Japanese Baseball Cards: 2019 & 2020 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes Collegiate Samurai Japan Inserts

Saturday, November 4, 2023

2019 & 2020 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes Collegiate Samurai Japan Inserts

For the past several years Panini has issued an annual set for USA Baseball called "Stars & Stripes". In both 2019 and 2020, the set included autographed memorabilia cards for members of the previous year's Collegiate Samurai Japan team. Since most years there's a series of games played between this team and the Collegiate Team USA, this isn't as odd as it might sound. Players appearing in these two sets were drafted by NPB teams in the 2018-2022 drafts. With no players from either set being drafted last week, I thought it might be a good time to revisit the checklists for both sets.

There were 24 players on each team. Each player had a number of different types of autographed memorabilia cards - 10 in 2019 and 11 in 2020. Each card is serially numbered with the most common cards having print runs of 19 and the least common being 1-of-1s. Adding up the print runs for each type of card, there's 42 total cards for each player in the 2019 set and 52 or 54 for each player in the 2020 set (the "Silhouette Signature Jersey Prime" cards had print runs of either 17 or 19 depending on the player). In addition there are non-autographed, non-memorabilia cards for the 2019 set that were distributed as insert cards in the "rack set" version of the set. These are not serially numbered and are obviously much more common than the autographed memorabilia versions.

There are five players who appear on both teams so the total number of players in the two sets is 43. 33 of these players have been drafted into NPB. 31 of those players were drafted directly from their university teams while the other two played two seasons in the corporate leagues before being drafted. The other ten players all played in the corporate leagues although I'm not sure how many of them are still active.

Here's the list of all 43 players along with their draft information (if applicable):

Year(s)	Name	College	School Year	Year Drafted	Team	Round	Corporate
2019	Ryosuke Aizawa	Meiji	4	N/A			Toyota
2019	Hayata Fujino	Rikkyo	3	N/A			Honda
2020	Yudai Furukawa	Jobu	3	2020	Fighters	3
2020	Yuya Gunji	Keio	4	2019	Dragons	4
2020	Takahisa Hayakawa	Waseda	3	2020	Eagles	1
2019,2020	Hiromi Ito	Tomakomai Komazawa	2,3	2020	Fighters	1
2019	Yukiya Ito	Rissho	4	2018	Baystars	2
2019	Shunya Iwaki	Kyushu Sangyo	4	N/A			Seino Transportation
2019	Hiroshi Kaino	Toyo	4	2018	Hawks	1
2019	Daigo Kamikawabata	Nihon	4	2021	Fighters	9	NTT East
2019	Shoki Katsumata	International Budo	3	2019	Buffaloes	5
2019,2020	Ryosuke Kodama	Kyushu Sangyo	2,3	2022	Lions	6	Osaka Gas
2020	Shugo Maki	Chuo	3	2020	Baystars	2
2020	Kazuya Maruyama	Meiji	2	2021	Swallows	2
2019	Wataru Matsumoto	Nittai (Nippon Sports Science)	4	2018	Lions	1
2019,2020	Masato Morishita	Meiji	3,4	2019	Carp	1
2020	Shota Morishita	Chuo	1	2022	Tigers	1
2020	Hiyu Motoyama	Tohoku Fukushi	3	2020	Swallows	4
2019	Motoki Mukoyama	Hosei	3	N/A			NTT East
2020	Shoki Murakami	Toyo	3	2020	Tigers	5
2020	Ryusei Ogawa	Kokugakuin	3	2020	Marines	3
2019	Kento Ogo	Tokai	2	N/A			JFE East
2019	Kazuya Ojima	Waseda	4	2018	Marines	3
2020	Shunsuke Sato	Tsukuba	2	2021	Lions	2
2019	Teruaki Sato	Kinki	2	2020	Tigers	1
2019,2020	Toshiya Sato	Toyo	3,4	2019	Marines	2
2019	Noburo Shimizu	Kokugakuin	4	2018	Swallows	1
2020	Ryo Shinohara	Tsukuba	4	N/A			ENEOS
2020	Riku Takemura	Kinki	4	N/A			Nippon Life
2020	Mikiya Tanaka	Asia	1	2022	Dragons	6
2019	Seiya Tanaka	Rikkyo	3	N/A			Osaka Gas
2019	Ryosuke Tatsumi	Ritsumeikan	4	2018	Eagles	1
2019	Yuma Tongu	Ajia	4	2018	Buffaloes	2
2019	Yuki Tsumori	Tohoku Fukushi	3	2019	Hawks	3
2020	Takuma Uchima	Asia	3	2020	Eagles	4
2020	Koki Ugusa	Hosei	4	2019	Carp	2
2019,2020	Takashi Umino	Tokai	3,4	2019	Hawks	2
2019	Yoshiaki Watanabe	Meiji	4	2018	Eagles	6
2020	Iori Yamasaki	Tokai	3	2020	Giants	2
2020	Tatsuru Yanagimachi	Keio	4	2019	Hawks	5
2020	Ryuji Yasumoto	Hosei	4	N/A			ENEOS
2019	Nagi Yonemitsu	Nara Gakuen	4	N/A			Hokkaido Gas
2020	Daiki Yoshida	Nittai	4	2019	Swallows	2

This is a pretty good list. There's already one Rookie Of The Year (Masato Morishita) and in a few weeks there might be a second one (Shoki Murakami). There's also two members of the 2023 WBC Champion Samurai Japan squad (Shugo Maki and Hiromi Itoh) along with promising young stars such as Teruaki Satoh and Yuma Tongu.

I've got all the "rack set" cards for the 2019 set and have been slowly attempting to get at least one type of autographed memorabilia card for every player in each set. I'm down to only needing two from the 2019 set (Hiromi Itoh and Teruaki Sato) while I need six from the 2020 set (Hiromi Itoh, Masato Morishita, Hiyu Motoyama, Sunsuke Sato, Iori Yamasaki and Tatsuru Yanagimachi). I thought for every one of the now NPB players I'd share a card of theirs from the Panini sets (if I have one) as well as their BBM 1st Version rookie cards. At least a couple of the corporate league players have cards in the 2021 JABA set but I don't have any of those cards. (I've labeled each Panini card as best I could - not completely sure of the correct name for the card type on a couple of them.)