2024 BBM Fusion

2024 BBM Fusion Set Summary

Size: 144 cards numbered 1-99, TH01-TH24, 601-620, 136
Cards Per Team:  Variable
Team Card Theme:  N/A
Number Of Leader Cards:  24
Checklists:  None
Subsets:  Title Holder (24), Rookie Edition Update(1), 1st Version Update (20)
Inserts:  Ceremonial First Pitch (31), Great Record (24), Legendary Player (12), Treasure (12, /25), Esperanza (24, /50)

Memorabilia Cards: There are three different types of autographed card available - "Team Pack Version" (cards in the style of the format for the autograph cards in the player's team set), "Autograph" and "Picturesque".  There are two versions of autographed cards for the "First Pitch Ceremony" cards as well - the "silver paper" version is the more rare of the two - not all the "First Pitch Ceremony" cards have autographed versions though.
Parallels:  12 regular player cards have a "secret" alternate photo version.  36 regular player cards have three facsimile signature parallels - gold (/100), blue (/75) and holo (/50).  "Title Holder" cards have four parallels - "silver paper" (/200), "gold paper" (/100), "silver paper + holo PP" (/50) and "gold paper + holo PP" (/25).  "Great Record" insert cards have six facsimile signature parallels - "kiwi green" (/200), "gold" (/100), "holo blue" (/75), "holo" (/50), "red" (/25) and "royal purple" (/10).  "Legendary Player" insert cards have the same six parallels as the "Great Record" cards but they're not facsimile signatures - I think they're just the finish on the cards.  "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards have five parallels - "Holo PP" (/300), "Silver Paper" (/200), "Gold Paper" (/100), "Silver Paper + Holo PP" (/50) and "Gold Paper + Holo PP" (/25).
Notable Rookies: None 

Fusion, BBM's Frankenstein of a set that serves annually as the third installment of their flagship set as well as a "season in review" set, was the last of the four sets I received last week.  I always like this set but I always hate trying to write about it.

The base set contains 144 cards which this year are separated into four parts (usually it's only three).  There are 99 "Hall Of Records" cards which are pretty much the "regular" player cards (in as much as there are "regular" player cards in this set).  These cards contain both active and OB players and are numbered 01 to 99.  There are 24 "Title Holder" cards which are numbered TH01 to TH24.  There are 20 "1st Version Update" cards that are numbered 601 to 620 which continues the numbering from the 2nd Version set which in turn continued the numbering started in the 1st Version set.  And finally there's a one card "Rookie Edition Update" card that's numbered 136 since this year's Rookie Edition set had 135 cards.  So four different parts, four different numbering systems.  That's not confusing at all, right?

The 99 "Hall Of Records" cards serve as kind of a season summary but it's really not that straight forward.  In general, each event from 2024 that is highlighted on a card is followed in the set by another card highlighting a related event in the past.  Sometimes there are multiple cards from either 2024 or the past in the sequence.  I know this is confusing (although you'd think after nine years I'd be able to come up with a description that wasn't confusing) so let me show an example.  On June 25, Masato Morishita of the Carp threw a complete game shutout against the Swallows while throwing less than 100 pitches - what's called a "Maddux".  In addition, Morishita also had three hits while batting in the game, making him the first pitcher to have three hits in the same game in which he threw a "Maddux" since Kazuhisa Inao in 1968.  Morishita's card is card #50:

#50

Inao's card is the next one, card #51:

 

#51

If I counted correctly, there are 50 "Hall Of Records" cards that represent events from 2024.  As usual, I'm not sure what a lot of the events are (although I'd find out by looking at the cards with Google Translate) although I know that there are cards for both Shogo Togo and Daichi Ohsera's no-hitters.  I was a little disappointed that none of the games I went to last May ended up being included.  

It's kind of weird this year that some of the more prominent players in NPB aren't in the subset.  Munetaka Murakami, Hiroto Takahashi (two cards), Tetsuto Yamada and Tomoyuki Sugano are probably the biggest names.  No Kazuma Okamoto, Yuki Yanagita, Kensuke Kondoh, Yuki Okabayashi or Chusei Mannami.  (Kondoh does appear in the "Title Holder" cards.)  Roki Sasaki appears in the "Hall Of Records" cards but not for any 2024 events - Darwinzon Hernandez broke Sasaki's record for consecutive innings with a strike out to start the season so he's the "historic event" paired with Hernandez.  

Despite the lack of star power, the cards look pretty nice.  There's some good photos and several alternate uniforms are highlighted.  Here's a few of the cards:

#07

#40

#48

#58

#76

#78

Most of the 49 "historic events" in the set are represented by retired players.  I think the only players who are still active are the afore-mentioned Sasaki, Shogo Akiyama, Seiya Suzuki and Ryoji Kurabayashi (who also has a "2024 event" card).  The retired players are also a little lacking in star power with the biggest names being Sadaharu Oh, Hideki Matsui and Shigeru Sugishita.  BBM kept their streak going of having a card of a famous player with a team you don't think of him with - this year it's Kazuhiro Yamauchi with the Carp rather than the Orions or Tigers.  Here's some examples (including Yamauchi):

#06

#24

#20

#10

#61

The Title Holder cards are a throwback to the Leader subset cards BBM used to include in their flagship sets between 1991 and 2013*.  There are a total of 24 cards (numbered TH01 to TH24) that include the leader (or leaders) in twelve statistical categories for each league -  Batting Average, Home Runs, RBIs, Hits, OBP, Stolen Bases, ERA, Winning Percentage, Wins, Saves, Hold Points and Strikeouts.  If a player leads the league in multiple categories then he has multiple cards in this subset - for example, Munetaka Murakami has two cards since he led the CL in home runs and OBP.  Kensuke Kondoh, Hotoka Yamakawa, Tomoyuki Sugano and Hiromi Itoh also have two cards.  If more than one player tie for the lead in a category they all appear on the card so Itoh shares his card for leading the PL in wins with Kohei Arihara.  This year there's only one other card with multiple players - Shinya Matsuyama and Takuma Kirishiki tied for the CL lead in hold points.  Here's a couple of these cards so you can see what they look like:

#TH03

#TH18

* The big difference is that the "Leader" subset used to include award winners like MVP, Rookie Of The Year and Sawamura but the cut off for Fusion's publication is the end of the regular season and the awards aren't announced until roughly two months later.

The "1st Version Update" subset features cards of 20 players who were either not included in this year's 1st Version set or the "1st Version Update" subset from the 2nd Version set or were traded since their earlier appearance.  The only player in that latter category is Gakuto Wakabayashi of the Giants, who appeared in the 2nd Version set (regular card, not "1st Version Update") as a member of the Lions (the player he was traded for, Seiya Matsubara, is not in the set).  There are a couple other players in the subset who changed teams either last off season or during the season but didn't make it into either the 1st or 2nd Version set (Shun Mizutani, Luis Perdomo and Daiju Nomura).  There's several foreign players who didn't sign with NPB teams until mid-season (Dallas Keuchel, Coco Montes and Elier Hernandez).  The bulk of the players in the subset appears to be former ikusei players who graduated to their teams' 70 man rosters this year including some veterans who were rehabbing after injuries (Haruto Takahashi, Haruto Inoue, Sho Iwasaki and Ayumu Ishikawa).  Here's a couple examples:

#611

#601

#620

Normally there are 21 "1st Version Update" cards but this year, BBM decided to add a "Rookie Edition Update" card.  With their first pick in the ikusei portion of the 2023 draft, the Swallows had taken Shosei Takahashi, a high school student from Taiwan who has dual citizenship for Taiwan and Japan (which forces him to have to go through the draft to join NPB).  Takahashi (whose registered name is actually "Shosei") wasn't able to officially join Yakult until he graduated from high school in June which prevented him from being able to appear on a baseball card until now:

#136

The "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards are short printed and not considered part of the base set but I decided to get them anyway, which increased the price I paid for the set quite a bit.  The 31 cards are numbered FP33 to FP63 in continuation of the same subset in the 2nd Version set.  If you're not familiar with this subset, it features various Japanese celebrities throwing out the first pitch at a ballgame.  As usual I don't know who many of these people are but it's always kind of entertaining researching them.  There's the usual group of Gravure Idols including two members of Nogizaka46 (Hazuki Makai and Shiori Kubo) and two members of Aozora (Yui Kudo and Eren Sugiura) and one member of NMB48 (Chihiro Kawakami) along with Yumena Yanei and Kasumi Mori who don't appear to be associated with any group (and I may be mis-categorizing).  There are several singers (and it may be extremely hair splitting about whether these could be considered Idols as well) including two members of Morning Musume (Erina Ikuta and Ayumi Ishida) along with Haruka Nagata of Green-Yellow Society, Ayaka Sasaki of Momoiro Clover Z, Gakuto Oshio (Gackt) and Hitomi Furuya (hitomi).  There were a bunch of voice actors and actresses, several of whom are also singers - Honoko Inoue, Maaya Uchida, Yuri Komagata, Arisa Komiya, Ai Furihata, Minori Suuzki, Natsumi Murakami and Toshiyuki Morikawa - along with several actors and actresses - Yuuka Suzuki, Anna Yamada, Shiori Tamada, Akane Osawa (granddaughter of the late Keiji Ohsawa, who has a couple stints managing the Fighters), and Keito Tsuna.  The subset also includes three gold medal winners from last summer's Paris Olympics and Para-Olympics - Tokito Oda (wheelchair tennis), Coco Yoshikawa (skateboarding) and Shinnosuke Oka (gymnastics).  The last two celebrities are TikToker Hina Kagel and comedian Hideharu Egashira (Egashira 2:50).  I was kind of disappointed (although not surprised) that the actors from "Abunai Deka" that I saw throw out the first pitch in Yokohama weren't in the subset.   Eight of the celebrities have appeared in earlier versions of this subset - Yuri Komagata and Hazuki Makai were both in 2023 Fusion; Yuukai Suzuki was in 2022 Fusion; Anna Yamada and Chihiro Kawakami were both in both 2022 and 2023 Fusion; Ayaka Sasaki was in 2018 Fusion and Akane Osawa was in 2007 2nd Version.  This is Shiori Kubo's fourth appearance in this subset with her previously having been in 2020 Fusion and 2021 and 2023 2nd Version.  Here are the cards of Osawa and Yoshikawa:

#FP46

#FP57

Fusion traditionally has two non-premium insert sets - "Great Record" and "Legendary Players".  I'm really only interested in the "Great Records set but I've never seen a listing that included it without the other set so I ended up getting both of them.

"Great Record" is a 24 card set that features two players from each team who achieved some milestone during the 2024 season.  Some of the milestones commemorated are Munetaka Murakami's 200th career home run, Tomoyuki Sugano's 1500th strikeout, Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh's 1000th hit and Tetsuto Yamada's 1500th hit.  Some teams didn't necessarily have two (or even one) major milestones this past season so the Buffaloes are represented by Taito Takashima's first career win and Seiya Yokoyama's first career hit.  The cards are super shiny this year which make them a little difficult to read both in person and when scanned.  There is a kind of nice, 3-D effect with them though.  Here's a couple examples:

#GR10

#GR13

The "Legendary Players" set has 12 cards - one for each team - showing OB players.  Each OB player also appeared in the "Hall Of Records" subset although not necessarily for the same team as here - for instance, Kazuhiro Yamauchi is a Daimai Orion in the subset rather than a Hiroshima Toyo Carp.  Other players in the set include Seiya Suzuki, Kazuhisa Inao, Matt Winters and Carlos Ponce.  These are also very shiny but a little more readable than the "Great Record" cards.  Here's Winter's card as an example:

#LP12

As always all the cards from the set can be seen over at Jambalaya.