2007 Japanese Collegiate All Stars

I was being a little lazy when I wrote this post the other day talking about the 2007 Japanese Collegiate All Star jersey cards that were inserted into the 2008 Upper Deck Team USA sets. I was kind of vague on where the players in the set were because I just didn't have time to look anyone up. But when Deanna left a comment raving about the players in the set, I figured I should pay a little more attention. So here's a list of the players, their college (if I could figure it out) and their current status. (I'll point out that the cards have no information about the player other than his name and position).

Name	College	Current Status
Sho Aranami	Tokai	Toyota (as of 2009)
Takeshi Hosoyamada	Waseda	Yokohama BayStars
Takahiro Iwamoto	Asia	Hiroshima Toyo Carp
Tomoyuki Kaida	Komazawa	Nihon Semei
Mikinori Kato	Keio	Tokyo Yakult Swallows
Tetsuya Kokubo	Aoyama Gakuin	Hiroshima Toyo Carp
Keijiro Matsumoto	Waseda	Yokohama BayStars
Shirou Mori	Kinki	Panasonic
Shinya Muramatsu	Kokugakuin	Did not sign up for this year's draft
Ryoji Nakata	Asia	Chunichi Dragons
Hiroki Nakazawa	Kokusai Budo	Yomiuri Giants
Tomohisa Nemoto	Yokohama Shoka	Chiba Lotte Marines
Shota Oba	Toyo	Fukuoka Softbank Hawks
Takashi Ogino	Kansai Gakuin	Chiba Lotte Marines
Shota Ohno	Toyo	Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters
Yuki Saitoh	Waseda	Will be drafted this week
Ryo Sakakibara	Kansai Kokuin	Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters
Yukinaga Tanaka	Waseda	Toyoda (as of 2009)
Shingo Tatsumi	Kinki	Fukuoka Softbank Hawks
Hiroki Uemoto	Waseda	Hanshin Tigers
Shota Waizumi	Hosei	Toshiba
Noriharu Yamazaki	Yokohama Shoka	Yokohama BayStars

The card at the top is Shota Ohno (#JN-15) and the one on the bottom is Yukinaga Tanaka (#JN-18). I got the information for this post from a number of sources, including Marinerds, Yakyu Baka and Japan Baseball Daily. You know, I think it says something about the quality of information being published in English by these sources that a non-Japanese reader like myself was able to track down information on 19 of the 22 guys in the set.

Update: I wasn't paying enough attention. This is actually the "low end" memorabilia insert for the Japanese team in the set. There are five other sets of memorabilia inserts for the set, all with limited print runs. There are three sets that feature all 22 players: autograph cards (print run of 50 apiece), jersey patch cards (print run of 20 apiece) and jersey letter cards (print run of 15 apiece). There's a card (with a limited run of 5) featuring autographs of both Pedro Alvarez and Shinya Muramatsu (team MVPs). And finally, there's a set of Japan flag patch cards with a limited press run of 1 each. For some reason, this set only has 21 cards - there's no flag patch card for Shota Ohno.

FURTHER UPDATE: I filled in the missing information based on Deanna's comments.