Latest Package From Ryan

It seems like I get a package from Ryan about twice a year so I've been eagerly awaiting the one for the first half of 2018 ever since he sent it in late April.  We both expected it to take about two weeks but it was more like four.  As always it's chock-full of great stuff he's found for me.  This particular package has enough different stuff in it that I figure I'll be doing seven more posts after this one.

I thought I'd start the posts about the box with a bunch of singles he found for me.  First up as usual is a bunch of Sports Card Magazine inserts that I've been wanting.  He actually found all the SCM inserts on my want list - at least until the next time I go scrolling through Yahoo! Japan Auctions and find some more that I can't live without.

Here's a Suguru Egawa card from SCM #21 from May of 2000.  The card uses the same design as the 2000 BBM "flagship" set:

SCM #9

There were two SCM issues in 2007 that had bonus cards for the 2007 BBM 1st Version set.  Ryan had previously found the three cards from SCM #64 for me and I now I also have the three from SCM #65 that was published in September 2007.  This is the only card I'm aware of for Yoshii with the Marines (other than his "Goodbye Heroes" subset card in the 2008 1st Version set).  He was traded to Lotte from Orix on June 28th, 2007 for Koji Hirashita but only appeared in four games with the ichi-gun Marines.  The only other Japanese card of Rafael Cruz that I'm aware of is from the 2007 BBM Nippon Series set.  He's an interesting story - he started his career as a catcher in the Texas Rangers organization in the late 90's.  The Dragons signed him in 2007 after he had converted to pitching and he got into 17 games that year as well as pitching in the Nippon Series.  He hurt his arm in spring of 2008 and missed the entire season.  He spent 2009 in the Atlanta Braves' organization but I'm not sure where (or if) he's pitched since then.  Wirfin Obispo got into two games late in the season with the Giants in 2007.  He spent a couple more years in Japan with the Giants and Fighters.  He has other Japanese cards but I believe that this is the first one.

SCM #88

SCM #89

SCM #90

SCM #80 was published in March of 2010 and featured 10 insert cards that celebrated BBM's 20th Anniversary.  Each card used the 2010 BBM 1st Version card design but re-used a picture that had been used for a player's rookie card between 1991 and 2000.  For example, here's Michihiro Ogasawara's card from this subset and his 1997 BBM rookie card:

SCM #150

1997 BBM #454

Here are the other nine cards:

SCM #144

SCM #145

SCM #146

SCM #147

SCM #148

SCM #149

SCM #151

SCM #152

SCM #153

Ryan also found me some non-SCM cards.  Here's a couple singles I needed from the 1994 BBM set:

1994 BBM #15

1994 BBM #335

He found the last two cards I needed from the baseball team subset of the 2000 Upper Deck Japanese Olympic team set:

2000 Upper Deck Japanese Olympic Team #213

2000 Upper Deck Japanese Olympic Team #223

He also tracked down about a third of the 2017 BBM 2nd Version "Secret Version" cards:

2017 BBM 2nd Version #383

2017 BBM 2nd Version #408

2017 BBM 2nd Version #454

2017 BBM 2nd Version #558

2017 BBM 2nd Version #591

He located five cards I needed from the 2009 Konami WBC Heroes "Special" insert card sets.  I realized the obvious about the set today - it features three players from each of the four teams that made the final round of the 2009 Tournament - Japan, Korea, USA and Venezuela.  I already had the three Japanese players and I'm down to only needing one more card from the set (Lim Chang-Yong).

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC "Special" #W09S005

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC "Special" #W09S006

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC "Special" #W09S009

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC "Special" #W09S011

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC "Special" #W09S012

My 2017 BBM Tigers set had been short one card so Ryan picked it up for me:

2017 BBM Tigers #T49

Finally Ryan also picked me up the two insert sets from the 2017 BBM Time Travel 1975 set.  The two nine card sets feature statistical leaders and award winners from the leagues.  The Central League cards have a vertical orientation while the Pacific League cards have a horizontal orientation.  I've shown a lot of cards in this post so far so I'll just show one card from each set - all the cards can be seen here at Jambalaya.

2017 BBM Time Travel 1975 #CT3

2017 BBM Time Travel 1975 #PT7

I want to point out that both cards look better in person than their scans.  And I'd been wondering what category "OB" was on the Oh card - I think this is the number of times he got on base in 1975.  He had 112 hits, 123 walks and one hit-by-pitch and 112+123+1=236.

So thanks Ryan for finding all this plus the other stuff I still need to blog about!  I think my want list has been cut in half which means it's time to add more stuff to it!