2009 BBM Premium Malts

I also received the 2009 BBM Premium Malts set in the mail the other day. This set commemorates an old timer game that Suntory Brewery puts on every year. This year, the two teams were called "The Premium Malts" and "World Japan 2009". It's actually a pretty interesting group of players who were on the rosters, but not everyone who was on the roster appears in the set - I'm going to assume that the set only includes guys who actually appeared in the game, but I don't know that for sure. What I can say for sure is that Yutaka Enatsu, Choji Murata, Daiuske Motoki, Mitsuo Tatsukawa and Koichi Tabuchi appear on the rosters but not in the set. The set does include a wide variety of OB players including 77 year old Keiji Ohsawa, and 69 year olds Isao Harimoto and Eiji Bando, as well as a lot of guys who played a little more recently - Randy Bass, Osamu Higashio, Hiromichi Ishige, Hiroo Ishii, Tsutomu Itoh, Masayuki Kakefu, Masumi Kuwata, Hiromi Makihara, Yukihiro Nishizaki, Kenjiro Nomura, Yutaka Ohno, Akinobu Okada, Shigeki Sano, Shinji Sasaoka, Yukio Tanaka Yasushi Tao and both Koji Yamamoto's to name several of the more notable names.

The set itself is a 51 card box set (plus an insert/autograph card - as usual I got an opened box without the extra card) with 26 cards for "The Premium Malts" and 25 cards for "World Japan 2009". The cards are OK - the pictures are nice, but I'm not real impressed with the design. The design looks like some of the minor league card designs done in the late-90's. I don't know, maybe it's just I don't like the font.

Anyway, here's some examples so you can decide for yourself:






From the top, that's Yukio Tanaka (#43), Tsutomu Itoh (#38), Shinji Sasaoka (#24) and Isao Harimoto (#02).

I'm hoping that if this set does well, BBM will consider doing a set for the Masters League.