Calbee All Stars From 1975 And 1976

With the All Star break currently in full swing in Japan, I thought it might be fun to show some cards that commemorated earlier All Star games.  The huge (1472 cards!) 1975/76 Calbee set had two subsets or card series dedicated to All Star games.  According to Ryan's research, cards 1-36 in the set were dedicated to the 1975 All Star games, while cards 861-932 were for "All Star Game Participants" for the 1976 games.  I'm assuming that the pictures on these cards were taken during the respective All Star games but I probably don't have enough of either series to know for sure.

Most of the cards that I have are for the 1975 games and it looks like most of those are for Game 1, which was played on July 19 at Koshien.  The first card from this game is actually the first card in the 1975/76 set.  The picture must have been taken during pregame infield practice as you can see Shigeo Nagashima on the right hitting grounders.  The three players to his left are (from left to right) catchers Tatsuhiko Kimata of the Dragons, Koichi Tabuchi of the Tigers and Akihiko Ohya of the Swallows.  You can see the lower halves of the Pacific League players warming up at the top of the photo.

1975/76 Calbee #1

These next two cards show Tsutomu Wakamatsu of the Swallows and Sachio Kinugasa of the Carp batting respectively.  Katsuya Nomura of the Hawks is the catcher for the Pacific League.  Kinugasa hit two home runs in this game so it's possible that this photo is of him hitting one of them.

1975/76 Calbee #5

1975/76 Calbee #8

Kinugasa's teammate Koji Yamamoto also hit two home runs in this game.  This next card shows him scoring after one of them.  My best guess is that it was a three run homer that scored Wakamatsu (the #1 on the furthest left) and Taira Fujita (#6 on the right).  Sadaharu Oh is the other #1 in the picture and he was batting after Yamamoto (you can see he has a bat in his hand).  Once again, Nomura is the catcher (behind Wakamatsu).

1975/76 Calbee #11

Game 2 was played in Nagoya Stadium, the then-home of the Dragons, on July 20.  I only have one card worth showing from this game.  It shows the Pacific League players lined up for the pre-game ceremonies.

1975/76 Calbee #17

Meiji Jingu Stadium was the venue for Game 3 which was played on July 22.  Once again I really only have one card worth showing - this card shows Koichi Tabuchi hitting (with Nomura once again visible behind him).  Tabuchi went 0-3 in the game so whatever he did here was an out.

1975/76 Calbee #34

I've only got one really good card from the 1976 games.  This one is from Game 3 (played on July 20 at Osaka Stadium, then-home of the Nankai Hawks) and for a change shows a Pacific League batter - Bobby Marcano of the Hankyu Braves with Tabuchi catching behind him.  Marcano went 1-3 in the game with two strikeouts but it's really impossible to make any assumptions about this photo given that he hasn't swung at the ball yet.

1975/76 Calbee #883

I do have a couple other cards from both the 1975 and 1976 series but they only show one picture on the card so the there's nothing to really distinguish the card from a non-All Star card of the player.  Here's an example of one them - Yutaka Enatsu pitching in Game 3 of the 1976 All Star series:

1975/76 Calbee #901

UPDATE: Got some stuff in the mail today that included one additional card for Game 2 in 1975 - this one shows Senichi Hoshino (#20) walking towards Shigeo Nagashima.  I think that maybe this is a pregame shot but I really have no idea:

1975/76 Calbee #18