Searching For Hoshino, 2010 Edition

Last year, I discovered that former Dragons pitcher and former Dragons and Tigers manager (as well as 2008 Japanese Olympic team coach) Senichi Hoshino would be traveling to Aberdeen, MD to support the Japanese team in the Cal Ripken World Series. Since the tournament would be played only about 5 miles from my house, I decided to go over and see if I could find him and get him to autograph a baseball card for me. I was unsuccessful in finding him, but I had a good time watching the games anyway. I took a bunch of pictures of the games I attended against Mexico, Canada and Korea.

This year's tournament kicked off this afternoon with Japan taking on Canada. I headed over with a Hoshino card and a Sharpie, hoping to have better luck this year.

Almost immediately after arriving, I ran into one of the Japanese team officials that I had talked to last year. I asked him if Mr. Hoshino was going to be attending the game. He told me that Hoshino would be arriving later that day, but he would almost certainly be at tomorrow's game. He asked me if I was press and I said no, just a fan hoping to get a card autographed. He assured me that he would help me accomplish that at tomorrow's game. So bad news that Hoshino wasn't at today's game, but hopefully good news that I can catch him tomorrow.

I stuck around for the game against Canada. Last year, Japan completely demolished the Canadian team 16-0, no-hitting them for four innings before the game was called due to the slaughter rule. The Canucks fared a little better today - getting two hits and scoring a run, but they still lost 13-1 in a game called after four innings due to the slaughter rule. Ritsuki Ohnishi was the star for the Japanese team - he went 3 for 3 with a single, a double and a home run, scored two runs, drove in four, stole two bases AND pitched two innings, striking out three and getting the win. Not a bad afternoon's work.

I took a bunch of pictures, but I have a bit of a complaint about the field. It's the Ripken Academy's Wrigley Field replica and it seemed like it was impossible to find a good place to sit and have good sightlines to the whole field. Between the trees along side the field, the "press box" behind home plate and the tall roofs to the dugouts, it seemed like no matter where I stood, some part of the field was blocked from view. So I ended up moving around quite a bit. I still think some of the shots turned out alright though:


Manager Koji Okumura. Does he wear 77 in honor of Senichi Hoshino?





Japanese center-fielder Kanji Ito. Notice the ivy in the background:



Canadian baserunner breaking for second on Ritsuki Ohnishi:




Pitcher Shuichi Katayama. I like the yellow glove:


Pickoff attempt at second:


Oendan section:



Ohnishi being greeted at the plate after his three run homer:


Ohnishi getting an award as Japan's player of the game:


Team bow after the game:

Card Of The Week August 8

The baseball blogo-sphere was abuzz last week over an amazing catch by the Carp's Masato Akamatsu, who climbed the center field wall in Hiroshima to rob Shuichi Murata of a home run. The catch even made the Yahoo's front page one day last week. Yahoo's Big League Stew mentioned that it reminded them of the following catch:



The video shows Hankyu Braves outfielder Masafumi Yamamori climbing the fence to take a home run away from Sumio Hirota of the Lotte Orions. (The pitcher by the way is Hisashi Yamada, who had a very distinctive "submarine" delivery and was later Dragons manager from 2002-2003). It happened in 1981 and I think it is commemorated on the back of Yamamori's card from last winter's BBM Memory Makers set - there's a date of 9/16/1981 listed and while I can't read what it says, I can see the kanji for Sumio Hirota's name. Here's both the front and back of the card (#012):




I will point out that the picture has nothing to do with the catch and is actually from a few years later - the uniform he's wearing is the one Hankyu wore between 1984-88.

And in case you missed it, here's Akamatsu's catch from last week:


EMBED-Spiderman Style Baseball Catch - Watch more free videos

Thanks to Japan Baseball Daily for filling in the background of the Yamamori catch.

August Swapmeet

This is the swapmeet post for August. If you've got cards to sell or trade and/or there are cards you're looking for, add a comment to this post saying what you've got, what you want and how to contact you.

Here's what I'm still looking for:

A handful of cards from the 1995-2000 BBM sets
A bunch of cards from the 2003-06 BBM 1st Version sets
A couple cards from the 2005 BBM 2nd Version set
10 or so cards from the 2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 set
The Kazuo Matsui Century Best 9 insert from the 2001 BBM Preview set
2002 BBM Japanese National Team box set

What I've got for sale or trade:

I'm slowly getting what I've got somewhat organized. I've traded/sold some cards in the last month, but I still have a lot of BBM cards from 1992-2006, along with some 70's and 80's Calbee cards, 70's Yamakatsu cards and 1993 Tomy cards.

I can be reached at npbcardguy@gmail.com.

More New BBM Sets

BBM's website announced a couple of new sets this week.

BBM's annual "high-end" set Touch The Game will be out in mid-September. This set will contain 156 "regular" cards which break down as 108 player cards (9 per team), 12 cards for rookies (1 per team) and 36 cards (3 per team) for the cross set 20th Anniversary Cross Stream subset. There will also be the usual myriad of parallel issues and memorabilia and autograph inserts.

The Tokyo Big Six Fall Version set is a box set that will be released in early September. Each set will contain 37 cards - 36 "regular" cards (which will be a team card and five player cards for each team) plus an insert card. The insert card will be one of 10 cards commemorating the players who won awards for the Spring season. BBM is touting that this set will contain the last college card for Yuki Saitoh and the first card ever for Daisuke Takeuchi (who threw a no-hitter last spring for Keio).

Goodbye Shonan Searex

Yakyu Baka reported the other day that the Shonan Searex will be no more after this season. The Searex are the farm (ni-gun) team for the Yokohama Baystars - they are currently the only farm team that does not have the same name as their parent (ichi-gun) team (Orix's farm team was called Kobe Surpass through 2008). Generally, BBM includes cards of players from the farm teams without any differentiation from the ichi-gun team players, but Shonan players stood out since they didn't wear Baystars uniforms. Here's a couple examples - Toshiki Kurobane from the 2006 BBM 1st Version set (#323) and I-Cheng Wang from the 2010 BBM 1st Version set (#193):

Card Of The Week August 1

Keiichi Yabu has returned to NPB for the first time since 2004. After failing a tryout with the Marines, he signed with the Eagles last week. Here's his 2001 Victory card (#033) from when he was still a Hanshin Tiger:

2010 Calbee Series 3

Calbee's website the other day announced that this year's third series would be out on September 6. According to the checklist, there will be 96 regular cards in this series (8 per team), just like the first two series. There are only a couple insert sets this time: a 12 card (1 for each team) set of highlights from interleague play, a 24 card (2 for each team) "star" set (which is a continuation of a set from Series 2) and a four card checklist set. There's also a 12 card (1 for each team) set featuring the shortstops for each team that is only available through some sort of redemption deal.