Play Ball! (2026)

I'm continuing my Opening Day tradition of doing a post showing a baseball card from the last year that each of the 12 NPB teams won the Nippon Series which was inspired by (or stolen from) the series of posts that Night Owl Cards has been doing for a while now for MLB teams. 

The last time the HAWKS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2025 Epoch NPB #121

The last time the BAYSTARS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2024 Bandai Pro Baseball Deforme #BDC1-B01

The last time the TIGERS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2023 Epoch One #656

The last time the BUFFALOES won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2022 BBM 2nd Version #490

The last time the SWALLOWS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2021 BBM 1st Version #313

The last time the FIGHTERS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2016 BBM Genesis #018

The last time the EAGLES won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2013 Bandai Owners League 02 #111

The last time the GIANTS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2012 BBM No-hitters #81

The last time the MARINES won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2010 BBM 20th Anniversary #190

The last time the LIONS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2008 SCM #94

The last time the DRAGONS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2007 BBM Draft Story #117

The last time the CARP won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

1984 Calbee #152

All 12 current NPB teams have won the Series at least once so there are no "Photo Not Found" teams.

 

Oldest BBM Set With An Active NPB Player - 2026 Edition

Time for another one of my Opening Day traditions - which is the oldest BBM flagship set to have a currently active NPB player (where "active" is a very relative term)?  For the second year in a row, the oldest set is the 2002 one.  All three 2002 rookies who were active last year - Takumi Kuriyama, Takeya Nakamura and Masanori Ishikawa - are on NPB rosters again this year.  Kuriyama and Nakamura are each 43 while Ishikawa is 46.  All three have spent their entire careers with the same teams that took them in the 2001 NPB draft.  Here are their cards from the 2002 BBM 1st and 2nd Version sets (only Ishikawa appeared in both sets):

2002 BBM 1st Version #269

2002 BBM 1st Version #268

2002 BBM 1st Version #24

2002 BBM 2nd Version #442

I, of course, need to mention that there's one former NPB player who's still active in one of Japan's independent leagues.  44 year old Munenori Kawasaki will be suiting up for his seventh season with the Tochigi Golden Braves of the independent Baseball Challenge League.   Kawasaki was drafted by the then-Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in 1999 so his rookie card is in the 2000 BBM set:

2000 BBM #291

 

Upcoming Milestones

With Opening Day 2026 arriving shortly, it's time to roll out my now-traditional post about which players are approaching the career milestones that will ensure them admission to the Meikyukai or "Golden Players Club".  The requirements are that the player has to have been born in the Showa Era (1926-89) or later and accumulated more than 2000 hits, 200 wins or 250 saves.  Statistics from MLB count but only if the NPB stats came first - which is why Alfonso Soriano is eligible but Larry Parrish isn't.

There are six members of the Meikyukai active in NPB right now - Hayato Sakamoto, Takumi Kuriyama, Yohei Ohshima, Yoshihisa Hirano, Hideto Asamura and Masahiro Tanaka - and one in MLB - Yu Darvish.  

In previous years, I've used the most recent NPB cards I had of each player but, because I stopped buying new cards for the most part last year, I can't do that anymore (unless I swipe images from the internet).  So instead I decided to use the earliest appearance that I have of each player from a BBM team set (either comprehensive or not).  It made it kind of interesting to see which teams these players who all have somewhat long careers started from.   

I'm going to start by listing the active hitters who have less than 2000 hits but more than 1500:

1. Yoshihiro Maru, Giants: 1929 hits

2008 BBM Carp #C70

2. Takeya Nakamura, Lions: 1830 hits

2004 BBM Lions #58

3. Ryosuke Kikuchi, Carp: 1789 hits

2012 BBM Rising Carp #11

4. Shogo Akiyama, Carp: 1832 hits (1761 NPB + 71 MLB)

2011 BBM Lions #L67

5. Tetsuto Yamada, Swallows: 1643 hits

2011 BBM Lions #S45

6. Yuki Yanagita, Hawks:  1616 hits

2011 BBM Hawks #H67

7. Daichi Suzuki, Eagles: 1608 hits

2013 BBM Marines #M50

8. Akira Nakamura, Hawks:  1516 hits

2012 BBM Hawks #H65

I think Maru is likely to reach 2000 this year but I don't see anyone else doing it in 2026.

Next up are pitchers with more than 150 wins and less than 200:

1. Masahiro Ishikawa, Swallows:  188 wins

2005 BBM Swallows #S27

2. Takayuki Kishi, Eagles:  170 wins

2007 BBM Lions #L19

3. Hideaki Wakui, Dragons: 166 wins

2005 BBM Lions #L007

4. Kenta Maeda, Eagles: 165 wins (97 NPB + 68 MB)

2007 BBM Carp #C31

I don't see any of these guys getting to 200 this year - or ever, really.

Last but not least, here's all the pitchers with more than 200 hundred saves and less than 250:

1. Naoya Masuda, Marines:  248 saves

2015 BBM Marines #M29

2. Yuki Matsui, Padres:  237 saves (236 NPB + 1 MLB)

2014 BBM Eagles #E02

3. Yasuaki Yamasaki, Baystars:  232 saves

2015 BBM Baystars #DB11

4. Raidel Martinez, Giants:  212 saves

2018 BBM Dragons #D32

Martinez is the new entry in the list.  Pitchers can accumulate saves quickly so it's possible that all four of these guys could pass 250 this year.  Martinez is the only one who's currently a closer (although I'm not sure if the Padres promoted Matsui now that Robert Suarez went to the Braves), so it's probably not likely.  Martinez has had more than 40 saves in each of the past two seasons so if anyone does it, it'll probably be him (which would make him I think the second foreign born member of the meikyukai, following Alex Ramirez - Soriano is eligible but doesn't appear to have accepted membership).

Most of the cards displayed are from the player's rookie year.  The exceptions are the cards for Takeya Nakamura, Ryosuke Kikuchi, Daichi Suzuki, Akira Nakamura, Masanori Ishikawa and Naoya Masuda.

Card Of The Week March 22

A few weeks back, I was thumbing through my copy of the 1973 Calbee book, looking for cards depicting the Nittaku Home Flyers, when I came across a beautiful card of Dragons catcher Tatsuhiko Kimata (1973-74 Calbee #215), swinging a bat with the scoreboard from Nagoya Stadium behind him.  I found the card listed on Mandarake and grabbed a screen shot:

That link from Mandarake had a couple pieces of bad news with it, though.  The first was that the card was sold out and the second was that the price of the card when it was in stock was 25,000 yen which is about $150-ish.  Way too much for me to spend on a card, especially now that I'm not really collecting anymore.  I'll have to console myself with the other Calbee Kimata cards I have, like this one from the 1974/75 set (#39):

2026 Topps Now WBC Cards

With the WBC wrapping up last night, Topps has put their final Topps Now cards for the tournament up for sale.  I'm a bit surprised at how few cards they did this year.  The first time they did Topps Now cards for the WBC - back in 2017 - they did 64 total cards (plus three Spanish language parallels).  For the 2023 WBC, they did 73 Topps Now cards.  That's just the single cards and not the various team sets that were also for sale both years.  This year's set had only 43 cards plus a short printed image variation for Shohei Ohtani and an unnumbered card featuring both Ohtani and John Cena.

There were only four cards featuring members of Samurai Japan.  I swiped the images of the cards from Topps' website:

#WB4

#W9

#W10

#WB15

If you bought the Ohtani card, you had a shot at getting the image variation card or an autographed memorabilia card as well:

#W4 (image variant)

Here's the card with both Ohtani and Cena:

Team Korea had their best showing in the WBC since 2009 but that was only good enough to earn them two cards in the Topps Now set.  Both cards featured events in Korea's 11-4 victory over the Czech Republic on October 5th:

#W2

#W3

Topps says on their website that "Select hobby products will feature WBC-inspired inserts later this year."  I wonder if that means they won't be doing sets only available from their website (like the "Global Stars" and "World Baseball Classic" sets from 2023).  I will try to post about what else they produce this year but since I don't monitor MLB cards very closely, it wouldn't surprise me if I miss stuff.

Shukan Baseball 3000

A few months back, BBM published a set that celebrated both their 35th year of producing baseball cards and the 4000th issue of Shukan Baseball.  I thought it might be interesting to take a quick look at what BBM did the previous time that Shukan Baseball hit a milestone - their 3000th issue in 2010.

BBM celebrated the 3000th issue by including a set of twelve baseball cards over three issues of the magazine in August of 2010 with each issue containing four cards.  As you can probably guess, twelve cards means that there's one player from each NPB team included.  Eight of the players were retired and the other four were active.

I don't know which issue was the 3000th but the first of the three had a cover date of August 2nd, 2010 and had the following four cards:

#1/12

#2/12

#3/12

#4/12

The next issue, with a cover date of August 9th, contained these four cards:

#5/12

#6/12

#7/12

#8/12

The final four cards were in the issue with an August 16th cover date and featured active players:

#9/12

#10/12

#11/12

#12/12

To be honest, this is an odd little collection of cards.  There's really nothing about Shukan Baseball on the cards other than the "Weekly Baseball 3000th" on the front.  The backs have a somewhat generic player biography that never mentions the magazine,  I've no idea why these particular players were selected instead of more famous players (like why Tsuneo Horiuchi instead of Shigeo Nagashima or Sadaharu Oh?)  There are no magazine covers depicted and I don't know if any of these photos were used on covers.

I was kind of disappointed by this year's 35th Anniversary/Shukan Baseball 4000th Issue set but I think it's a lot more interesting than what BBM did for Shukan Baseball's 3000th issue.