2018 BBM Farewell Set

Among the items I got from Ryan last week was BBM's annual box set celebrating the players who retired last season.  As I've mentioned probably too many times to count before the official name of this set is something like "Regret at Parting Baseball Players" but I always simply call it "Farewell".

This is the eighth edition of this set and it's pretty much like all the previous ones.  There are 35 cards in the set and since each player only has one card you can make the obvious conclusion that there are 35 players included.  The biggest names in the set are probably Tadahito Iguchi and Masahiko Morino but other prominent players are Ryojo Aikawa, Yuya Andoh, Yuki Iiyama, Yasuyuki Kataoka and Tetsuya Matsumoto.  Five of the cards show something from the player's retirement game - either them being tossed in the air for their traditional do-age or holding a bouquet of flowers - but the rest show the player in action.  Unlike earlier editions of the set all the players are shown in the uniform of their most recent NPB team - so Aikawa is shown as a Giant even though he spent 14 years with the Baystars, six years with the Swallows but only three years with the Giants.  The really silly one is Kohei Shibata who spent eight years with Hanshin before spending last season with Lotte - he's portrayed as a Marine in the set.  There are two players who spent last season in the Baseball Challenge League - Kazuhito Tadano and Shuichiro Osada - and they both are shown wearing the uniform of the last NPB team they played for - the Fighters for Tadano and the Baystars for Osada.

Here's some sample cards:

#01

#04

#06

#35

All the cards can be seen at Jambalaya.