Japanese Baseball Cards: 2008 BBM Collegiate National Team Set

Monday, October 8, 2018

2008 BBM Collegiate National Team Set - Where Are They Now?

Ten years ago this month BBM released their ~~second~~third collegiate set. This set featured the Japanese collegiate team that played in the World University Baseball Championship held in Brno in the Czech Republic in July of 2008. This is the only collegiate set of the eleven BBM issued between 2008 and 2013 that is not for the Tokyo Big Six league.

I wrote about this set when it originally came out - it was a 44 card set that featured 2 cards each of the 22 players on the team. As you might expect from a team that's essentially a collegiate all star team, most of the players featured in the set went on to play in NPB. Only two of the players did not go on to NPB - Hiroto Nakamura and Takuya Tsukuura, who were both seniors at Toyo University. I do not know if they went on to play in the corporate or independent leagues - there's no entries for either player in Japanese Wikipedia. The set is significant as it is the first appearance of Yuki Saitoh in a BBM set - I still maintain it was the popularity of Saitoh following the 2006 Summer Koshien tournament that led BBM to start doing collegiate sets.NOTE - Actually this was the second set to feature Saitoh after the Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version set that came out in September of 2008. I think this is the last time he played for the Collegiate National team which is probably why BBM never did another set for the team. (He also played on the 2007 edition which had memorabilia cards in a 2008 Upper Deck set).

Here's a summary of the careers of the other 20 players. All of them went directly from college to NPB. Five of the players are still active in NPB.

Player	College	Year	Drafted	Notes
Takahiro Araki	Kinki	3	2009 Swallows 3rd	Played for Swallows 2010-present
Masanori Fujihara	Ritsumeikan	3	2009 Tigers 2nd	His cards in the set identify him as "Fujiwara". Played for Tigers 2010-15
Takeshi Hosoyamada	Waseda	4	2008 Baystars 4th	Played for Baystars 2009-13, Hawks 2014-15. Was released by DeNA after 2013 and joined Hawks as ikusei player. Made the Hawks' 70 man roster at the beginning of the 2015 season. Played for Toyota after leaving Hawks
Yosuke Inoue	Aoyama Gakuin	4	2008 Eagles 4th	Played for Eagles 2009-12. Possibly played for Brownsville of the United Baseball League in 2014.
Masahiro Inui	Toyo	2	2010 Fighters 3rd	Played for Fighters 2011-16. Traded to Giants in 2016 in Kenji Yano deal. Played for Giants 2016-17. Joined Toyama GRN Thunderbirds of Baseball Challenge League for 2018 season
Takahiro Iwamoto	Asia	4	2008 Carp 1st	Played for Carp 2009-present
Kyohei Iwasaki	Tokai	4	2008 Dragons 3rd	Played for Dragons 2009-14. Traded to Orix for Taiki Mitsumata in 2014. Played for Orix 2014-17. Spent 2018 with Hitachi in the corporate leagues
Shinji Iwata	Meiji	4	2008 Dragons 5th	Played for Dragons 2009-16. Dragons minor league pitching coach starting in 2018
Keijiro Matsumoto	Waseda	4	2008 Baystars 1st	Played for Baystars 2009-17. Joined Nippon Steel Sumikin Kazusa Magic in 2018
Ryoji Nakata	Asia	3	2009 Dragons 3rd	Played for Dragons 2010-14. Also played for JR Tokai after being released by Chunichi
Hiroki Nakazawa	Kokusai Budo	4	2008 Giants 4th	Played for Giants 2009-12. Traded to Eagles for Suguru Ino in 2012-13 offseason. Played for Eagles 2013-14. Made only ichi-gun appearances in 2013
Shota Ohno	Toyo	4	2008 Fighters 1st	Played for Fighters 2009-17. Joined Dragons as free agent after 2017. Member of Samurai Japan for the 2017 WBC. All Star in 2014
Yuki Saitoh	Waseda	2	2010 Fighters 1st	Played for Fighters 2011-present. All Star in 2011-12
Kohei Shibata	Kokusai Budo	4	2008 Tigers 2nd	Played for Tigers 2009-16. Released after 2016 and signed with Lotte. Spent 2017 with Marines before retiring
Tsuyoshi Takashima	Aoyama Gakuin	4	2008 Buffaloes 4th	Played for Buffaloes 2009-11. Never played for ichi-gun team. Played 21 games with Lancaster of the Atlantic League in 2013
Hisashi Takeuchi	Hosei	3	2009 Carp 3rd	Played for Carp 2010-15
Shingo Tatsumi	Kinki	4	2008 Hawks 1st	Played for Hawks 2009-16
Toshiki Tsuboi	Tsukuba	4	2008 Marines 4th	Played for Marines 2009-11. Never played on the ichi-gun team
Hiroki Uemoto	Waseda	4	2008 Tigers 3rd	Played for Tigers 2009-present
Noriharu Yamazaki	Yokohama Shoka	4	2008 Baystars 3rd	Played for Baystars 2009-16. Spent 2018 with Tigers after being released by DeNA after 2017 season

Here's a card of each of these players from the set followed by a card of them with an NPB team. I've tried to get the most recent card I could of them but in a couple of cases it's not all that recent. There are three players - Nakazawa, Takashima and Tsuboi - that I don't have any card for other than their 2009 cards from Rookie Edition and 1st Version. I've also made exceptions for the four players who were also in the 2008 Tokyo Big Six Spring Version set (Hosoyamada, Iwata, Matsumoto and Uemoto) since I've used the most recent card I have for a couple of them.