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.
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