2013 BBM Deep Impact set

Earlier this year BBM released a set called something like "Legendary Foreigners" that featured foreigners that have played in Japan.  They released another set that only contains foreigners who played in NBP about a month ago.  This one is called "Deep Impact" and, like the earlier set, contains 81 cards - 72 player cards and 9 "Off Shot" cards.

The player selection is interesting.  Of the 72 players featured, there are 18 who also appeared in the earlier set including Tuffy Rhodes, Bobby Rose, Cecil Fielder, Leon Lee (but not Leron), Davey Johnson, Boomer Wells, Randy Bass and Charlie Manuel.  There are several Korean players (there were none in the first set) including Seung Yuop Lee, Chang Yong Lim and Chan Ho Park.  There's cards of three Americans who managed in Japan in the 00's - Marty Brown, Trey Hillman and Bobby Valentine.  And there's several players who made less than positive impressions during their (sometimes quite short) time in Japan - Joe Pepitone, Kevin Mitchell, Mike Greenwell and Reggie Smith, along with Frank Howard (who injured himself in his first game with the Lions in 1974 and never played again).  There are several players who were reasonably big names for a time in MLB who have never had BBM cards before - Roy White, Bill Madlock and Don Money along with at least two players that I'm pretty sure have never had a Japanese card before - Pepitone and Matt Stairs.  As is usual for a BBM OB set, most of the players are from the 1980's and 90's.  I think Pepitone is the earliest player in the set, having played for the then Yakult Atoms in 1973.

#06

#!8

#45

#01

#36

The nine card "Off Shot" subset shows a bunch of candid shots of some of the players.  The two I liked the most were the shot of Roy White and Gary Thomasson when they were both with Yomiuri in the early 80's and the shot of Ralph Bryant surrounded by exuberant Buffalo fans after Kintetsu clinched the Pacific League pennant in 1989:

#74

#79

It's a nice little set but I still wish that BBM would do some of the more rare gaijin that have rarely if ever appeared on cards - Rich Gossage (Hawks 1990), Don Newcombe (1962 Dragons as a 1B/OF), Larry Doby (also 1962 Dragons) and Don Zimmer (1966 Flyers) are just a couple that I can think of off hand that would be neat to see.

Ryan did a couple posts on this set when it got released - one showing all the base cards and one showing a base card along with some example parallels and inserts.  You can also see all the cards (along with inserts, parallels and autograph cards) at Jambalaya.