BBM issued a box set back in December to commemorate the retirement of Daisuke Matsuzaka. The set was called "Heisei no Kaibutsu" or "the Monster of Heisei" which was Matsuzaka's nickname coming out of high school. Each box contained 19 cards - the 18 card base set plus one "special" card that could be a 3D card, a jersey card or an autographed card. I think this is the first "single player" set that BBM has done since the 2018 "Grateful Days" set celebrating Shohei Ohtani as he left for the Angels.
I had dithered for a while about whether or not I was going to pick one of these sets up. I was hoping to get an opened set that just had the base set for 500 yen but I finally gave up after a couple of months and paid 700 yen for one. It was actually a little more than that since I used
ZenMarket to get it (instead of asking
Ryan to get it for me) so I had to pay their 300 yen service fee on it. I got it in the mail yesterday along with my 2022 BBM Rookie Edition set which I'll be writing about in the next few days.
It's a nice looking little set. The first 12 cards cover his time with the Lions from 1999 to 2006, including cards of his being drafted, his moving into the team dormitory, his first game, him winning an award for most wins by a rookie high school draftee, him playing for the National Team in either the 1999 Asian Games or the 2000 Olympics, his return to Koshien Stadium in interleague play in 2005, him hitting a home run at Koshien in 2006, his 100th win and his departure for MLB along with a reprint of his 1999 BBM rookie card. The remaining six cards include one card of him with the Hawks after his return to Japan, three cards of him with the Dragons and two cards from his retirement game in October with the Lions. I guess my only gripe is that it would have been nice if they could have included cards of him with Yokohama High School as well as the Red Sox, Cleveland and the Mets but I imagine that the licensing rights would have been difficult and/or too expensive to obtain.
Here's some of the cards from the set. As always you can see all the cards over at
Jambalaya:
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| #04 |
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| #08 |
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| #09 |
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| #10 |
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| #13 |
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| #15 |
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| #18 |
The back of card #18 shows his career statistics in both NPB and MLB:
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