that I didn't feel like I really had anything interesting to say about his cards (not that that's ever stopped me before).  But a question someone had on Discord the other day made me realize that I did have something relevant to post about a card of Sneed's so here we go.

I can't link to the post on Discord as you need to be a member of the group to see it and I don't want to screenshot it without asking the original poster for permission.  The OP had opened a box of 2023 BBM Baystars cards and had pulled what he thought was the "the laziest of all of the secret versions" - a parallel card of Toshiro Miyazaki that had a different color scheme on it but otherwise was identical to the original card.  

I did a little research and discovered a couple things.  The first is that these aren't really "secret versions" - they're "color variations".  Each of the 2023 BBM team sets had three of them - all using the same photo as the base set card.  2023 was the first year that BBM did this.  They expanded it in 2024 to have twelve for each team and those cards did feature alternate photos.  The other thing I discovered - realized, actually - is that I had some of these.  My friend Jason (of the now defunct "JK's Card Shoppe" on Ebay) had sent me the three 2023 Swallows cards a few years back.  I didn't really understand what they were at the time.  Here's the original and "color variant" for Cy Sneed (#S28):

Original

Color Variant

The comment I had been reluctant to make is that for the longest time, I thought "Cy Sneed" sounded like a character from Star Wars.  But then I watched season three of "Picard" a while back and realized that "Sneed" was actually a Ferengi.  So he's a Star Trek character, not a Star Wars one.

And I'm sure Mr. Sneed has probably heard all of these comments about his name already.  No disrespect intended.

Kenny Strikes Again

It wasn't even a day after I posted about getting a surprise envelope in the mail from Kenny - perhaps better known as Zippy Zappy - when I received a second envelope in the mail from him.  This one had ten cards in it, all from 2025 sets.

The first three cards were from the 2025 Topps NPB set:

2025 Topps NPB #68

2025 Topps NPB #186

2025 Topps NPB #211

It's interesting that Topps decided to use black ink on the names on the first and last of these three cards.  They're not too difficult to read in person but, man, the scans are practically unreadable.  The Marines player is Kyota Fujiwara and the Giants player is Taisei Ota who just goes by "Taisei".

The next batch of cards were from the 2025 Topps Stadium Club NPB.  I think Stadium Club is probably the best NPB set that Topps does (ok, it's a small sample size of two) so I was very happy to get these cards:

2025 Topps Stadium Club NPB #126

2025 Topps Stadium Club NPB #25

2025 Topps Stadium Club NPB #73

2025 Topps Stadium Club NPB #35

2025 Topps Stadium Club NPB #97

2025 Topps Stadium Club NPB #45

I saved the best for last.  In September, Bushiroad had put out a Samurai Japan set under their collectible card game line "DreamOrder".  As far as I can tell, it's for the 2024 Premier 12 edition of the team and appears to have cards of all 28 players from the squad.  Kenny sent me the Hiroto Takahashi card from this set:

2025 Bushiroad DreamOrder Samurai Japan #PB01-SJ01

As Kenny mentioned when he shared this card on his blog, the foil on this card makes it difficult to scan (I'm paraphrasing a bit).  But it looks pretty nice in person.

I thought I'd share a gif that sums up my feelings about the cards:

Thanks again for the cards, Kenny!

Kazuma Okamoto Of The Toronto Blue Jays

Kazuma Okamoto, formerly of the Yomiuri Giants, signed a four year deal worth $60 million with the Toronto Blue Jays a few days ago.  Okamoto was the Giants' first round pick in the 2014 draft out of Chiben Gakuen High School.  Okamoto spent most of his first three seasons as a professional on the farm team, not becoming a regular with the ichi-gun squad until 2018.  He had a breakout season that year, hitting .309 with 33 home runs and 100 RBIs.  That would be the first of six consecutive seasons that he'd hit over 30 home runs with a high of 41 in 2023.  He dipped to "only" 27 in 2024 and was injured for much of last season, causing him to hit just 15 home runs in only 69 games.

Okamoto led the Central League in home runs three times (2020-21 & 2023) and RBIs twice (2020 & 2021).  He's won two Best 9 awards (2020 & 2024) and three Golden Gloves (20-22 & 2024) and is a five time All Star (2018-19, 2021, 2023-24) - he was selected in 2022 but withdrew due to having caught COVID.

TCDB lists 14 rookie cards for Okamoto from 2015 and that number isn't as inflated by parallels, memorabilia and autographed cards as Imai and Murakami's counts were.  I think he has seven rookie cards from base sets.  As usual, his first card is from BBM's Rookie Edition set (#054) - actually his first TWO cards are from that set as he also appears in the "Then & Now" subset (#112).  His other BBM cards are in 1st Version (#186), the Giants team set (#G50 and #G78 in the "Star-To-Be" subset) and the Rookie Edition Premium set (#RP19).  His only non-BBM rookie card is from the Bandai Owners League 02 set (#66) which may actually be a short-print or insert card.  Here's three of his BBM rookie cards:

2015 BBM Rookie Edition #054

2015 BBM 1st Version #186

2015 BBM Giants #G50

Here's a card of him from every year for the rest of his career up until 2024 (when I stopped buying new cards):

2016 Giants Players Day

2017 Epoch Giants #28

2018 Calbee Series Two #131

2019 BBM 1st Version #233 Secret Version

2020 BBM Fusion #TH04

2021 BBM 1st Version #176

2020 Epoch NPB #092

2023 BBM 1st Version #259

2024 Topps Stadium Club NPB #81

I want to end this post with a couple Samurai Japan cards of Okamoto.  He's played in a handful of the friendly matches with foreign teams (the 2018 MLB All Star tour, the March 2019 games against Mexico and the November 2022 games against Australia) but the only major tournament he's played in was the 2023 World Baseball Classic.  He had six WBC cards that year and he also appeared in the 2019 Calbee Samurai Japan set and the Topps Now singles and team set for the 2022 games.  Here are cards from each of these groups:

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-27

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan team set #SJ-20

2023 Topps Now WBC #WBC-52

Tatsuya Imai Of The Houston Astros

Last week, the Houston Astros announced that they had signed former Saitama Seibu Lions right handed pitcher Tatsuya Imai to a three year contract.  Imai had been a star pitcher at Sakushin Gajuin high school, helping them win the 2016 Summer Koshien tournament - he was the starter and winning pitcher in the final game against Hokkai.  He pitched in all five of Sakushin's games in that tournament, striking out 44 while only only allowing five runs in 41 innings of work.

The Lions took him with their first pick in that fall's draft.  Injuries and a suspense due to underage smoking limited him to only a handful of games with the farm team for his first year and a half as a professional, but he made an auspicious debut with the top team on June 13th of 2018, starting against the Swallows and holding them to only one run in six innings.  He was the first Lions pitcher to win his ichi-gun debut since Daisuke Matsuzaka in 1999.  The rest of his outings that year were a mixed bag but he showed enough promise to make the starting rotation when the 2019 season opened.

His pitching continued to be a mixed bag for a couple seasons - he missed some time due to injuries and was demoted to the bullpen for a spell in 2020 - but he started to turn it around in 2021 and had three straight ten win seasons for a pretty weak Lions team in 2023-25.  2025 was his best season ever, going 10-5 with a 1.92 ERA and a league leading 178 strikeouts.  He threw a combined no-hitter with Kaima Taira against the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks in April (it's not an official no-hitter because NPB does not acknowledge combined no-hitters or no-hitters in which the losing team scores a run) and also struck out 17 batters in a game against the Baystars in June.  

TCDB lists 56 cards for Imai from his first year of 2017 but, as I've pointed out with other players, that number's somewhat inflated by parallels, autograph and memorabilia cards.  He really has only nine rookie cards that are base set cards.  His first card was #028 in BBM's Rookie Edition set and he also appears in BBM's Icons - Japan Pride (#10), 1st Version (#103), Lions (#L02) and Rookie Edition Premium (#RP10) sets.  He also appears in the "Draft Pick" subset in Calbee's Series Two set (#D-04).  His last 2017 cards are in Epoch sets - their Lions team set (#6) as well as both the Pacific League (#36) and Pacific League Premier Edition (#35).  I have seven of these cards:

2017 BBM Rookie Edition #028

2017 BBM Icons - Japan Pride #10

2017 BBM 1st Version #103

2017 BBM Lions #L02

2017 Calbee Series Two #D-04

2017 Epoch Lions #6

2017 Epoch Pacific League #36

Here's a card of him from each year of his career up until 2024 (since I stopped getting NPB cards after that).  This includes a card from his only appearance with Samurai Japan in a somewhat major international tournament - the 2023 Asian Professional Baseball Championship.

2018 BBM Fusion #033

2019 BBM 1st Version #002

2020 Calbee Series Two #075

2021 Epoch NPB #074

2022 Topps NPB #141

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan Asian Professional Baseball Championship Team Set #SJ-11

2024 BBM Lions Collection #LC09

Looking at his cards over the years, it's obvious when he and Kona Takahashi started their "Team Long Hair"!

First Zippy Zappy-ing Of The New Year

Kenny - aka Zippy Zappy - had given me a heads up a few weeks back that there was a new envelope on its way across the Pacific to me and it showed up at my house today.  It contained two cards, neither of which I already had.  Kenny's always had a pretty good knack for sending me cards that I don't already own which is pretty impressive considering I have a LOT of Japanese cards.  In fairness, however, it's gotten a little easier over the last year since I stopped buying new cards.

Case in point this first card of Koki Kitayama from the Calbee "Pro Yakyu Spirits A" set that was just released about a month ago:

2025 Calbee Pro Yakyu Spirits A #PS-20

It was a little more of a gamble that I didn't have this Bushiroad DreamOrder card of Orlando Calixte from 2024.  But I didn't.

2024 Bushiroad DreamOrder Central League Booster Pack Vol. 4 #CBP04-D05

Thanks again for the cards, Kenny!

Card Of The Week January 4

Kona Takahashi's posting window closes this afternoon but apparently the Lions right-handed pitcher has been unhappy with the offers he's received from MLB teams as it's already been announced that he'll be returning to Seibu for the 2026 season.  I feel bad for him but, as a Lions fan, I am happy that the team won't be losing two members of their 2025 rotation with Tatsuya Imai having signed with the Astros last week.

Both Imai and Takahashi grew their hair out over the past few years and the Lions have sold merchandise for the two of them under the label "Team Long Hair".  There was a card in the 2024 BBM Lions set dedicated to it - the back explains that Takahashi is the president of the team with Imai being the vice-president:

2024 BBM Lions #L67

Here are two more cards of Takahashi - a rookie card showing his original haircut and one more recent one showing his long hair:

2015 Lions Fan Club #17

2024 Topps NPB #120