Card Of The Week March 8

to homer in front of the Emperor since Nagashima The 2026 World Baseball Classic is in full swing and it's been pretty much everything we all had expected and hoped for.  There's been some upsets, some near-upsets and some flat out amazing games.  It's kind of wild but there had never been a walk-off home run in a WBC game before yesterday and then there were two!  There are any number of things that I could write about but I decided to limit it to just two.

I had the Cuba-Panama game on Friday afternoon and was surprised to see a familiar name in the lineup.  Now, to be fair, there were a number of players with NPB experience playing for Cuba that day with Roel Santos and Ariel Martinez also in the lineup and Livan Moinelo, Yariel Rodriguez, Yoan Lopez and Raidel Martinez all pitching.  Moinelo got the win and Martinez got the save.  The player I didn't expect to see (and this was my fault for not looking over Cuba's roster before the game) was 39 year old Alfredo Despaigne, who had spent ten years in NPB with the Marines and Hawks.  It's been three years since he played for the Hawks and I had assumed that he had retired.  This is his fifth WBC which I think ties him with Miguel Cabrera and Oliver Perez for most WBCs played in (there may be other players for whom the 2026 WBC is their fifth tournament but I don't know who they are off hand).  Here's a card of a younger, slimmer Despainge from his first WBC in 2009:

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC #W09R059

Today's Japan-Australia game was a nail biter.  The game was scoreless through the first five innings but Australia took a 1-0 lead in the top of the sixth when Aaron Whitfield doubled, stole third and came into score when catcher Kenya Wakatsuki's throw bounced into left field.  Japan wouldn't get on the board until the bottom of the seventh where Kensuke Kondoh set the stage by beating out what would have been an inning ending double play but a bad throw pulled pitcher Jon Kennedy off the bag.  The next batter, Masataka Yoshida, deposited the second pitch from Kennedy into the Samurai Japan cheering section in right field to put the home team up 2-1.  Japan tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the eighth to extend their lead to 4-1. It turned out they needed those insurance runs as two Aussie batters - Alex Hall and Rixon Wingrove - hit solo home runs in the ninth inning before closer Taisei (Oto) finally got the last out to preserve the 4-3 win.  With the victory, Japan has clinched the top spot coming out of Pool C.  One of the broadcasters mentioned that Japan had been the top seed coming out the first round for every WBC but that's actually not true as they were the second seed in 2006 behind Korea.  Korea had upset Japan 3-2 in the last game of the pool with Lee Seung-yuop hitting a two run home run in the eighth inning to provide the winning margin.

Tonight's game at the Tokyo Dome was attended by Emperor Naruhito and the Empress Masako.  It was the first time that a reigning Emperor had attended a professional baseball game since November 11th, 1966 when the Showa Emperor attended a game between a Japanese All Star team and the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers.  The only other time an Emperor attended a professional baseball game was the Emperor's game in 1959, a game that dramatically ended on a sayonara home run by Shigeo Nagashima.  Gabe Lerman on BlueSky asked if Yoshida's home run was the first home run by a Japanese player "to homer in front of the Emperor since Nagashima" which, of course, got me curious.  I broke out my copy of "Nichibei Yakyu: US Tours of Japan, Volume II: 1960-2019" and looked up the details about that game.  It turned out that three Japanese batters went deep in the game - Nagashima, Yukinobu Kuroe and pitcher Tetsuya Yoneda - so, alas, the answer was "no".  For the record, Japanese Emperor's have witness nine home runs by Japanese players.  Nagashima hit three of them (two in 1959 and the one in 1966) while the other six were by Kazuhiko Sakazaki, Katsumi Fujimoto and Sadaharu Oh in the 1959 game, Kuroe and Yoneda in 1966 and Yoshida today.  (A Japanese Emperor has also seen four home runs hit by foreign players - Ron Fairly and John Roseboro in 1966 and Hall and Wingrove today).

Here's a card of Yoshida to commemorate his home run:

2020 Epoch Buffaloes Rookies & Stars #32

Fumito Haraguchi

Long time Hanshin Tiger Fumito Haraguchi retired at the end of last year.  Haraguchi was never a big star but he overcame numerous injuries and adversity to be a fan favorite at Koshien.  

Haraguchi first made his mark at the Tigers home park was when his high school, Teikyo, played in the 2009 Summer Koshien tournament where they made it to the quarterfinals.  He played well enough in the tournament that he was selected for the Japanese team for the Japan-US Friendship High School Baseball Tournament later that summer.  A few months later, he was selected by Hanshin in the sixth round of the NPB draft.

He played in only nine games with the farm team in 2010, hitting a paltry .143.  His playing time increased to 48 games in 2011 and his batting average increased to .329.  A back injury in March of 2012 limited him to just 16 games and a .189 average that year.  The Tigers released him at the end of the season and resigned him to an ikusei (development player) contract.

A hit-by-pitch early in the 2013 season broke his arm and he was limited to just 17 games.  He was released again at the end of the year and ended up re-upping his ikusei contract.  He was finally healthy during the 2014 season and got into 57 games, hitting .264.  He injured his shoulder on a pick off play in the post-season Phoenix League (think of something along the lines of the Arizona Fall League) but managed to avoid having to have surgery.  

He re-upped his development player contract again for the 2015 season and was healthy enough to play in 59 games although he hit just .220.  He got invited to take part in the first team's fall practice, however, at the request of the new Tigers manager Tomoaki Kanemoto.  Kanemoto provided one-on-one batting instruction with him during the camp.

Haraguchi and the Tigers once again renewed his development player for the 2016 season but things were different that spring.  He joined the top team's training camp late in February and stayed with the team through much of the pre-season games.  A month into the regular season, the Tigers registered him to the 70 man roster.  They brought him up to the top team on April 27th to make his ichi-gun debut some six years since he had been drafted and after three years as a development player.

He made the most of his opportunity, hitting .380 with 5 home runs and 17 RBIs in his first full month (May), becoming the first former development player to win the "Player Of The Month" award.  He wasn't on the All Star ballot but a write-in campaign resulted in him finishing second to Yuhei Nakamura for Central League catcher and he was added to the team's roster by manager Mitsuru Manaka.  He finished the season with a .299 average and 11 home runs in 107 games and drew some votes for Rookie Of The Year, ultimately finishing fourth.

He had a late season shoulder injury and he may have affected his performance in 2017 as he hit only .226.  His role changed to backup catcher and pinch hitter in 2018 and he did pretty well in that role, hitting .315 despite a hand injury costing him some time late in the season.

His most serious health issue came to light in the off season, however, as he was diagnosed with colon cancer.  He had surgery in January and underwent rehabilitation.  He returned to the field with the farm team in early May and rejoined the top team a month later.  His first at bat resulted in a pinch hit RBI double against the Marines on June 4th.  He was selected to the All Star team via the "Plus One" fan vote and homered twice in the All Star games.  He finished the season hitting .276 in 43 games.

The next several years (2020-24) were each somewhat similar to each other.  He settled into a back up and pinch hitter role, appearing in 50-ish games each year (with the exception of 2022 where he missed time due to catching COVID).  His position registration changed from catcher to infielder and he spent a lot of time playing first base plus a little outfield.  His playing time dwindled to just 16 games with the top team in 2025 and he announced his retirement towards the end of the season.

His rookie cards are all BBM issues from 2010 - Rookie Edition (#031), 1st Version (#144), 2nd Version (#585) and the Tigers team set (#T040).  He only appeared in BBM's Tiger team sets the next few years and didn't have any cards at all in 2015 as BBM stopped including ikusei players in their team sets that year.  His first base set Calbee card wasn't until 2017's Series One (#060) and he only had one other "regular" player card in a Calbee set (2020 Series Three #198) although he appeared on a couple checklist cards (and, oddly enough, had a Star card in 2016 despite not being in the base set).  He appeared in several of Epoch's NPB sets, even in years when he didn't appear in any of BBM's flagship sets.  Here's a handful of his cards:

2010 BBM Rookie Edition #031

2010 BBM #144

2013 BBM Tigers #T071

2016 BBM 2nd Version #362

2017 Epoch Tigers #22 (** variation)

2019 Calbee Series Three #C-12

2021 Epoch NPB #269

2023 BBM Tigers #T56

2026 Epoch One Samurai Japan Cards

I had an email exchange with Ryan today and he alerted me to the fact that Epoch had issued some Epoch One cards for Samurai Japan.  There are 21 cards in all and they cover some of the exhibition games that the team played in February.  

As you'd probably expect, there are no MLB members of the team included but there are cards for Kensuke Kondoh, Teruaki Sato (2 cards), Shota Morishita (2 cards), Seishiro Sakamoto (2 cards), Kenya Wakatsuki, Hiromi Itoh, Hiroya Miyagi (2 cards), Chihiro Sumida, Hiroto Takahashi, Shugo Maki, Kaito Kozono, Koki Kitayama, and Shoma Fujihira with Sato, Morishita, Sakamoto and Miyagi having two cards each.  There are also cards for players who played in the exhibition games but are not part of the WBC roster - Hibiki Shinohara, Tai Sasaski and Daito Yamamoto (who also had two cards).

The cards are 500 yen each and will be available for three days - which will be roughly 6 PM JST on Monday, March 9th (5 AM EDT).  As always it does not appear that Epoch will ship these cards overseas.

Topps Now World Baseball Classic Cards

The World Baseball Classic kicked off today and, for the third time, Topps is issuing Topps Now cards for it.  So far there are only three cards available from the two games that were played today  - Travis Bazzana of Australia and Bo Gyeong Moon and Shay Witcomb of Korea.  All the cards will be listed on both Topps' US website and their Japanese website.   The cards are $8.99 each on the US site and 1485 yen on the Japanese one.  These three cards will apparently be on sale for 48 hours instead of what I thought was the standard 24 as they'll be available until 5:15 PM EST on March 7th.  I'm going to make a guess that Topps will release new cards at 5:15 EST for at least the next two days and then we'll see what happens on Sunday when most of the US switches to Daylight Savings Time.  My expectation is that the cards will go on sale at 6:15 EDT then but that's just a guess.

In addition to the single cards, Topps is also selling Topps Now team sets for six of the teams in the tournament - USA, Japan, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Korea and Puerto Rico.  The sets for the US, Japan, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela are $59.99 each (9900 yen on the Japanese site) and contain 13 cards - the 12 card base set plus one extra card that is either a parallel or an autographed card (I guess they've taken inspiration from BBM's box sets).  The Korea and Puerto Rico sets are $49.99 each (8250 yen) and have only 11 cards each - a 10 card base set plus the parallel or autograph card.  These sets will be available until 2:45 PM EDT on March 16th.

The twelve players listed for the Samurai Japan set are Shohei Ohtani, Seiya Suzuki, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Munetaka Murakami, Kazuma Okamoto, Kensuke Kondo, Yusei Kikuchi, Tomoyuki Sugano, Hiromi Itoh, Masataka Yoshida, Shugo Maki and Kaito Kozono.  There are seven different parallels available for all 12 players but there are only autographed cards available for four of them - Ohtani, Yamamoto, Murakami and Okamoto.

The ten Korean players are Jung Hoo Lee, Hyeseong Kim, Woo-Suk Go, Hyun Jin Ryu, Shay Whitcomb, Jahmai Jones, Dane Dunning, Do Yeong Kim, Hyun Min Ahn and Ju Won Kim.  Parallels are only available for the Jung Hoo Lee and Hyeseong Kim and Jung Hoo Lee is also the autograph available.

3/6 UPDATE - Checked Topps' website at 5:15 EST-ish and they've only added one card.  It was actually added earlier today.  The new card is for Shohei Ohtani's grand slam and is a little more expensive as it is $11.99 in the US and 1980 yen in Japan.  Apparently the difference in price is due to the possibility of getting a autographed and/or memorabilia card or an image variant card with it.  The card will be available until 2:45 EDT on Sunday, March 8th.

2026 Samurai Japan World Baseball Classic Roster

As promised (threatened?) the other day, here's my post for the roster of the Samurai Japan team for this year's World Baseball Classic.  Hard to believe the tournament finally starts in two days (well, it actually starts tomorrow, East Coast US time but Thursday in Japan.  Of course, it's WEDNESDAY in Japan as I type this so I guess it really does start tomorrow...).  It's even harder to believe that two weeks from right now is the final.

I picked Samurai Japan cards for the players whenever possible.  There were only five players who I didn't have a Samurai Japan card for and I would have for a couple of them if I'd continued getting cards last year.  I also wanted to highlight Samurai Japan cards for events other than the World Baseball Classic but there the only national team cards I had for one player (Taisei Makihara) were from the 2023 tournament so I had to go with that.

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan #25

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan #7

2019 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes "Rack Pack" Japan Collegiate Team #8

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan Global Games Team Set #8 Yumeto Kanemaru

2017 BBM 2nd Version #428 (Secret Version)

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan #35

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan #014

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan #29

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan #20

2023 Topps Japan Edition WBC Team #WBC-24

2023 Calbee Hawks #SH-35

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan Global Games Team Set #4 Hiroya Miyagi

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan #3

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan #003

2016 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-20

2017 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-06

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-27 Kazuma Okamoto

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan Team Set #SJ-4

2024 Topps Stadium Club NPB #34

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan #8

2020 Calbee Samurai Japan #25 Ukyo Shuto

2024 Epoch NPB #175

2016 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-03

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan Asian Professional Baseball Championship Team Set #SJ-3 Chihiro Sumida

2020 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-09 Seiya Suzuki

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan #30

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan Global Games Team Set #6 Atsuki Taneichi

2020 BBM 2nd Version #454 (Secret Version)

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-19 Yoshinobu Yamamoto

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan Special Box Set #M-8 Masataka Yoshida

I was kind of surprised when looking back through my old posts to discover that I had not done posts for the 2009 and 2013 WBC rosters.  I didn't start doing it until the 2017 tournament.  This will probably be the last time I do it (at least with cards that I actually own) as I'm sure the 2029 team will have young players who I won't have any cards for.

Card Of The Week March 1

The 2026 edition of the World Baseball Classic is kicking off this upcoming Thursday and I was looking over the Samurai Japan roster to prepare for the my usual post for it when I was kind of struck by something.  I'm not much of an autograph collector so I was kind of surprised to realize that I had autographed cards of six of the thirty players on the roster plus one of the coaches.  I thought I'd show off what I had.

The autographs I have are split between "authentic" autographed cards from sets and cards that I got autographed in person.  Let's hit the "authentic" cards first.

Several players on the roster had previously been members of the collegiate Samurai Japan team and had autographed and/or memorabilia cards in several of Panini's USA Baseball sets over the years.  Seishiro Sakamoto and Masataka Yoshida appeared in the 2013 set:

2013 Panini USA Baseball Japanese All Stars Signatures #12

2013 Panini USA Baseball Japanese All Stars Signatures #23

The 2019 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes set included autographed cards for both Hiromi Itoh and Teruaki Sato, but I unfortunately have never been able to track any of them down at a price I was willing to pay.  I suspect at this point that I never will.  Especially since I expect that this WBC is going to be Sato's "coming out" party.

I had somewhat better luck with the 2020 Stars & Stripes set as I have cards for the two of the three members of the roster that were included in that set - Shugo Maki and Shota Morishita:

2020 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes Silhouettes Signatures Jerseys Prime #JCS-SM

2020 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes Silhouettes Signatures Jerseys Prime #JCS-SM

Hiromi Itoh is the other player on the roster who was in the 2020 set - he was one of five players who appeared in both the 2019 and 2020 sets.

There are no players on the roster who were in the 2024 Panini set but I'm sure a few of them will be on the roster for the 2029 Tournament.

On to the cards that I got autographed in person...

Ten years ago last month, I spent a couple of days in Peoria, Arizona while the Fighters were doing the early portion of their spring training.  I had taken a stack of baseball cards with me, hoping to get some signatures.  I was kind of rude during the day, interrupting players trying to get from one practice event to another, although a number of them were gracious enough to stop and sign for me.  I had better luck in the late afternoon when the players were leaving the ballpark after doing weight training and heading for their hotel.  There were a number of us standing around in parking lot and the players were much more willing to stop and sign (and take photos with fans).  My biggest problem was not recognizing players immediately so I'll be forever grateful to my friend Dani for pointing out Kensuke Kondoh had passed by and I was able to chase him down in the parking lot to get him to sign.

The next day, I was able to catch Fighters coach Makoto Kaneko as he came off one of the practice fields.  Kaneko is one of the coaches for Samurai Japan this year:

There was one player that year that I wasn't able to get.  I had corralled him as he finished batting practice the first afternoon I was there but he declined (I think politely) to sign.  And I missed him later that day when I came back after the team finished doing weights.  Dani told me when I arrived that he had just been there.  I didn't come out at the end of the following day - my two days in Peoria were at the end of a two week work trip and I was exhausted - so I ended up not getting anything signed by him.

Luckily, the Fighters returned to Peoria for training camp in 2017.  I wasn't able to go - I only had enough leave and funds to do one trip early that year and I went to the WBC finals in Los Angeles a month later instead - but Dani was there.  I had sent her a card and asked if she could get it signed for me.  She agreed and, once again, I will be forever grateful to her for getting it signed and sent back to me:

I hope to have the post for the 2026 WBC roster up by Tuesday evening.

Almost Spring

After several weeks of frigid temperatures and yet another snowfall last weekend, we're finally seeing signs of spring here in the mid-Atlantic part of the US.  It's a beautiful day in the mid-50's and almost all of the snow has melted, making me feel like that spring might finally be on the way.  With that in mind, I figured it'd be a good time to go over the sets that have been announced over the last month or so.

- BBM issues box set in March of each year with a different theme under the "Icons" label.  This year's edition is called "Icons - Nomination" and, as has been the standard for a while, will contain 37 cards - the 36 card base set plus one "special" card.  I think the theme is "top draft picks" so the card base set will feature three players for each team who were (or are - the first round picks from the 2025 draft for eight teams are in the set) top draft picks.  The "special" card could be one of a number of possibilities - a "foil printed" card, an "Extreme2026" insert card (one of the eight 2026 rookies), an "Advance" insert card, a "foil signed" card or an actual autographed card.  There are parallel versions of the "foil printed", "Extreme2026" and "Advance" cards available.  The set will be released on March 30th.

- BBM has announced the first three of their annual "comprehensive" team sets.  Each set has a base set of 81 cards, most of which are "regular" player cards featuring the manager and the players on the 70 man roster plus a couple subsets (which may not be fully defined yet) to fill out the set.  Each set also has 18 non-premium insert cards split into a variety of sets which also may not be fully defined yet (or may have title that doesn't translated to something that makes any sense).  The sets also have two or three types of premium inserts that are serially numbered - Treasure, Esperanza and Admirar.  There will be rare parallel versions of some of the "regular" player cards that will feature photo variants or different backgrounds.

Release Date	Team	Regular Cards	Subsets	Non-Premium Inserts	Treasure	Esperanza	Admirar	Other
Early April	Eagles	71	Newcomer(2), Title Holders(3), Tohoku Spirits(5)	Main Players(9), Growing Up(3), Veterans Of The Counterattack(3), Rookie Phenom(3)	24	9	6	Autograph cards
Mid April	Lions	68	I Am!(4), Advantage Ahead(3), Headliner(3), Legacy of the 1(3)	Shishi Zangetsu(9), Tachyon(3), For A Long Time(3), Anthem(3)	24	9	6	Autograph cards
Late April	Swallows	67	Conversion(2), Fourth Round Picks(3), Iron Wall Relief(4), Promising Young Fielders(5)	Main Players(9), Combination(3), Breakout Candidates(3), Rookies(3)	24	9	6	Autograph cards

- Speaking of team sets, Epoch has announced the first of their "Premier Edition" team sets for 2026.  Epoch's team sets are not "comprehensive" (i.e. they don't have every player on the 70 man roster) but this first set for the Carp will have a base set of 49 cards - 47 cards for active players (and manager Takahiro Arai) plus OB cards for Seiya Suzuki and Koji Yamamoto.  There's a "hologram" parallel available for each of the base set cards.  The set has the usual large batch of inserts that the "Premier Edition" sets have- three varieties of "Regular Foil Signature" ("silver", "gold" and "hologram") (18 cards each), two varieties of "Regular Decomori Signature" ("hologram" and "hologram parallel") (18 cards each), five varieties of "Time To Shine" ("A","B","C","D","E") (six cards each) and three varieties of "Decomori Signature" ("gold","green" and "hologram") (six cards each).  I think all the inserts are serially numbered.  There are also the "GEM" and "BLACK GEM" "special insert cards" (nine cards in each) that I think are much more limited.  Finally, there are seven different types of autographed cards that are available - "Authentic" (45 different), "Star" (5), "Carp Combo" (2), "Combo" (1), "Rookie" (9), "Rookie Combo" (1) and "Legendary" (1).  I have no idea what the difference between "Carp Combo" and "Combo" is.  The set will be released on May 2nd.

- Epoch has again teamed up with the OB Club to produce another OB Samurai Japan box set.  This year's edition is "officially" dubbed the "Japan Professional Baseball OB Club Official Card Japan National Baseball Team Holographica 2025" set and will be out on March 28th.  Some of the set details are still in flux but the base set will contain at least 32 cards for retired players (and managers) of Samurai Japan.  Each box will contain the full box set plus two "special" cards - a "hologram" parallel card (which may have parallel versions as well) and one of three different types of autographed cards - "Authentic", "Tribute To The Past" and "Baseball".  From the name of the set, I assume that it was originally intended to be released in 2025 but got delayed (as was also the case for the other two sets that Epoch collaborates with the OB Club on - Career Achievement and Holographica).  I'm kind of amused that last year's OB Samurai Japan set was under the "Career Achievement" label but this year's is under the "Holographica" one.  I gave into temptation with last year's set and was disappointed with it.  Given that this year's set appears to have many of the same players, I don't think it will be hard for me to give it a pass.