Card Of The Week January 17

I was looking through my collection of BBM Orix team set cards from the 00's the other day, looking to see if I had any cards showing a player wearing a "Kobe Surpass" uniform.  "Kobe Surpass" was the name that Orix dubbed their farm team from 2000 to 2008 as the result of a naming rights agreement with Anabuki Construction ("Surpass" is a brand of condominium that they build).  I didn't find any but I did come across this 2007 card of Kosuke Katoh looking pretty unhappy.  Katoh had been the second round pick of Lotte in the 2000 draft and had a couple good years for the Marines before being derailed by injuries.  Still, he'd had high expectations going into 2007.  He started out on the Marines ichi-gun roster during training camp but got demoted to the farm team on March 28th and then sold to Orix two days later.  This card shows him at his introductory press conference with Buffaloes.

2007 BBM Buffaloes #Bs034

Katoh must have known how 2007 was going to go for his new and old teams.  The Buffaloes finished dead last in the Pacific League with a 62-77-5 record, 17 games behind first place Nippon-Ham.  Meanwhile the Marines finished second, going 76-61-7 and ending up just two games behind the Fighters.  They beat the Hawks in the First Stage of the Climax Series before losing to Nippon-Ham in the Final Stage.  Katoh would spend two years with Orix before moving on to Yokohama for two more years, and then Hanshin for five.  He wrapped up his career with two seasons as a player-coach with the Fukushima Hopes of the Baseball Challenge League.