2026 JABA Cards

The Intercity Tournament, the annual championship for the corporate/industrial leagues was held at the Tokyo Dome in late August and early September.  I'm not positive but I think that's when the Japan Adult Baseball Association (JABA) rolled out their 2026 card set.

This is the sixth year JABA has released a card set and, as usual, details about it are somewhat hard to come by.  I've used the latest pdf from JABA's website that the QR code on the packs sends you to and generated a list of players and then I started looking at card listings on Mercari to correlate the card numbers.  From what I can tell, the set has at least 104 cards although the pdf only lists 95 players - the additional nine players appear to be award winners from 2025 who weren't listed on the pdf.  The pdf is entitled "Prospect Players List" which is kind of misleading as there's a handful of players who've been on the list every year for six years.  Some of them are getting a little old to really be considered prospects.

The cards themselves look similar to the last few years.  The big difference between this year's design and last year's is that the names are in Japanese on the front of the card instead of English.  Here's the front and back of Motoki Mukoyama's card:

There are "kira" parallels available for the cards as well.

I'm still working on the checklist for the set but I've added the work in progress to the same Google spreadsheet that I've shared for the previous sets:

I've been working on this post off and on for over a month now but I wanted to get it done before the NPB draft (which is tomorrow) as I anticipate there being players in the set who get picked.  Guess we'll know for sure tomorrow.

RIP Shoji Matsumoto

I wanted to do a quick post to mark the passing of former Hankyu Braves pitcher Shoji Matsumoto.  He passed away on October 8th at age 67 but it wasn't announced by the Orix Buffaloes (Hankyu's successor) until the 14th.

As is the case with many Japanese baseball players, Matsumoto became well known because of his performance in the National High School Baseball Championship, better known as Summer Koshien.  And as is also the case with many Japanese baseball players, especially pitchers, his performance in the tournament most likely directly impacted his professional career in a negative way.

Matsumoto attended Toyo University Himeji High School.  According to his Japanese Wikipedia article, he overcame his initial control struggles in high school by "running 20 km [12.4 miles] and throwing 300 pitches every day".  His team reached the semi-finals of the Spring Koshien tournament in his second year but Matsumoto really made his mark in the Summer Koshien tournament of the following year.

Himeji's first game in the 1977 Koshien tournament was against Chiba Commercial on August 12th.  They won 4-0 with Matsumoto throwing a complete game shutout.  Their next game wasn't until August 17th against Hamada.  Matsumoto started and threw six scoreless innings before being lifted for Kenji Miyamoto (who would later pitch for the Swallows) due to the team having a 5-0 lead.  Matsumoto didn't come out of the game, however, he just switched to a different position.  This came in handy as Miyamoto ended up only throwing five pitches before taking a line drive off his hand and being forced from the game.  Matsumoto resumed pitching and completed the team's second consecutive shutout.

The next day, August 18th, was the quarterfinal game against Tomigusuku and Matsumoto had another complete game victory, although this time it was not a shutout.   The semi-final game against Imabari Nishi was on the 19th and Matsumoto again got the start.  He threw another shutout but it took ten innings before Himeji finally managed to score a run and win the game.

The final was on August 20th and, you guessed it, Matsumoto was again on the mound for Himeji.  He gave up a run in the top of the top of the second but Himeji tied it up in the bottom of the fourth.  That's the way the score remained until the bottom of the tenth inning when Himeji's catcher, Koji Yasui, hit a three run, walk off home run to win the game and the tournament.  It was the first time that the tournament had ever ended on a sayonara home run.

So, to recap, Matsumoto essentially pitched five complete games in the tournament, including four on consecutive days, the last two of which went ten innings each.  This, of course, was on top of his regime of throwing 300 pitches a day - although, to be fair, I don't know how long he kept doing that.

Matsumoto was neither the first nor the last pitcher in Japan to be horribly overworked in high school - remember it was less than ten years ago when Roki Sasaki's high school coach ignite a firestorm of controversy when he rested Sasaki instead of using him in the final game of the Iwate prefectural tournament.  So how Matsumoto was used in the tournament was neither eye opening or a red flag - which was apparent when Hankyu selected him in the first round of the draft the following fall.  As you might expect, Hankyu had high expectations for him - high enough that they gave him the uniform number 33 which had been ace pitcher Takao Kajimoto's number.  To be clear, it wasn't just Kajimoto's number when he was pitching but he was still using it as a coach up until when Matsumoto got drafted.  He switched to number 78 to free up the number for Matsumoto.

Matsumoto spent most of his first year with the Braves on their farm team, making the Junior All Star game (as the minor league All Star game was called then).  He only got into six games with the top team, posting a 4.15 ERA in 13 innings, walking eight while striking out only five.  Still, Hankyu thought enough of him to have him pitch in the Nippon Series against the Swallows that year.  He pitched two thirds of an inning in Game Seven in relief of Mitsuhiro Adachi and gave up a solo home run to Charlie Manuel.  He also appeared as part of a combined Giants and Braves roster to take on the visiting Cincinnati Reds in a game in Nishinomiya on November 11th.  He pitched one inning and gave up two runs (with either Dan Driessen or Champ Summers hitting a home run off of him).  He took the loss in the Reds 10-5 win.

This was probably the high point of his career.  He spent all of 1979 with the farm team but got into 9 ichi-gun games in 1980 and got his first and only win that season.  Injuries and ineffectiveness would limit him to only 17 games with the top team over the next four years and he retired after the 1987 season after spending three seasons exclusively on the farm team.

He spent a couple years as a bullpen pitcher for Hankyu/Orix but he mostly worked in the equipment department for the team, eventually becoming equipment manager, a position he held until forced to retire in 2024 when he turned 65.

I was a little surprised at how few baseball cards there were of him.  As far as I can tell, there were only five issued for him during his career - three Takara Braves cards (1981, 1982 & 1984) and two Hankyu Braves team issued sets from 1978 and 1979.  I thought he might have had a Calbee card in 1978 but there's actually very few Pacific League players in that year's Calbees and it was still pretty rare for them to issue a card of a rookie.  I believe he only had one "modern" card - a 2014 BBM Brilliant Teenagers card:

2014 BBM Brilliant Teenagers #073

Card Of The Week October 18

The Final Stage of the Climax Series in each league wrapped up in the past few days.  On Friday, the Hawks completed their three game sweep of the Fighters (they only needed three games since, because they finished in first place in the regular season, they started the Series with a one game advantage).  On Saturday, the Baystars, the third place finisher in the regular season, completed their four game sweep of the Tigers, upsetting the regular season first place team.  

The Nippon Series will start next Saturday with the Baystars, the 2024 Champions, hosting the Hawks, the 2025 Champions.  It's a bit of a difference from MLB where the Brewers, who have never won a World Series, will be playing either the Rays, who have also never won a Series, or Cleveland, who last won in 1948.  If the Rays end up playing the Brewers, I think it'll be the first time that two teams that have never won the Series will meet in it since 1980 when the Phillies played the Royals.

Here are the MVPs of each league's Final Stage:

2025 Topps NPB #84

2023 Epoch One #651

Teruaki Sato Rookies

I recently came across an article on SI.com's Collectibles web page entitled "The Top 4 Cards of Teruaki Sato, the Next NPB Superstar" and, I have to say, I was not impressed with it.  According to it, the top card of Sato is an autographed card from the 2025 Epoch NPB Luxury Collection.  A PSA 10 graded instance of this card sold for $2,450 back in August, the highest sale of any of his cards to date.  Well, I'm guessing that it's the top card because it's the first one mentioned in the article.

The second card pictured in the article is Sato's card from the 2019 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes set which I'm pleased got mentioned although the card is misidentified somewhat.  The article labels it as an "autograph patch" card that's /13.  While it is /13, the card is actually a "Silhouettes Signatures Jerseys Prime" card which is an autographed JERSEY card, not a patch card.  There are other versions of his cards from that set that have smaller print runs so I'm not sure why this particular one was picked.

The article then mentions that the "second-highest sale for any of his cards was $2,200" but at no point does it say what card fetched that price.  Was it the Panini card?  Is that why it's being shown?  There's absolutely no context given for that card in the article at all.

Similarly, the third card listed in the article - a PSA slabbed 2021 Epoch Tigers Rookies & Stars autographed card - is shown before a paragraph stating that the third highest sale ever for one of his cards was for $2,000.  But again, there's no indication of which card it was that sold for that amount.  Was it the Rookies & Stars card?

So we're three quarters of the way through the list and I'm kind of like "well, ok".  I like the Panini card and the 2025 Epoch card is ok, I guess.  I'm not sure why you'd pick the 2021 Epoch auto instead of one of the BBM ones from that year but, eh, whatever.  But now the writer has decided that he needs to include a base rookie card for Sato.  Again, ok, that makes sense.  And his choice is this:

2021 Topps NPB #191

Really?  The 2021 Topps NPB card?  You've got to be kidding me.  (BTW - the card is mislabeled in the article as #N16 in the set when it is, in fact, #191.  He also mentions the Chrome version of the card and doesn't attempt to list the card number for it.  It's #31, not #191 or #N16 - the Chrome cards that year didn't necessarily have the same numbers as the non-Chrome cards despite the Chrome set essentially being an ugly parallel version of the non-Chrome set.)

I decided that I needed to do a post showing all of Sato's base set cards from 2021, his rookie season.  By my count, there are 23 in all - of which I have 18.  Keep in mind that these are base cards only so no inserts, no parallels, no "secret version" image variants, no autographed cards and no memorabilia cards.  (TCDB lists 172 total 2021 cards for him which includes all 33 Epoch One cards as well.)  I'm not going to rank these but I will mention the ones I like the most as well as the least when I finish.

First off, here are the cards I have of him - this is roughly in the order that they were published that year:

2021 BBM Rookie Edition #081

2021 BBM Icons - Progress #22

2021 BBM 1st Version #209

2021 BBM 1st Version #CT23

2021 Epoch NPB #281

2021 Calbee Series Two #117

2021 BBM Tigers #T48

2021 BBM Tigers #T76

2021 BBM Tigers #T79

2021 BBM Tigers #T80

2021 BBM Tigers #T81

2021 BBM 2nd Version #510

2021 Calbee Series Three #188

2021 BBM Tigers History 1935-2021 #86

2021 BBM Legendary Rookies #LR90

2021 BBM Fusion #29

2021 BBM Fusion #55

And here are the other five that I don't actually own:

2021 Epoch Tigers Rookies & Stars #25

2021 BBM Genesis #069

2021 BBM Rookie Edition Premium #RP22

2021 Epoch Tigers Stars & Legends #26

2021 Topps NPB Chrome #31

I need to point out that the Stars & Legends card I'm showing is not the base card but a parallel.  It was the only image of the card I could find on-line.  

I should also point out that the Topps Chrome card wasn't actually published until 2022.

I think my favorites of all these cards are his Rookie Edition, Calbee Series Three and BBM Tigers team set (#T48) cards.  My least favorites are the Topps Chrome card (because I think the Chrome cards are hideous) and the Genesis and Rookie Edition Premium cards (because I prefer cards with actual backgrounds - which I why I didn't buy those sets in 2021).  If I ranked them all, the non-Chrome Topps card would probably fall in the middle of the pack or maybe a little lower.  I like that it's got a unique photo compared to the others but the card design itself is pretty unattractive.  The big thing that stood out with the 2021 Topps cards - both the NPB and MLB versions - was that the player name on the front was way too small, especially for old eyes like mine.

I guess what really bothers me about the article isn't just that I disagree with the base rookie card he picked, but just how crappy it is.  I feel like someone asked the author to write something about Sato's baseball cards and he threw this together by looking up what three cards sold for the most and then added the Topps base card because it didn't take any research.  He also added in some minimal details about Sato's NPB career along with a couple boiler plate introductory paragraphs about players coming to MLB from "Nippon Professional Baseball Organization"[sic] that has almost as much career information about Masanori Murakami as the rest of the article has about Sato.  My dude - players have been coming to MLB from Nippon Professional Baseball regularly for 30 years now.  You probably don't need to go into too much detail about it unless you've got a word count you're trying to meet.  It makes me wonder if they have any editors at SI.com.  Did no one else look at this before they published it?

I don't think the article is AI generated slop but it's certainly lazy.  I'm looking at some of the author's other "work" and it looks of a kind.  I especially like this article that shows this for Munetaka Murakami's NPB rookie card:

I think that's actually Claude Rains.

I don't know, maybe this is an elaborate practical joke on SI's part.  They certainly appear to be committed to the bit though.

Florida Project Completed

In March of 1975, the Yomuri Giants traveled to Vero Beach, Florida, as the spring training guests of the Los Angeles Dodgers.  It would neither be the first nor the last time the Dodgers would host the Giants for spring training - they had done so in 1961, 1967, 1971 and would do so again in 1981.  What stands out about 1975 is that Calbee devoted a number of cards in that year's set to the Giants' visit.

I don't know this for sure, but I suspect the reason behind Calbee's decision was that it was Shigeo Nagashima's debut as Giants manager.  Nagashima had retired the previous October and was named manager of the team a month or so later, taking over from Tetsuharu Kawakami who'd been at the helm since 1961.  

Calbee, as they continue to do now, issued their 1975 card set in separate series.  Unlike they do now, there were quite a few series in 1975.  And to be completely accurate, the numbering of what I'm referring to as the "1975 set" actually started in 1974 so the set is known as the "1974/75 Calbee set".  The fourteenth series for this set (cards 648 to 719) was labeled "Opening Series" and mostly contained cards depicting the opening games of the 1975 NPB season.  I say mostly because 22 cards of this series - cards 693 to 714 - are dedicated to the Giants' visit to Florida.*

* Series 13 was called "Spring Camp" and featured photos of NPB teams during spring training.  I suspect that the Giants' Florida trip wasn't in that series due to the amount of time it took to get the photos from the US but that's just a wild guess on my part.

I had started seriously trying to get all of these cards a few years back and made steady progress on them.  I picked up four of them on my last trip to Japan and returned home from that trip only needing one.  It took me another two years to track the last one down and I definitely overpaid for it* but the subset is finally finished.  To celebrate, I thought I'd show all 22 cards - it'll be the first time I've done a post will all of the cards.

* I should probably verify what I'm about to say with Sean but my gut feeling is that most mid-70's Calbee cards are either fairly common (and sell for $30-ish and lower) or rare and expensive (like in the $100's of dollars).  This last card wasn't really rare but I ended up spending $50 on it plus another $10-ish for shipping.

I'll show both the front and back of each card although I'm not going to try to translate the backs - I'll leave that for Nippon Baseball Retro.  I will attempt to at least summarize it a little bit.

Card #693 - Yomiuri Giants

This first card shows the Giants jogging on the warning track at a ballpark.  From the Canadian flag in the background, I'm pretty sure this is Daytona City Island Ballpark, the spring training home of the Montreal Expos in the 1970's.  The text on the back of the card suggests that this Dodgertown at Vero Beach but it doesn't look like Holman Stadium (the ballpark at Vero Beach) and there's no reason they'd have been flying a Canadian flag there.  The text also mentions that they are 13,000 kilometers from Tokyo.

You might notice that there are some dates on the card (or not - I realize the scans of the backs came out kind of faint) - the Giants were in Florida from the first of March, 1975 (showa 50) to the 17th.  Each card has this line of text on it.

Card #694 - Yomiuri Giants

This card shows the Giants lined up along the first baseline of what I think is that same ballpark as the previous card.  The back of the card again implies that this is Vero Beach.  The text says something about how the facility has changed its appearance in the four years since the Giants' last visit in 1971 and how they were welcomed by Peter O'Malley.

Card #695 - Sadaharu Oh

This is my favorite card from this subset.  It shows Sadaharu Oh taking batting practice with a bunch of Atlanta Braves players crowded around the cage.  From the stands in the background, I think this photo was taken at West Palm Beach Municipal Stadium, the spring training home for the Braves at the time.  The back talks a little about how the Giants were getting ready to play the Braves and that the major leaguers were interested in seeing Oh hit.

The title on the back of the card - the bit of text below the Giants flag - says "Major Leaguers are also fans of the Doggy".  I had asked Sean to translate the back of this card for me when I first got it and he explained the title:

The short story is that the character for his last name Oh is actually pronounced "Wang" in Chinese, which sounds very similar to "Wan", the word Japanese kids use for doggy.  So they started calling him that (adding "chan" which is a sort of term of endearment you usually add after the name of a child or something) and it stuck. Amazing what you learn from baseball cards. 

Card #696 - Shigeo Nagashima/Shoji Sadaoka

Shoji Sadaoka was Yomiuri's first pick in the 1974 draft so this would be his first spring training.  The back of the card says something about him learning about pitching by watching major leaguers in action.

Card #697 - Shigeru Takada

This card shows outfielder Shigeru Takada in the batting cage.  I think the back is saying something about him trying to improve his hitting while in Dodgertown.

Card #698 - Shigeo Nagashima

The back of this card says something about this being Nagashima's fourth trip to Vero Beach.  It also mentions that the temperature was 27 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) and everybody's gotten a tan and looked strong.

This was the last card I needed to complete this subset.  It was somewhat underwheming.

Card #699 - Isao Shibata

Another outfielder in the batting cage.  The back mentions that he's grown a tan after coming to America.

Card #700 - Sadaharu Oh

The card back mentions that local TV stations and news photographers were following Oh around.

Card #701 - Toshimitsu Suetsugu

Yet another outfielder in the batting cage.  The back of the card puts a lot of pressure on Suetsugu's shoulders, saying that since Nagashima has retired, "the fate of the Giants' batting lineup" now rests on his hitting prowess and that he must continue to have a high batting average.  It goes on to say that his personal goals are to hit .300 again (like he did in 1974) and to win the RBI title.  Well, not to dump on him too much, but he only hit .252 in 1975 and his 46 RBIs were 50 behind Oh's league leading total.  If the fate of the lineup truly did rest on him, it explains why the Giants finished last for the first time ever that season.

Card #702 - Sadaharu Oh

Another card of Oh in the batting cage and another one of my favorites from this subset.  The back of the card again talks about how he was hounded by photographers in camp.

Card #703 - Kazumi Takahashi

This is another favorite and it shows pitcher Kazumi Takahashi facing an unidentified Montreal Expos batter at what I'm again pretty sure is the Expos spring training home of Daytona City Island Ballpark (note the Expos logo on one of the outfield signs).  The card back says that he "delivered an outstanding performance in a friendly match against the Expos".

I'd love to see a box score from this game and maybe narrow down who the Expos batter was.  I mean, it's probably not but wouldn't it be wild if it was Gary Carter?

Card #704 - Shigeo Nagashima

Another not super exciting card of Nagashima.  The back says that the warm weather in Florida made him unable to sit still and that his expression showed his determination.

Card #705 - Masaru Tomita

This card shows Tomita batting in a game against the Dodgers at Vero Beach.  The back of the card talks about how there are high expectations for Tomita because he's expected to replace Nagashima in the line up as the team's everyday third baseman.  Like Suetsugu, I don't want to dump on Tomita too much but it should be pointed out that a month later, the Giants signed Dave Johnson to take over third base so I don't think Tomita was living up to those expectations.  He ended up hitting just .189 on the season and was dealt to the Fighters with Takahashi in the off season in the trade that brought Isao Harimoto to the Giants.

Card #706 - Sadaharu Oh

I'm probably wrong on this, but I feel like there aren't many cards of Oh showing him fielding.  The back of the card again talks about how warm it is in Florida and implies that that's why Oh is playing without his hat on.

Card #707 - Tsuneo Horiuchi

The front of this card shows pitcher Tsuneo Horiuchi in action and the back says that it's against the Dodgers in Vero Beach.  Yomiuri won the game 5-3 thanks to Horiuchi's "strong pitching performance" although it also mentions that Davey Lopes stole two bases in the game.  I assume that's Oh playing first in the background.  

Card #708 - Shitoshi Sekimoto

This is another case where the sunny scenario described on the back of the card didn't pan out.  It says that Sekimoto arrived in Vero Beach with the best ERA (which I think references his team leading ERA in 1974) and was throwing with "great confidence, seemingly drawn in by the cheerful atmosphere and getting in shape at a rapid pace".  Sekimoto would go 0-4 on the season with an ERA of 3.97 and got into an on-field fight with Morimichi Takagi of the Dragons that started a brawl between the two teams.  He was traded to the Lions after the season, making him the third player in this subset to be dealt away after 1975.

Card #709 - Shigeo Nagashima

After all the cards that talked about how warm it was, it's kind of surprising to have a card showing Nagashima in a somewhat heavy coat, although it's possible that it's just a windbreaker.  The back of the card talks about how much he likes the lushness of the Florida flora, especially the orange groves.

Card #710 - Kazumasa Kono

This was a card that was a mystery for the longest time - who was the Dodgers coach working with the Giants' infielders?  I finally figured out a few years back that it was Stan Wasiak, the manager of the Dodgers' Triple-A team in Albuquerque.  The card ostensibly is for Giants infielder Kazumasa Kono, the guy wearing #29 who's taking a throw in the middle of the card.  That's reserve infielder Takeshi Ueda (#2) next in line with someone I think is Tomita to the left of him - he was the only other infielder with a uniform number in the 20's (#25).  The back of the card mentions that the infielders were going under "intensive training" under the eye of the Dodgers' Triple-A manager (another clue that it's Wasiak but some of the card backs have been inaccurate so I didn't want to take it at face value) and that Kono's strong arm was considered ready for Major League Baseball.  Kono, of course, would never play in MLB but he would play for the Giants for another 12 years.

Card #711 - Shigeo Nagashima

Another card of Nagashima.  This time it looks like he's hitting grounders.  The back says that while this is his fourth visit to Vero Beach, he had "never arrived with such a grim determination as this year".  He had "a mission to build a new Giants team" and "a new fire has begun to burn".  As I mentioned previously, the Giants finished last for the first time in 1975 so it certainly was a "new Giants team" but not perhaps what was intended.

Card #712 - Sadaharu Oh

This is the last of the five cards of Oh in this subset.  The palm tree in the background helps make it clear that he was in Florida.  The back of the card talks about his plans for the season.  Oh says "for the new Giants, I will hit like crazy again this year.  The training at Vero Beach was very fruitful and I will continue to improve my batting."  While he would have a very good year in 1975, hitting .285 with 33 home runs and 96 RBIs, it would be the only year of the five years between 1973 and 1977 in which he did not win the Central League MVP award.  In each of the other four years, he'd hit over .300, with at least 49 home runs and 100 RBIs.  

Card #713 - Shigeo Nagashima

This is a card with another mystery - who's the guy Nagashima's talking with?  The back of the card says that "Nagashima is seen chatting endlessly with the Dodgers coaches" but it doesn't say who the coach is.  It's possible that it's Wasiak again although his hair looked lighter in color back on card #710.  The back goes on to mention that the camp is steadily yielding results and that even when it rains, it quickly clears up.  "Nagashima's face lights up with a smile as he enjoys the pleasant weather."  (And looking closely at the back of the card, I suspect that at one point this particular card was pasted into a book.)

Card #714 - Shigeo Nagashima

The final card is another one of Nagashima, his seventh in the subset.  The back tries to put the 1975 camp in perspective, mentioning that the Giants "developed new strengths" on their previous visits to Vero Beach in 1961, 1967 and 1971.  The Giants won Nippon Series championships in all three of those seasons (and would again after their fifth and final visit in 1981) and the card ends on a hopeful note about the "Nagashima Giants" ushering in a new era by starting their campaign at the same place.  As previously mentioned, the Giants not only did not win the Series in 1975, but they finished last for the first and, so far, only time in their history.

As far as I can tell, Calbee did not include any cards in their 1981 set that were dedicated to the Giants camp in Vero Beach that spring.  And while I've seen a number of cards over the years that I'm fairly confident feature photos taken in the US, this is the largest subset I'm aware of that clearly and unambiguously features such photos.