Thursday, October 16, 2025

2004 BBM Giants 70th Anniversary Magazine Cards


Now that I have all of them, I wanted to do a quick post showing the cards that were distributed in the mook (magazine/book) that BBM published in 2004 to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Yomiuri Giants.  Each issue had an envelope embedded in it that contained two of the five possible cards - Eiji Sawamura, Tetsuharu Kawakami, Shigeo Nagashima, Sadaharu Oh and Tatsunori Hara.

I first became aware of these cards when I picked up the Sawamura card from Rob Fitts off of Ebay back in 2021.  Neither Rob or I knew where the card had come from but it didn't take too long before I not only figured out that it came from a magazine but I found a copy on Yahoo! Japan Auctions that I asked Ryan to pick up for me.  That issue contained the Oh and Hara cards.  I didn't hold out a whole lot of hope that I'd find the other two cards but I was pleasantly surprised.  I found the Kawakami card at SportsCard BITS in Nagoya last year and the Nagashima card on Yahoo! Japan Auctions (via Ryan) earlier this year.

I've shown all these cards in previous posts but I wanted to show them all in one post.  Here's the front and back of all five cards:










I didn't notice until I was doing this post that the Kawakami card has his signature on it.  Unfortunately it appears to be printed on the card and not a real autograph.  I don't think it's a parallel as the image of the card on the envelope embedded in the magazine shows the signature on Kawakami's card but no signatures on the other cards.  So I think all of the Kawakami cards have the facsimile signature on them.  I suspect that the image BBM used for the card had the signature on it.  I will say it's odd that they used that image since it's not like photos of Kawakami as a player are rare (unlike Sawamura).

Monday, October 13, 2025

RIP Yoshihiro Itoh

Catching up on some tragic news from last week when I was on vacation...

Former Chiba Lotte Marines pitcher Yoshihiro Itoh was killed in a motorcycle accident last Monday in Fukuoka.  He was 43 years old.

Born in Fukuoka, Itoh attended Higashi Fukuoka High School (where he pitched in the 2000 Koshien Tournament) and Kokugakuin University before joining the JR Tokai corporate league team.  He was taken by the Marines in the fourth round of the college/corporate league phase of the 2007 NPB draft.

He was a fixture in the Marines' bullpen for his first couple seasons, mostly in middle relief.  He appeared in over 50 games in both 2008 and 2009 and over 60 games in 2010.  

What was probably the highlight of his career happened in that post-season.  The Marines made an improbable run in the Climax Series, becoming the first third place finisher to make it to the Nippon Series where they took on the Chunichi Dragons.  The two teams split the first two games in Nagoya, with Itoh pitching a perfect eighth inning with two strikeouts in Game One (won by the Marines 5-2).  Lotte won Game Three back in Chiba but Chunichi evened things up in Game Four where Itoh gave up the game winning run in the top of the eleventh inning.  After Lotte won again in Game Five, the Series moved back to Nagoya.  Game Six was a grind - tied 2-2 after nine innings, it would ultimately end in a tie after 15 innings when neither team scored again.  Itoh pitched a scoreless ninth in the game, striking out two Dragons.

With the tie, the Dragons would need to win Game 7 to force a winner-take-all Game 8.  Early on, it looked like that might happen as Chunichi led 6-2 after three innings.  But the Marines battled back, scoring a solo run in the top of the fourth and three runs in the fifth to tie the game up.  They took the lead in the top of the seventh and looked to close out the game and the Series with their closer, Hiroyuki Kobayashi on the mound.  However, Kazuhiro Wada led off the bottom of the ninth with a triple and Tony Blanco brought him home with a game tying sacrifice fly.  For the third time in the Series, the game would go into extra innings.  Itoh would relieve Kobayashi in the eleventh inning and retire the Dragons in order.  Toshiaki Imae walked to lead off the top of the twelfth, bringing Itoh to the plate.  With the bullpen stressed due to the previous day's marathon, the Marines had no real option to pinch hit for him.  He laid down a sacrifice bunt, successfully moving Imae to second where he would score on Yoshifumi Okada's triple two batters later.  Itoh pitched another perfect inning in the bottom of the twelfth to win the game and the Series.

It looked like 2011 was going to be a continuation of the previous few seasons, with Itoh again working in middle relief and appearing in 50 games.  His season ended on September 1st, however, when he suffered a horrific injury in a game against the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Chiba.  With one out in the seventh inning, Daikan Yoh hit a soft line drive to shortstop.  Itoh had turned to watch the ball and didn't see that Yoh's bat had shattered and the barrel of it was heading straight towards him.  The sharp end of the bat slammed into the back of his left leg and Itoh staggered off the mound before collapsing on the ground, clutching his leg.  He needed to be carried off the field.  (There's video of the incident here - H/T one of the commenters on this NPB Reddit thread.)  I'm not entirely sure but I think the bat damaged his calf muscle.

He wasn't the same pitcher after the injury.  He was compensating for his injured left leg and ended up developing issues with his right shoulder and elbow as well as his side and back.  Injuries and ineffectiveness limited him to only six games with the top team in 2012, 17 in 2013 (with an ERA of 10.61), five in 2014 and seven in 2015.  

After making no appearances at the ichi-gun level in 2016, Itoh was released by the Marines at the end of the season.  He hoped to continue playing and attended the 12 team tryout in November but he didn't draw any interest from any teams.  He announced his retirement in December and went back to school to get his Master's degree in Physical Education and his teaching license.  He became a teacher at his alma mater and also coached the baseball team.  He left the school last summer and opened his own sports academy - "Pitch+" - last month.

His first card was #50 from the 2008 BBM Rookie Edition set.  He also had rookie cards in BBM's 1st Version (#287), Marines (#M19) and Rookie Edition Premium (#RP24) sets in 2008 as well as Konami's Baseball Heroes Power Up Version (#C08B025).  He'd kind of have his first Calbee card in 2009 as he appeared in the Iron Arms box set associated with Series Three that was sold on Calbee's e-commerce site.  His first Calbee card that came with potato chips was in the 2010 Series Three set (#277).  He appeared in a number of Konami and Bandai Owners League card game sets but all the cards I have of him are from BBM:

2008 BBM Rookie Edition #50

2008 BBM 1st Version #287

2010 BBM Nippon Series #S08

2011 BBM 2nd Version #494

2015 BBM Marines #M15


Sunday, October 12, 2025

Card Of The Week October 12

Sorry for the lack of posts lately - I was out of town on vacation all last week and spent most of today getting caught up on things around the house.  So here's a quick post about a card I picked up a few months back - a 1958 Marukami JCM 31a menko card depicting Shigeo Nagashima (left) and Tetsuharu Kawakami (right, in the kimono).  This is one of a myriad of menko rookie cards for Nagashima.



Sunday, October 5, 2025

Card Of The Week October 5

Shingo Takatsu and Daisuke Miura have both announced in the past couple weeks that they'd be stepping down as manager of the Swallows and Baystars respectively.  Takatsu was the longest tenured NPB manager, having taken over the team in 2020 while Miura was the second longest, taking the DeNA helm the following year.  That means that the longest tenured NPB manager, the dean of all Japanese field managers as it were, is now this man:

2022 Topps NPB #67


Friday, October 3, 2025

KBO Catchup and End Of The Year Releases

It's only been a little over two weeks since I last did a round up of newly announced releases but Dan Skrezyna - aka Korean Cardboard - contacted me last week to let me know there were a couple new KBO releases.  So I thought I'd get caught up on those as well as cover a couple newly announced NPB sets.

- SCC released "KBO Sensation" at the end of August.  I think this is a higher end set.  I'm a little confused about the details as Dan's post on BlueSky has different information then what he's put up on TCDB.  Of course, it would help if SCC had some useful information on their website but, hey, you can't have everything.  I'm going to assume what's on TCDB is the accurate information.  The base set has 182 cards and there's some sort of parallel but I'm not sure if all the base set cards have parallel versions.  There's six different varieties of insert cards - "Chrome" (50 cards), "Wave" (40 cards), "Impact" (40 cards), "Tropical" (10 cards), "Rookie" (33 cards with a 1-of-1 parallel) and "Rookie Of The Year" (1 card).  There are also jersey cards, patch cards, sticker autograph cards and on-card autograph cards available.  It looks like each box retails for 120,000 won (around $86) and is guaranteed to contain one autograph cards, one memorabilia card (either a jersey or a patch) and one "Chrome" insert card.

- About three weeks after releasing "KBO Sensation", SCC released another KBO set called "KBO Collection Plus".  They put a little more detail on their website and Dan's put the information for the set up at TCDB.  The set has a 115 card base set and there's two associated sets that could be considered either inserts or parallels - 52 "All Star" cards and 50 "Hologram" cards.  The reason I'm a bit confused about what they should be considered is that they use the same card numbers as the base set but they use a completely unrelated design.  Further confusing matters is that the "Hologram" cards have a parallel version too.  50 players also have autographed cards - both facsimile and real ones - that also use the same numbering system as the base set which is really confusing but kind of par for the course for SCC's KBO sets.

- This year's edition of "Rookie Edition Premium", BBM's annual box set for the top rookies of the season, will be released on November 1st.  Each box contains 38 cards - the 36 card base set plus two "premium" insert cards.  The base set contains three cards for each team which aren't necessarily the top three picks from last year's draft.  (I should point out that "rookie" in this case is the baseball card definition - players taken in the 2024 draft - rather than the "eligibility for the Rookie Of The Year award" definition.)  The "premium" insert cards could be autographed cards (either sticker or on-card), memorabilia cards (including patch and bat knob) and "booklets" - although I'm not sure if those have multiple autographs or multiple pieces of memorabilia (or both).  As you might expect because each box has two hits, they're retailing for 16,000 yen or around $108.

- I guess that last year's "Lions Collection" box set featuring the team's alternate uniform that they collaborated with the Japanese fashion line "New Yorker on and also featuring cards of team members wearing street clothes was popular enough that BBM decided to do a similar set this year.  "Lions Bouquet" is a 46 card box set that will be released towards the end of November.  Each box contains the 45 card base set, a "special" insert card and one of 11 tin badges.  The base set is split up into three parts - 16 "Bouquet-style" cards showing players in street clothes, 18 cards showing players in the "Lions Summer Blue" alternate uniforms and 11 "Peko-chan & player illustration" cards.  Peko-chan is the mascot for the Fujiya candy company - it's a girl with pigtails.  I'm not sure but I think these eleven cards are drawings and the tin badge in the box matches one of these cards.  The possible "special" insert cards include foil "facsimile" autographed cards, real autographed cards, and exchange cards for memorabilia cards.

- 2025 is BBM's 35th year doing baseball cards.  It will also feature the 4000th issue of Shukan (Weekly) Baseball, published by Baseball Magazine Sha, BBM's parent company, at some point this fall.  To celebrate both of these events, BBM is releasing a set called something like "35th Anniversary & Weekly Baseball Issue 4000 Commemorative Special Edition" in late December.  The base set will contain 240 cards, split evenly between OB players and active players - although 12 of the active player cards are for rookies and will use the 1991 BBM design.  I'm assuming this set will follow the usual "same number of cards per team" format (although BBM's "25th Anniversary" set from 2015 did not) so there'll be 20 cards per team (with Kintetsu and Rakuten combined probably).  The OB player list is interesting.  Previous BBM anniversary sets were limited to post-1991 players but with Shukan Baseball's archives going back to 1958, it really opens up the number of players available.  Some of the pre-1991 OB players include Sadaharu Oh, Koichi Tabuchi, Keishi Suzuki, Masayuki Kakefu and Suguru Egawa.  The set will have three insert sets - "Cross Ocean" (24 OB players), "Dream Team" (24 active players, I assume it's using the 1998 "Dream Team" insert design like the 30th Anniversary set did) and "Combined" (12 cards with an OB player paired with an active player from the same team).  There are also memorabilia cards, all of which appear to feature multiple players as there are "combo", "triple" and "quartet" ones listed.  And, of course, there are autograph cards for both the OB and active players as well as ones that are listed as "Shukan Baseball Cover Autograph" which I guess is an autographed reproduction of a Shukan Baseball cover shrunk to baseball card size.  I was kind of hoping that the base set cards would be reproductions of Shukan Baseball covers but I'm guessing that it'll only be for these autographed cards.

- Epoch is releasing their second of their "ultra high-end" combination active/OB player team sets on November 8th (a week after their first one comes out).  Three card boxes of the "Marines Stars & Legends with Memorabilia" set will retail for 16500 (about $112).  The base set has 36 cards - 32 for active players (and manager Masato Yoshii) and just four for OB players (Seiya Inoue, Toshiaki Imae, Masahide Kobayashi and Tomoya Satozaki).  There are three flavors of the six "Decomori Signature" insert cards - gold (/25), green (/5) and "hologram" (1-of-1) - along with nine "Gem" premium insert cards which have a "Black Gem" parallel that are /5.  All the memorabilia cards are bat and/or batting glove cards for three 2025 rookies - Misho Nishikawa, Ryusei Miyazaki, and Yu Tatematsu.  There are four varieties of individual bat cards - "core", "grip", "barrel" and "knob" - along with a card featuring a bat fragment for all three players.  There are two varieties of individual batting glove cards - "piece" and "strap" - along with a card featuring a batting glove piece from all three players.  There are also individual cards that feature both a bat and glove relic for each player.  There are also five varieties of autographed cards available.  All 36 players have an "authentic" autograph card while the four OB players also have a "Legendary" autograph card.  I think the remaining autograph cards are all for the active players - "Star" (five cards), "Rookie" (six cards) and "Baseball" (20 cards).  If we assume that there's no overlap between the players in each group, there's an additional autograph for 31 of the 32 active players.  I'd guess that the one guy who doesn't have a second autograph card is Yoshii but I don't know that for sure.

Thursday, October 2, 2025

Another Zippy Zappy-ing

Earlier this week, I finally got around to writing about some cards that Kenny (Zippy Zappy) had sent me a month or so ago.  He left a comment on that post, saying there was another envelope en route to me.  It showed up yesterday and contained this "Super Rare" card from the 2021 Konami Baseball Collection set:

#2021C7-SRD001-00

Thanks as always, Kenny!


Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Masahiro Tanaka

After what seemed like forever, Masahiro Tanaka finally got his 200th career win between NPB and MLB yesterday.  He'd gotten to 197 wins after the 2023 season but went winless in his final season with the Eagles last year and it took nine starts this season with the Yomiuri Giants to get those last three wins.

I'm not going to do the usual deep dive into Tanaka's career here because it's pretty well known and I've covered it a lot in the past.  He had a stellar career at Komazawa University Tomakomai High School which culminated in his famous duel with Yuki Saitoh in the finals of the 2006 Summer Koshien Tournament and was taken in the first round of the 2006 draft by the Eagles.  He spent the next seven seasons in Sendai, winning a Rookie Of The Year Award, two Sawamura Awards and an MVP award while capping his tenure off with a phenomenal 24-0 season in which he led the Eagles to their first (and to date only) championship in 2013.

He left for MLB and the Yankees after that and spent seven seasons in pinstripes before returning to Japan and the Eagles for the 2021 season.  His first three years back were somewhat mediocre and then he missed a lot of last season due to an elbow injury.  He ultimately only made one start at the ichi-gun level, giving up four runs in five innings against the Buffaloes on September 28th and took the loss.  That was his last appearance with the Eagles as the team released him at the beginning of December and he signed with the Giants later that month.

I'm again not going to do my usual thing of saying what his rookie cards are and et cetera - I did all that in a post back in late 2013 and I did another post showing a bunch of his cards when he signed with the Yankees a month or so later.  I'll just share a bunch of other cards of his here:

2007 BBM SCM #82

2007 Calbee Series Three #C-11

2009 Eagles Seat Owners Club #18

2013 Topps Tribute WBC Edition #45

2013 BBM Shukan Baseball Season Memorial #1

2013 BBM Masahiro Tanaka Invincibility Legend #25

2014 Calbee Series One #NS-1

2021 BBM 1st Version #087

2022 Epoch One #604

2023 Calbee Series Two #FW-04

2023 Topps NPB #197

2024 Epoch/Eagles Team Set 1st Version #03

2024 Bandai Pro Baseball Deforme #BDC1-E02

A couple comments:

  • That's Takeshi Yamazaki with him on the 2007 Calbee checklist card
  • That 2014 Calbee card is not officially a Tanaka card as Calbee didn't have the rights to make a card of him that year since he was in MLB.  But that's obviously him in the middle of the crowd.