Card Of The Week July 15

It was All Star Weekend the past couple days when NPB put on their All Star games.  Thursday was the Fresh All-Star Game which is the All Star game for the farm teams.  Friday and Saturday were the games that everyone thinks of when they hear "All Star Game".  Friday's game was in Osaka at the home of the Buffaloes and was won by the Pacific League 7-6.  Saturday's game was played in Kumamoto and was also won by the Pacific League, this time with a score of 5-1.

NPB's version of the Home Run Derby took place before each game.  Eight players were selected to participate - four on each day.  On Friday Masataka Yoshida of the Buffaloes went head-to-head with Tetsuto Yamada of the Swallows and Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh of the Baystars went up against Sho Nakata of the Fighters.  The winners of each matchup would then go head-to-head with each other to determine the day's winner.  On Saturday Hotoka Yamakawa of the Lions went head-to-head with Seiya Suzuki of the Carp and Yuki Yanagita of the Swallows went head-to-head with Wladimir Balentien of the Swallows.  Again the winners of each match up would go head-to-head with each other to determine the day's winner and then Friday's winner would go up against Saturday's winner to determine the overall Derby winner.

Each player has three minutes to hit as many home runs as he can.

Yoshida kicked things off with an impressive outing in his home ballpark on Friday, hitting 12 home runs to easily outpace Yamada who only had five.  Tsutsugoh easily defeated Nakata as well, 9 to 2.  In the day's final Yoshida again put on an impressive display with another 10 home runs but Tsutsugoh blew him out of the water with an amazing 14 to take Friday's crown.  Tsutsugoh followed the performance up with a home run during the actual game as well.

On Saturday both Suzuki and Balentien eaked out narrow wins over Yamakawa and Yanagita by a score of seven to sixscores of seven and eleven to six and ten respectively.  Balentien then defeated Suzuki in the day's final by a score of seven to six again.  In the overall final Balentien again hit seven home runs but Tsutsugoh took the title with eight home runs.

Here are the videos for both day's Derbys:




Here's Tsutsugoh's rookie card from the 2010 BBM 1st Version set (#212):