About a week and a half ago, I saw someone selling a Bobby Valentine autographed card from the 2011 BBM Marines 20th Anniversary set for only $10. I jumped on it and received the card in the mail this past week. As soon as I took it out of the package, I noticed two things odd about it - one of which I should have noticed from the listing. Let me show you the front and back of the card and see if you can spot what's missing:
Two trademarks of BBM's authentic autographed cards is that they are serially numbered and they have a "BBM" logo embossed into the card. It's hard to tell from the scans but the card does not have the embossing on it. It's a little easier to tell that the card is not serially numbered - it should be /100 - and that's what I should have noticed before I bought the card.
This sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole. What's the story on this? I can't imagine that it's fake as that's a lot of effort to fake something for only $10. One thought I had was that it was some sort of promo but BBM is almost always really good about clearly labeling their promos as "Promo" or "Sample" so it seemed unlikely.
I did a search on "2011 BBM Bobby Valentine" and was kind of surprised when an answer presented itself to me rather quickly. To confirm it, I reached out to the seller and asked where they had gotten the card from (after reassuring them that I was not upset about it or accusing them of selling me a fraudulent item). They responded with what I had suspected - they bought the card from JapanBall!
JapanBall is still selling autographed Bobby Valentine cards but they're sold out of this particular one (although it still appears on the web page). I did find an archived web page for cards like this though. JapanBall claims (and I have no reason to doubt them) that "the card came from Bobby’s personal collection". My best guess at what happened is that BBM gave Valentine a handful of unsigned cards or perhaps signed cards that were extra and that he sold them to (or through) JapanBall. He also signed some other cards from both BBM and Topps and sold them the same way.
I reached out to JapanBall to ask them about it but I haven't gotten a response. They're running their tour of Japan right now so it's probably not a surprise that I haven't heard back from them. I'll update this post if they get back to me. But at least I think I know why the card is unusual and that it most likely is authentic.
I was looking around on Ebay the other day and I came across a listing for what looked like a reprint of an old Calbee card, specifically a Sadaharu Oh card, #1005 from the 1975/76/77 "monster" set:
The front and the back of the card indicated it was a 2024 release but I didn't know what it was. The wrapper implied that was some sort of tie-in with the Giants and the writing on the packs translated to "Old Summer Series" and "Calbee Professional Baseball Chips Special Reprint Card".
My first thought was that Calbee was doing some sort of Giants OB team set along the lines of the Hawks set they had done last winter (although the Hawks set had active, not OB players in it). But there was no listing for this set on Calbee's website. My next thought was that maybe this was something the Giants were selling in the team shop but I couldn't find anything in their on-line store. I reached out to Sean, who I consider the most knowledgable blogger about all things Calbee, but he didn't know anything about them either.
Finally it occurred to me that I should look to see if these were involved with some sort of giveaway at Tokyo Dome and, after going through the Giants' News section on their web page, I found the answer - this was one of 12 cards that were given away during a three game series against the Carp from August 6th to the 8th. The series was dubbed the "Old Summer Series" and the intent was to highlight players who had played for the Giants at Korakuen Stadium, the team's home until Tokyo Dome opened in 1988. The other cards in the set were for Shigeo Nagashima, Suguru Egawa, Takashi Nishimoto, Masumi Kuwata, Tadashi Matsumoto, Kazumasa Kohno, Tatsunori Hara, Kiyoshi Nakahata, Kazunori Shinozuka, Sadaaki Yoshimura and Warren Cromartie.
I had remembered having seen some reprints of Calbee Giants cards on Ebay before but I had always kind of assumed that they were some how tied into the 50th Anniversary reprinted cards from 2022. What I discovered when I did a search for "オールドサマーシリーズ" ("Old Summer Series") on Yahoo! Japan Auctions and Mercari is that apparently the Giants and Calbee have been doing this at least since 2022. I'm not entirely sure but there were at least three cards in 2022 and four in 2023. There also appear to be facsimile signature parallels that are fairly rare.
While working my way through the list of new articles about the Giants, I came across another game where cards were given away to attendees. The Wednesday, August 21st game - again against the Carp - was "Professional Baseball Game Dream Order DAY". Fan were given one of twelve different Dream Order collectible card game cards:
The cards were a tie-in with the team celebrating their 90th season and apparently represent the winners of a "Best 9" lineup voted on by the fans (I think). The twelve players are Masaki Saitoh (starting pitcher), Tetsuya Yamaguchi (middle relief), Koji Uehara (closer), Shinnosuke Abe (catcher), Sadaharu Oh (1st base), Kazunori Shinozuka (2nd base), Shigeo Nagashima (3rd base), Hayato Sakamoto (shortstop), Hideki Matsui (outfield), Yoshinobu Takahashi (outfield), Warren Cromartie (outfield) and Tatsunori Hara (manager). (NOTE - you get 12 players for a "Best 9" by adding a middle reliever, a closer and a manager.
I'd be curious to find out how many SGA Dream Order cards there were this year. What I know of is this. the Marines giving away a card of Kazuya Fukuura in July (H/T Deanna) and the Eagles giving away cards of Takahiro Norimoto and Hideto Asamura in May. I should probably do some spelunking through YJA and see what's there but I haven't had a chance to.
Mint Fukuoka used to be located in the Tenjin Vivre shopping mall and was pretty much a run-of-the-mill Mint store in a mall. From what I saw when I visited it in 2019, the store had singles for recent sets along with hits and unopened product. It also had a lot of gaming cards and (I think) some amount of random older cards - if nothing else, they had rookie cards for a lot of Hawks players along with other stars.
The store moved out a few years ago - I'd guess the mall getting torn down played a role in that decision. They're now located in a kind of out-of-the-way location and have apparently ceded the style of store that they used to be to Mint Fukuoka Parco (which is basically a block away from where Tenjin Vivre used to be). They're now pretty much a hits only store which, like Mint Daimaru Shinsaibashi, really isn't my cup of tea.
As I mentioned, the shop is in kind of an out-of-the-way location. They're on the sixth floor of the Stage 1 building down Daimyo Central Street about three blocks from the Chuo Ward Office on Meiji dori. The nearest subway stop is Akasaka station. Here's a couple photos of the building and the entrance to the shop:
The one somewhat unique thing about this shop is they have a bar inside so you can get a beer to drink while you break open a box of cards. Mint Shibuya in Tokyo used to have this at their old location but I don't think they do at their new one (which I didn't get to on this past trip).
Like I said with Mint Daimaru Shinsaibashi, I may have missed something here as I didn't spend a great deal of time in the shop. And what they have may appeal to other collectors - it just didn't do much for me. The one thing I will say is that at least Mint Daimaru Shinsaibashi is easy to get to. Pretty much the only positive about this store's location is it's not far from a Mandarake store that has some old Calbees.
I'm going to apologize up front for how long this post is. I did a lot in my two days in Fukuoka and I don't want to split it into two posts. I don't think any of the remaining posts for my trip will be as long as this. I was hoping to wrap them up soon as it's already four months since the trip but things take time.
The weather was beautiful in Fukuoka on the morning of Monday, May 20th which was good news for me as I was going to be walking around a lot that day and I didn't really want a repeat of the rainy Monday I'd had the previous week in Tokyo. My first stop of the day was the Mint Fukuoka Parco card shop which - as the name implies - is located in the Fukuoka Parco shopping mall in Tenjin. I got there right as the mall opened and took a quick look at the store (which I've written up in a separate post) before heading off to my second stop - Fukuoka Tower.
Fukuoka Tower is located near the shoreline of Hakata Bay. It's about a mile walk from the nearest subway stop (Nishijin Station) but it's a relatively flat mile. I think there might be a bus you can take from the subway stop as well but I didn't look into it. Admission was 800 yen. You take an elevator up that has transparent sides and roof so you can see that most of the tower is actually empty space:
Once at the top, you can see out in all directions. I mentioned that it was beautiful day so the view was pretty spectacular (as opposed to how Nagoya was the previous week). Here's some views of the bay to the north:
The beach is Momochi Seaside Park and the building sticking out into the water is called Marizon.
This shot is looking towards the mouth of Hakata Bay. That's Nokonoshima Island on the left with Genkai Island behind it. On the right is Shika Island. Beyond the islands is the Tsushima Strait, part of the Korea strait that separates Japan from South Korea.
Shika Island with the tip of the Itoshima Peninsula on the right. The island is actually connected to the peninsula via a causeway that's almost visible in this photo.
The Itoshima Peninsula defines the northern side of Hakata Bay. That large white building in the middle of the photo is Marine World, an aquarium with dolphin and sea lion shows. There's a jet boat ferry that runs between there and Marizon.
Here's the view to the east of the tower:
Fukuoka Dome is hiding behind the Hilton Fukuoka Sea Hawk hotel. You can see a cruise ship parked at the city's cruise ship dock in the background - the ferry to Busan, South Korea, leaves Fukuoka from right next to that dock.
You can see where the Muromi River dumps into Hakata Bay when you look to the west:
And, finally, here's the view to the south:
I only spent about a half an hour up at the top of the tower - and that included getting a latte at the cafe below the observation deck. I had a ticket for a tour of Fukuoka Dome for early afternoon so it was time to head to the ballpark.
It's less than a mile from the tower to the dome and the most pleasant way to do it is the walkway by the beach:
Of course, walking at the beach means you have to climb up a bunch of stairs to get back up to the level the ballpark is at:
There's a small Buddhist temple - Taka Kanzeon Dai Bosatsu - at the top of the stairs. I'm not sure of the details but I think it is associated with the Hawks:
For my tour, I needed to get over to the BOSS E-ZO FUKUOKA building which was, of course, on the complete opposite side of the Dome from where I climbed the stairs. As I walked around the ballpark, I saw a bunch of these displays that had hands sticking out of them. Some closer inspection revealed that the hands were actually molded from different celebrities that I assume had performed at the Dome at one time or another. As you'd expect, most of them were Japanese but there were a number of Westerners including Billy Joel, Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Natalie Cole and the members of Bon Jovi:
The way they're set up, you can act like you're shaking hands with them. My favorite one was, of course, Sadaharu Oh:
I made it over to the BOSS E-ZO FUKUOKA building and got checked in for my tour with about a half hour to spare. I grabbed a quick bite to eat at the MLB Cafe in the building which probably wasn't my first choice but it worked out OK. I think I was the only customer in the place at the time.
The Hawks have changed the Dome tours they offer in the last few months but when I was there, they offered a "Discovery Course" (which is now called the "Dome-Enjoying Course") that would take you onto the field and into the dugout as well as possibly into the locker room and bullpen; and an "Adventure Course" that took you onto the roof of the Dome. I had planned on doing both tours until I read the fine print that mentioned that "people who have difficulty passing through narrow passages (width 35 cm)" cannot participate in the "Adventure Course". 35 centimeters is roughly 14 inches. Even back when I was a runner and in shape, I'm not a small person so I decided that rather than find out the hard way that I couldn't get through a 35 centimeter gap, I decided to just do the "Discovery Course".
I showed up at Gate 4 for my 1 PM tour and discovered that I was the only person on it! My guide was a young man who introduced himself as "Kondoh" (but not THAT Kondoh) and he led me into the ballpark. We had the usual problem that neither of us spoke the other's language (although as usual his English was better than my Japanese) but we were able to communicate pretty well through the use of the translation apps on each of our phones - at least until the battery died on his. Eventually another guide came by with a portable charger and we were able to talk again.
Kondoh first took me to the stands in the left field corner. I took a billion pictures as he filled me in on the history of the ballpark. Aside from a few people from the grounds crew working on the field, we were the only ones inside the Dome.
Our next stop was down on the field the visitor's dugout on the third base side. Once again, I took a lot of pictures while he talked.
One of the major things Kondoh talked about here was the huge video board that the Dome has - at 1542.83 square meters, it's the largest in the world. They had a camera input for it down on the field so he was able to put me up on the board:
It took me a couple tries to get that shot lined up.
We were going to head into the bowels of the stadium next but first Kondoh had to apologize to me. The Hawks were starting a three game series with the Eagles the next day and Rakuten's equipment had already arrived. Because of that, we weren't going to be able to go into the visiting team's locker room or bullpen. He had some photos on boards that used to show what the rooms looked like (including ones that highlighted the contrast in how the Hawks' clubhouse looked and how the visitor's clubhouse looked - the Hawks' was MUCH nicer). We did then go into the inner part of the stadium to the "press conference room" where he took my photo in front of the background used for hero interviews:
We returned to the field and went back up into the stands, stopping first at the "Excite seats" which are located in front of the foul ball netting.
Several of the NPB ballparks have similar seats. You get issued a batting helmet and are frequently reminded to pay attention to the game while sitting in these locations.
Kondoh then took me to another section of seats in the ballpark which I didn't take any photos of. I think at this point he was trying to pad out the tour to be close to the hour it was supposed to take. Between only having one person to put on the video board and the stage in the "press conference room" and not being able to go to the locker room or bullpen, we were pretty much done with the main parts of the tour. He asked me which ballparks I had visited during my trip and I told him where I had been and where I was going - basically I was going to see all the parks except the Fighters' new park in Hokkaido.
This tour was one of the highlights of my trip. I really felt like I got a personalized tour from Kondoh and learned much more about the ballpark than I would have if he'd had more people on his tour. And it only cost 1600 yen (about $11)!
After leaving the Dome, I headed back to the BOSS E-ZO FUKUOKA building and went up to the fourth floor to go to the Sadaharu Oh Museum:
This museum used to be in the Dome itself - kind of like how the Japanese Baseball Hall Of Fame is built into the side of Tokyo Dome - but moved a few years ago when this building was added. It was closed when I visited Fukuoka in 2019 so I was happy that I was finally going to visit it. I didn't realize it until later but the day I was there was Oh's 84th birthday!
One of the first exhibits in the museum is one of the most interesting - it's a recreation of Hiroshi Arakawa's dojo where Oh developed his iconic batting stance:
What's cool about this is that they project a film of Oh onto the screen in the dojo so it looks like he's there. Here's some photos from it:
There are displays on his childhood and high school baseball career, his playing career and his managerial stints with both the Giants and the Hawks. There's a whole gallery filled with various awards and trophies he won:
There was also a display dedicated to him managing Japan's first WBC team in 2006:
Towards the end of the exhibits was a section for the current Hawks team, including a display for manager Hiroki Kokubo:
This included a small case dedicated to Kokubo's stint as Samurai Japan manager for the 2017 WBC which didn't go as well as Oh's:
Once I was finished with the museum, it was time to hit some more baseball card shops. It's about a 15 minute walk from the Dome to the Tojinmachi subway stop which is the nearest one. From there I took a short ride to Akasaka station, the closest station to both Mint Fukuoka and the local Mandarake store. After checking out both shops (which I'll write about in future posts), I hopped back on the subway to ride back to Hakata station and then walked over to Mint Hakata.
Mint Hakata is one of my favorite stores in Japan and I spent more time there than I spent at the other three stores combined. I found a lot of cards that I was looking for although I was surprised and disappointed that they didn't have any of the 2023 Calbee Hawks cards - I had convinced myself that they'd have them even if no one else did. Turns out that no one did, at least none of the stores that I went to.
It was about 5:30 when I left the store and I was ready to eat something for dinner. Ryan had told me that I should check out the food stalls down by the river and I decided to head over that way. If I'd gone the most direct route, it would have taken me about 15 minutes to get over to where the stalls are set up but I got a little lost on the way so it took a little longer.
The food stalls that Ryan directed me to are the Nakasu Yatai, which are located on Nakasu Island. The island has the Hakata River on one side and the Naka River on the other. Seiryu Park is the southern tip of the island and there's a big Lantern Marker there:
It was a nice view up and down the river here as well:
The food stalls are set up on the sidewalk next to the Naka River. Most of them open at six although one that I started to wait at wasn't going to open until seven. The stalls get very busy quickly but I was able to get a seat at one relatively quickly.
I've mentioned before that one of my goals for this trip was to try some more interesting food, especially any regional specialties. Ryan's suggestion for me was to try tonkotsu, a ramen dish made with a pork bone broth. He said it would be really good after all the walking I had done that day and he was right - it was delicious:
It helped that I had one of the best beers that I had ever had in Japan with it - a Suginoya Pale Ale from Hamachi Shuzo, a local microbrewery:
Here's a shot of the stand I ate at. The empty seat was where I had been sitting - it didn't stay empty for long:
After eating, I started heading back to my hotel. On my way, I looked back down the walk to where all the stalls were and took this photo:
Given how much walking I had done that day, it's not really a surprise that I was asleep not long after I got back to my hotel.
Tuesday, May 21st, was another beautiful day in Fukuoka. I didn't have quite as full of a day planned as I had had the day before but it was still going to be busy. I was starting the day with a trip to a park on the Itoshima Peninsula and ending it back at Fukuoka Dome to watch the Eagles play the Hawks but I wasn't completely sure what I was going to do for the middle part of the day.
The park in question was Uminonakamichi Seaside National Park which straddles the peninsula touching both Hakata Bay and the ocean. It includes Marine World, the aquarium I had seen the day before from Fukuoka Tower, although I wasn't planning on going there.
It was about a half hour train ride from Hakata Station out to the park. Uminonakamichi Station, which serves both the park and Marine World, is probably the most rinky-dink JR station I saw in Japan:
Admission to the park was 450 yen. I only had a kind of vague plan when I got there that I wanted to see the ocean. As I set out from the entrance, though, one of the first things I saw was the bicycle rental facility. I hadn't ridden a bike in years but the attraction of being able to cover more ground more quickly in an area where I wouldn't need to worry about cars was very appealing. The rental rate was only 600 yen for three hours so I decided to do it.
As I said, I hadn't ridden a bike in years but it all came back to me as I rode away from the rental center. I guess there's a reason why we use "just like riding a bike" as a metaphor for remembering how to do something. My only real complaint is that the bike didn't have a gear shift so I found climbing hills to be hard work. Luckily the park is relatively flat and there were only a couple of times when it was an issue.
I wandered around a little at first, taking a ride about halfway around the main part of the park before deciding to get serious about getting to the seaside. The one thing I discovered when I got over to the beach is that you couldn't go down to the water - they've got the beaches blocked off to protect the vegetation. The park's website points out that there's a couple other parks nearby that have beaches that you can swim at. There were three or four places along the shoreline where I was able to park the bike and walk out to an observation point so I was finally able to see the ocean - I was thinking it was the Sea of Japan but I guess its really the Tsushima Strait at this point:
A map at one of the observation points showed that South Korea was only about 200 kilometers across the water:
The peninsula was narrow enough at the last place I stopped so that I could look across it and Hakata Bay to see both the Dome and the Tower - that's the "Light and Wind" part of the park in the foreground. The white spheres are actually tents that you can spend the night in:
After about an hour tooling around the park on the bike, I decided I wanted to head back to Fukuoka. But I had a more interesting route in mind than taking the train back the way I came. Instead - after returning the bike, of course - I got back on the train and went one stop further along the penisula to Saitozaki, the final stop on the line. I had just a few minutes to get from the train station to the ferry terminal - I was hoping to catch the 12:35 ferry across the harbor.
The good news is that I made it to the terminal in time to catch the ferry. The bad news is that I couldn't get the ticket machine to work in time to actually get on it! There was only one person working at the terminal and he was busy with the ferry when it arrived. When he came back into the terminal after it had left, he was very helpful and I was able to get my ticket for the next ferry which wouldn't be arriving until 1:30.
I was a little hungry at this point but unfortunately there really wasn't any place nearby where I could get a quick bite to eat. There weren't any conbinis around and there nearest restaurants that were open were probably too far away to get to and get back before the next ferry arrived. So I basically just sat and waited in the terminal. I did walk along the water a little bit although I stopped to talked to an Australian bicyclist for a bit instead of walking as far as I had intended.
Eventually the ferry arrived and I got on board:
It's about a 15 minute ride across the harbor and I spent the time moving around the boat, taking a ton of photos. Mercifully I'll only share a couple here:
I got off the ferry and headed back to Fukuoka Parco. I had forgotten to check the Mint store there for the 2023 Calbee Hawks cards the day before. It was about a mile and a quarter walk to get there but I broke it up a little by stopping at a MOS Burger for lunch.
The Mint store did not have the cards I was looking for. Originally I had planned on going back to my hotel to rest before the Hawks game but I realized that I wasn't going to have enough time. Instead I went to a coffee place in the basement of the mall to hang out for a little bit before heading back to the Dome.
I had what was perhaps the best meal I got at any ballpark that night - it was a Yugo Bandoh endorsed bibimbap that unfortunately didn't come with a Bandoh baseball card:
I once again had a good seat for the game and I settled in to watch it.
The game was scoreless until the bottom of the second - that's when it started to go down hill for the Eagles. You can watch the video of the highlights of the game below but the Hawks scored seven runs on eight hits in that inning. It seemed like they were hitting the ball to the exact same spot in deep center field - there must have been four batters who hit it there. What was especially crazy to me is that the Eagles left Ponce in the game to absorb this punishment.
In fact, Ponce remained in the game despite giving up a lead off home run to Ryoya Kurihara in the third inning and then giving up back-to-back triples to lead off the fourth. After then walking Yuki Yanagita and hitting Hotoka Yamakawa to load the bases with nobody out, the Eagles finally went to the bullpen, bringing in Shuto Sakurai. He didn't do any better, allowing all three inherited runners to score and then giving up another six runs of his own. The Hawks batted around for the second time in three innings, scoring another ten runs to make the score 18-0.
Kazuki Yoshikawa came into to pitch in the fifth inning and stayed on the mound for three innings. He actually pitched pretty well, relatively speaking, despite giving up Kurihara's second home run of the evening - a two run shot in the fifth to make it 20-0. Masaya Nishigaki was Rakuten's final pitcher and he gave up a solo home run to Takashi Umino, making the final score 21-0.
Here's the highlights I promised:
Ponce gave up twelve earned runs in three-plus innings. His ERA jumped from 4.50 to 7.05. It's still somewhat unbelievable to me that the Hawks used the same number of pitchers in this game that the Eagles did. I was kind of hoping to see a position player pitch in this game but that's pretty rare in Japan and it didn't happen in either this game or the next day's game where the Hawks routed the Eagles 12-0.
I stuck around for a while after the game because Kondoh had told me the day before that there are three criteria that need to happen for the Hawks to open the roof of the Dome after a game. First of all, there has to be less than a 30% change of rain. Secondly, the wind has to less than 10 kilometers per hour. Lastly, the Hawks have to have won. Obviously the Hawks had won and I was pretty sure there wasn't any rain in the forecast so the only real question was how windy it was. But after the hero interviews and another round of the Hawks cheer song, the roof began to open while the PA played "Shōri no Sora e" ("To Sky of Victory") by Fumiya Fujii, which is the Hawks "official ceremonial song".
It only opened up about half way, taking about 12 minutes or so to do it. That building peering in is the Hilton Fukuoka Sea Hawk hotel.
I didn't stick around to watch the Dome close. I was going to be taking the Shinkansen all the way back to Tokyo the next day so I needed to get back to my hotel and get some rest.
I had left Fukuoka after my previous trip feeling like there were several things that I had wanted to do that I hadn't done. As I headed back to my hotel, I realized I had pretty much done everything I had wanted to do - at least in Fukuoka-city itself. Time will tell if I ever return here but at least I don't feel like I missed out on anything anymore.
