Yasuhiko Yabuta of the Kansas City Royals

In more somewhat old news, Yasuhiko Yabuta is now a Kansas City Royal. His BBM rookie card is #501 from the 1996 set. He also had a card in the Marines Takara set from that year (as well as the 97 and 98 sets). I'm not sure if he has ever had a Calbee card - I don't have one and I didn't see any listed in my version of Gary Engel's Checklist and Price Guide (although I may have missed it and I don't have the most recent edition). He didn't have any cards in any of the Upper Deck sets. He does appear in the 2005 and 2007 BBM All Star sets as well as the 2005 BBM Nippon Series set.(This isn't meant to be a comprehensive list of what's out there, but just some of the highlights.)

When I was trying to pick out some cards to post here, I discovered that it seems like BBM only has pictures of him throwing from left to right. His 2006 BBM 1st and 2nd Version cards show him in similar poses, only with his arms in different positions.


This trend continued with his 2007 BBM 1st and 2nd Versions as well as the All Star set. At least the uniform changed.



Seriously, I have something like 13 cards of his and all but his rookie card and this 2002 BBM 1st Version card show him in the middle of his motion, ball in hand, going from left to right. I've never noticed this with anyone else, but maybe I'll need to keep an eye on this now.

Update: I took a look at what was out there for Yabuta on eBay to see what cards I didn't have for him. Looks like this has been the default Yabuta pose for a lot of his cards. (The card on the far right of the middle row is his 2004 BBM Marines card. It's the same pose, but from a different angle.) However, his 2000 BBM card did not follow the pattern.