2024 BBM 2nd Version set

 2024 BBM 2nd Version Set Summary

Size: 332 cards (cards numbered 337-600, the 32 cards of the "Ceremonial First Pitch" subset are separately numbered FP01-FP32 and 36 cards for the "Cross Earth" subset are separately numbered CE37-CE72)
Cards Per Team: 19 (team card + 18 players)
Team Card Theme: Early Season Candids
Number Of Leader Cards: N/A
Checklists: 0
Subsets: 1st Version Update (36), Ceremonial First Pitch (32), Cross Earth (36)
Inserts: Star Portraits (12), Fireworks (24), Coming Heroes (24), Combo Cross Foil Signing (13, /10), Treasure (36, /25), Foil Picturesque (12, /15)
Memorabilia Cards: Jersey cards for rookie Ryuki Watarai, Seiya Yokoyama, Yugo Maeda and Natsuki Takeuchi that are /200 along with patch versions that are /20.  There are two two-player combo jersey cards (Watari/Yokoyama and Maeda/Takeuchi) that are /20 with a patch version that is /5 as well as a combo jersey card featuring all four players that is /10 with a /5 patch version.  (Note that neither Yokoyama nor Maeda appear in the base set.)  There are autographed cards for players that use a landscape version of the "Cross Earth" cards that have print runs between 5 and 30 cards and "Special Autograph" cards autograph cards that are mostly #'d between 3 and 7 although there is a 1-of-1 for Watari.  .  There are autographed versions of 27 of the "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards with print runs between 25 and 50 with a silver parallel autographed version that are #'d to 5 or 10.  There are also three players with autograph cards using the format for the autograph cards in the player's team set - these are mostly for players who BBM was not able to include autograph cards in their team set.

Parallels: 12 cards (one per team) have a "Secret" version which is a short printed photo variation.  12 other cards (also one per team) have an "Ultra Secret" version which is an even shorter printed photo variation.  12 addition cards have a "Super Ultra Secret: version which is a yet even more short printed photo variation.  108 of the "regular" and "1st Version Update" cards have nine different parallel versions.  Seven of these are facsimile autographed versions - silver (unnumbered), gold (/100), blue (/75), hologram (/50), red (/25), purple (/10) and sky blue (1-of-1).  The other two parallels are a "glitter" finish on the cards, either gold (/100) or silver (/200).  Each "Cross Earth" card has two parallels - a "holo" version (/100) and a "1 of 1" version.  There are five different parallels for the "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards - "heart" (/300), silver (/200), gold (/100), silver holo (/50) and gold holo (/25).  The "Fireworks" inserts have seven parallels - "Gold" (/300), "Green" (/200), "Blue" (/100), "Orange" (/50), "Red" (/25), "Royal Purple" (/10) and "Sky Blue" (1-of-1).  There are four parallels for the "Star Portraits" inserts - "Gold" (/200), "Green" (/100), "Blue" (/50) and "Pink" (/25).  The "Coming Heroes" inserts also have four parallels - "Gold Leaf" (/200), "Light Green Leaf" (/100), "Crinkled Gold Leaf" (/50) and "Light Green Foil" (/25).

Notable Rookies: Natsuki Takeuchi, Ryuki Watarai

The last set in the box I received last week is the 2024 BBM 2nd Version set.  This is the second of BBM's three "flagship" sets, following 1st Version which was released back in April.  This set came out in early August and will be followed by Fusion, the final "flagship" set for the year, in late November (most likely).

This set follows the pattern that BBM's followed for each edition of this set for the past ten years (with the exception of 2020).  The base set contains 300 + n cards where n is the number of "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards (32 in this instance).  Those 300 cards are split between 216 "regular" player cards (18 per team), 36 "1st Version Update" cards (three per team), 36 "Cross Whatever" cards ("Cross Earth" this time and again it's three cards per team) and 12 team checklists.  Another way to look at it is that the set contains 25 cards per team - 18 "regular" player cards, three "1st Version Update" cards, three "Cross Earth" cards and a checklist.

I find the design of the regular cards to be just kind of ok.  I don't think I like the big white banner across the bottom of the card that much.  But at least it's kind of transparent.  The photos are decent - BBM typically has the best photo selection of any of the NPB card makers and there's some good shots in the set.  And, as always, the occasional horizontal photo is a big plus in my book.  Here's some examples:

#406

#538

#562

#522

#470

#492

Here's what the backs look like.  They have the player's stats up until May 13th:

#429 (Tomoyuki Sugano)

41 of the 216 players with "regular" cards did not appear in 1st Version.  There's a couple surprises in this list - for example I didn't remember that Livan Moinelo didn't have a card in 1st Version - but I think for the most part these are players who are making more of a contribution to their teams than BBM had initially expected.  Or just couldn't fit into 1st Version since there's only 27 cards per team and each team's entire rookie class has to be included (sorry, this is just something I've whined about for year).  As always I'm not sure why BBM decides to give some players who weren't in 1st Version "regular" 2nd Version cards and others "1st Version Update" cards although I kind of feel like BBM treats the "1st Version Update" cards as more of the "cards of record" for a player so I think they try to put the "bigger" players there.

Which brings us nicely to the "1st Version Update" cards.  As mentioned before, this subset subset contains 36 cards (3 per team) and uses the 2024 1st Version design to feature players who didn't appear in that set.  While lately this subset usually has a bunch of new foreign players who didn't join their team until late in the spring, there's only one this time - Anderson Espinoza of Orix.  Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh is in this subset since he didn't return to the Baystars until early May.  There's several former ikusei players who were registered to their team's 70 man roster this season although none of them were 2023 draftees so none of them have the "rookie" icon on their cards.  There seems to be a number of players who switched teams this past winter such as Neftali Soto, Rei Takahashi, Seiji Uebayashi and Hiroshi Kaino as well as players who again may have contributed more to their teams this year than BBM originally expected like Seiji Kobayashi, Makoto Aduwa and Koki Kitayama.  Here's some example cards:

#345

#351

#360

One change in this subset from previous editions of this set is that the backs of the cards have the player's 2024 stats up to May 13th.  In the past the stats on the backs of the cards stopped at the previous year.

I'm describing the theme for the team cards as "Early Season Highlights" but that's kind of a broad term.  Many of the cards show post game celebrations but several are obviously pre-game (the Marines card shows Roki Sasaki coming out of the dugout during the pre-game introductions while I think the Eagles card shows the team lined up on the field for Opening Night).  I'm not entirely sure what's happening on the Tigers card but I like the photo:

#589

For the roughly billionth year in a row, BBM has done a cross set subset and this year's iteration is called "Cross Earth".  Half of it was in the 1st Version set and the other half is in this one.  As I said when I wrote about it in my post on the 1st Version set, the "Cross Earth" cards aren't unattractive but I'm more than ready for BBM to move onto the their next gimmick.

#CE71

The set contains 32 "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards which I think is the most ever.  This subset has been short-printed ever since 2021 and getting it with the rest of the set probably doubled the amount I paid for the set.  As usual most of the people in the subset are Japanese celebrities who have no relationship to baseball although there's one former player - Hideki Matsui.  Figuring out who the other celebrities are is aways kind of interesting.  There's a bunch of comedians (Mikio Date of Sandwich Man, Kikuo Hayashiya and Yumiko Ishihara of Chitty Chitty Johnny), singers (Maki Watase of LINDBERG, Maria Makino of Morning Musume and Nanase Aikawa), a voice actress (Natsumi Fujiwara) and an announcer (Aika Kanda).  There's one actor (Toshiro Yanagiba), three actresses (Michiko Kichise, Wakana Matsumoto and Karin Tsuji) and two kabuki actors (Maholo Onoe and Koshiro Matsuyama).  There's the usual collection of Idols - Risa Yukihira, Rino Ichinose and Kanami Tsujino as well as Airin Hosokawa, daughter of former NPB player Toru Hosokawa.  There's also a "talent" (Tatsunori Tsujimoto) and an "infuencer" (Unparunpa).  The remaining subjects are all athletes of one form or another.  There's three pro wrestlers (Hiroshi Tanahashi, Yota Tsuji and Mayu Iwatani), a jockey (Nanako Fujita), a cyclist (Mao Ogata), a boat racer (Takayuki Ishino) and a "bikini fitness" participant (Yuri Yasui).  There are two competitors from this year's Paris Olympics - Cocona Hiraki who won the silver medal for women's skateboarding and rugby player Chiharu Nakamura - along with two previous Olympians - Javelin thrower Genki Dean (2012 London) and volleyball player Saori Kimura (2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing, 2012 London where the team won bronze and 2016 Rio).

Several of the people featured in this subset have appeared in previous editions of it - Matsui (2013 and 2023 2nd Version), Matsumoto (2023 Fusion), Yukihira (2023 2nd Version & Fusion), Fujita (2018 2nd Version), Tanahashi (2019 2nd Version), Aikawa (2023 2nd Version).  Maria Makino is making her FIFTH appearance on one of these cards after previously being in the 2017 2nd Version, 2018 2nd Version, 2019 Fusion and 2021 2nd Version sets.  This breaks the tie she had had with Ruriko Kojima and Sadako for the second most "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards athough she's still far behind Ami Inamura's 14.

Here's the "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards for Makino and Matsui:

#FP31

#FP23

I was kind of amused and happy at the inclusion of "influencer" Uparunpa because I was at the game he threw the first pitch at - the Tigers - Dragons game at Nagoya Dome on May 15th.  Here's my photos of him followed by his card:

#FP29

As usual, you can see all the cards from the set over at Jambalaya.