New BBM sets

BBM released information about a couple of sets last week:

- The Orix Buffaloes PEDIGREE set is a 37 card box set highlighting the Orix Buffaloes throwback series last year - one where they wore old Hankyu Braves uniforms and one where they wore old Kintetsu Buffaloes uniforms.  It's similar to the Lions Classic sets from 2008 & 2009 except that there are no OB players in the set.  There are 36 "regular" cards in the set plus one "premium" card which may be an autograph or memorabilia card.  Of the 36 "regular" cards, it looks like there are 12 for each team uniform (including the "normal" Orix uniform).  11 of these 12 are player/manager cards and one is a team card of some sort.  In looking at the on-line checklist, I think that there are 10 people who appear in all three uniforms, one player (Hayato Terahara) who is only in two uniforms and one (Chihiro Kaneko) who is only shown in one uniform.  The set will be released on January 26.

- BBM is highlighting the players who retired last year with the "Farewell" set.  This used to be a subset in the 1st or 2nd Version set until last season when they released the first of these sets (but never mentioned it on their website).   This is a 28 card box set containing 27 "regular" cards and 1 "special" card - looks like some sort of autograph card.  Kimiyasu Kudoh, Masahide Kobayashi and Kiyoshi Toyoda are some of the players to expect in the set - I think there may be multiple cards of some of the players so there may be less than 27 players represented.  It will be released in late January.

- This year's edition of the Rookie Edition set will be released on February 16.  This is a pack based set featuring the players who were taken in last October's draft (since it's for players who will begin their careers in 2012, it is called the 2012 draft even though it takes place in 2011).  There are 111 cards in the set - 97 cards for the drafted players, 2 cards for "2011 Draft Picks" (I'm betting an excuse to print another card of Yuki Saitoh) and 12 "active player" cards (I'm betting one active player from each team).  There are also two insert sets available - a 24 card "Next Generation" set (probably 2 guys from each team) and a 2 card "Rookie Of The Year" set (probably the 2011 Rookie Of The Years - Kazuhisa Makita and Hirokazu Sawamura).  There are also autograph cards of OB players available - the website shows cards of Yasushi Tao, Koji Uehara, Akio Saitoh, Shigetoshi Hasegawa and Daijiro Ohishi.