New Old Stuff From BBM

BBM announced a couple of new historic sets last week:

- The second installment in BBM's "Greatest Games" series of box sets will highlight a game between the Giants and Tigers on October 22, 1973.  By winning this game, the Giants clinched their ninth straight Central League pennant, on their way to winning their ninth straight Nippon Series championship.  The set contains 32 "regular" cards plus one "special" card - an autograph, a foil autograph or a photo card.  The 32 "regular" cards contain 28 player cards and 4 cards featuring highlights from the game.  The set will be out in late February.  (As a side note, October 22, 1973 is also the day that Ichiro Suzuki was born.)

- Apparently inspired by the recent trade of Yoshio Itoi to the Buffaloes by the Fighters, BBM is issuing a set celebrating great trades in NPB history.  It's a pack based set with 90 "regular" cards.  72 of those cards will apparently feature OB players (possibly also active players) who were traded (or switched team by some other means) in the uniform of the team they were traded to.  Don't know if there will be multiple cards for players who were traded more than once.  The remaining 18 cards will feature active players who have switched teams for the 2013 season - the sample cards show Itoi and Tsuyoshi Nishioka, who is joining the Tigers but wasn't traded to them.  There will be an insert set of nine cards called "Big Bang's Sensation" - the sample card shows Masaaki Koyama and Kazuhiro Yamauchi superimposed over the year 1964 so I wonder if each card will highlight a major trade by showing the players involved in the deal.  There will also be random autograph cards available.  The set will be out in late March.