BBM's first set of 2020 (even though it was actually released in mid-December of 2019) is the fourth edition of their annual "Time Travel" set. Each of the "Time Travel" sets highlights a particular season and this year's edition is for 1985.
The point of these sets is to look and feel like they were actually released in the highlighted years. The cards have a retro feel to them with a matte finish rather than the usual glossy finish and monochromatic backs rather than the standard full color ones. The stats on the back of the player cards only go up to the year in question.
The "Time Travel 1985" set has a base set of 97 cards split into five sections. The majority of the cards (72 of them) are the "regular" player cards. In addition there's a nine card subset for players who retired in 1985, a six card subset of 1985 baseball highlights, a six card subset for active NPB players who were born in 1985 and a four card subset of pop culture highlights from the year.
The 72 player cards are split up evenly among the 12 teams so there's six per team. As you'd expect there's a bunch of the stars from the year in the set including Hall Of Famers Koji Akiyama, Kimiyasu Kudoh, Tatsunori Hara, Hisashi Yamada, Tsutomu Wakamatsu, Koji Yamamoto, Sachio Kinugasa, Hiromitsu Kadota, Tsutomu Itoh and Choji Murata along with Kenichi Yazawa, Suguru Egawa, Masayuki Kakefu, Akinobu Mayumi and Genji Kaku. Sadaharu Oh who was manager of the Giants that year is also included. I want to comment on Murata's inclusion as this is the second consecutive "Time Travel" set he's appeared in after appearing in only a couple sets the previous 15 years (he's also in Epoch's Lotte 50th Anniversary set from last year). I believe Wakamatsu is the only player to appear in all four "Time Travel" sets - he had regular player cards in the 1975 and 1979 sets and a "Retiring Player" subset card in the 1989 set.
Last year I said I wasn't going to nit-pick the player selection for the set but this year I really feel I have to. The set only includes one Westerner - Randy Bass of the Tigers. I can't complain about his being included since he won the Central League Triple Crown that year but the set could have also included Boomer Wells, Leon Lee and Leron Lee. Warren Cromartie would also have been an appropriate selection but as usual he's not in the set. The biggest omission of this set though is another player who's been missing from OB sets lately - Hiromitsu Ochiai. Ochiai won the Pacific League Triple Crown that year (it was his second Triple Crown - he'd win it again in 1986) and was MVP and he's not in the set. Hard to tell the story of NPB in 1985 without him.
The photos on the cards are a good mix of action, posed and candid shots. I wish BBM would use a mix like this for their modern cards. Here's some example cards:
#13
#04
#34
#45
#39
#59
Matsunaga won the MVP award for the third All Star and won an Isuzu Piazza. I'm hoping that Mike Piazza won an Izuzu Matsunaga at some point in his career.
Any 1985 rookies in the set (like Hirosawa) get the "Rookie" icon on their cards.
Here's what the card backs look like:
#29 Kenichi Yazawa
At nine cards the "Retiring Players" subset is the largest it's ever been - it was six cards in each of the 1989 and 1979 sets (and didn't appear in the 1975 set). The players featured are Kenji Furusawa, Kojiro Ikegaya, Hiroaki Inoue, Hiromu Matsuoka, Jitsuo Mizutani, Akihiko Ohya, Shoji Sadaoka, Kohei Shimamoto and Hall Of Famer Keishi Suzuki:
#79
The six baseball highlights of 1985 included in the set are Masahiro Nakane of the Buffaloes hitting the 50,000th professional baseball home run on April 23rd, Keijiro Yumioka of the Braves sacrificing four times in a game on June 9th, Yuiko Tanaka of the Fighters (that one, not that one) no-hitting the Buffaloes also on June 9th, Katsuo Hirata of the Tigers also sacrificing four times in a game on July 18th, Koji Yamamoto of the Carp getting his record 14th All Star Game home run on July 23rd and Yutaka Fukumoto of the Braves setting the career record for triples on July 26th. Yumioka and Yamamoto are the only players of the six who have a regular player card in the set. I have to say I'm a bit surprised that this subset does not include a card for the Tigers winning the Nippon Series as it was the biggest baseball story of the year - it was the first and still only time the Tigers won the Series. Here's the card for Tanaka's no-hitter:
#84
The six active players included in the "Born In 1985" subset are Kentaro Kuwahara of the Tigers, Naoki Miyanishi of the Fighters, Toru Murata of the Fighters, Yoshihisa Naruse of the Buffaloes, Tomohisa Ohtani of the Marines, and Tatsuya Uchi of the Marines.
#92
The four "Pop Culture" cards are for Miki Asakura's hit single covering "Holding Out For A Hero", the retirement of rugby star Yuji Matsuo, broadcaster Sadao Uekusa calling the Tigers back-to-back-to-back home runs by Randy Bass, Masayuki Kakefu and Akinobu Okada on April 17th against the Giants (which seems more like a baseball highlight than a pop culture moment) and the introduction of the 100 series of Shinkansen trains. Here's the Asakura card:
#94
And here's her version of the song:
The set has two insert sets that I splurged for that are dedicated to various Title Holders from 1985. There's an eight card set for the Central League and a ten card set for the Pacific League. It's a bit odd that there's two cards in the Central League set for Randy Bass - one celebrating him winning the MVP as well as leading the league in batting average, home runs, RBI, hits, game winning RBI and on base percentage and the other for him winning the Nippon Series MVP. There's also a card for Tigers manager Yoshio Yoshida winning the Shoriki Award - it's kind of odd that he appears on an insert card but not in the regular set.
#CT8
#PT3
The cards feature shiny gold lettering for the "Title" the player/manager holds so they don't necessarily scan well.
So I have my nit-picks with the set but on the whole I like it. I've been enjoying the "Time Travel" sets and I hope BBM continues them. As always I'm curious to see what they do next. I haven't figured out a pattern yet although it's kind of odd that so far the years have either ended in "5" or "9".
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