Kento Inoue of the Baystars hit his first career home run at the ichi-gun level last Wednesday and he made it count. It was a grand slam off of Dragons' ace Hiroto Takahashi in the bottom of the first that accounted for all of DeNA's runs in their 4-3 victory. Inoue was the 94th player in Japan to hit a grand slam for their first ever home run. Here's Inoue's rookie card from last year's BBM 1st Version set (#081):
Summer has arrived and I realized that I'd gone about a month and a half since I last did a roundup of new set announcements. Time to fix that so here goes...
- Epoch has announced three more of their team sets under the "Premier Edition" label. The Dragons set will be out on July 19th, the Buffaloes set will be out on August 16th and the Baystars set will be out on August 30th. This will make it eight teams that Epoch has done these team sets for this year, with only the Giants, Hawks, Marines and Eagles being left out. The Dragons set has 44 cards in its base set - 40 for active players, one for the mascot Doala and three for members of the coaching staff (I assume they'll feature photos of them from when they were active players and not coaches). The Buffaloes and Baystars base sets are split between active and OB players with the Buffaloes set having 39 active players and three OB players and the Baystars set having 47 active players and seven OB players. (I should mention that the "active players" group includes each team's manager as well.) There's a "holo" parallel for every base set card in all three sets. Each set has the same batch of inserts as all the rest of the "Premier Edition" sets - three varieties of "Regular Foil Signature" ("silver", "gold" and "hologram") (18 cards each), two varieties of "Regular Decomori Signature" ("hologram" and "hologram parallel") (18 cards each), five varieties of "Time To Shine" ("A","B","C","D","E") (six cards each) and three varieties of "Decomori Signature" ("gold","green" and "hologram") (six cards each). I believe all of the inserts are serially numbered. There are also the "GEM" and "BLACK GEM" "special insert cards" (twelve cards in each) that I think are much more limited. Finally, each set has a bunch of associated autographed cards that are slightly different between the sets. The Dragons set has 41 "Authentic Autograph" cards, four "Star Autograph" cards, eight "Rookie Autograph" cards, three "Legendary Autograph" cards, two "Combo Autograph" cards and four "Rookie Combo Autograph" cards along with an autographed card of Doala entitled "Doala's Flip". The Buffaloes set has 39 "Authentic Autograph" cards, six "Star Autograph" cards, twelve "Rookie Autograph" cards, two "Combo Autograph" cards and an unspecified number of "Legendary Autograph" cards (but presumably three or less, assuming these are all for the OB players in the set). The Baystars set has 44 "Authentic Autograph" cards, four "Star Autograph" cards, nine "Rookie Autograph" cards, seven "Legendary Autograph" cards and three "Combo Autograph" cards.
- Epoch will be releasing their annual Pacific League Rookies box set on August 30th. This year's edition will have 40 cards - a 37 card base set, two "special" cards that may be either foil facsimile signature parallel cards or GEM insert cards (both of which would be serially numbered) and one autograph card. The base set is made up of all of last falls draftees from the six Pacific League teams with the biggest name being Rui Muneyama of the Eagles. There are three types of autographed cards available of all 37 players and the first round picks also have a "baseball" autograph.
- BBM is releasing the third installment of their set to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Saitama Seibu Lions. While the two previous parts were 36 card box sets, boxes for the Lions 75th Anniversary Series Vol.3 set will contain 37 cards - a 36 card base set plus one "special insert card" which could be either a facsimile or authentic autograph. The base set will include 19 OB players from the 1990's and 2000's and 17 current players (each of the players currently on the Lions' roster will eventually be included in one of the four sets). The set will be out in late July with the final part arriving in September.
- BBM's annual cheerleader/dance squad set called "Dancing Heroine" will be released in late August. Like last year, this will be released as one set this year instead of the two installments - Hana and Mai - that BBM had done previously. The set will be around 180 cards. As usual the set only includes members of the squads from the Giants, Tigers, Swallows, Dragons, Hawks, Fighters, Marines, Eagles and Lions and, as usual, I have no idea why the ones from the Buffaloes and Baystars are not included (the Carp don't have cheerleaders). There a holo parallel of all the base set cards and an 18 card "Two-shot" insert set. There are also autographs and "cheki" cards available.
- BBM's annual high-end set - Genesis - will be released in early October, a little later than normal. As usual the base set contains 120 cards - ten per team which splits up as nine player cards and a team checklist. Also as usual, no one really cares about the base set as the attraction of Genesis is the autograph and memorabilia cards available in the boxes. The different varieties are too numerous to list but there are booklets, super patches, ball autographs and multiplayer autographed memorabilia cards. There's also a myriad of parallel versions of all the base cards and five "High-grade insert card" sets - Elite Of Nine, Game Changer, Unrivaled, Cross Ocean and Combo Cross Foil Signing.
- I realized that I missed writing about the new SCC KBO League Collection Card set which was released back in May. The base set (the "Normal" cards according to SCC) has kind of a unique twist that I don't think SCC (or anyone else for that matter) has done before. Each of the 140 active players (14 from each team) featured have two cards in the set - one showing them in their home uniform and one showing them in their away uniform. In addition to the 280 cards for active players, there's also 11 cards of OB players which brings the size of the base set to 291. There are also 90 "Puzzle" cards available - nine for each team which form a 3x3 puzzle featuring nine players from the team - and 81 "Hologram" cards - 7 from each team plus one for each of the 11 OB players. There is a parallel version of the "Hologram" cards as well, There's also 30 "Clover" cards - three from each team. These appear to be some sort of partially transparent card. There are 81 autographed cards available which have a similar breakdown as the "Hologram" cards in that most teams have seven of them and there's one for each of the OB players. The big difference (other than not every active player who has a "Hologram" card has an autographed one and vice versa) is that for some reason there's eight autographs for Kia but only six for Kiwoom.
The title of this post was inspired by a song I heard Chuck Prophet do live a little over a month ago (even though one of the sets came out in the spring and one of them is scheduled for the fall):
I got Zippy Zapped yet again! I received another envelope in the mail yesterday from Kenny in Japan. This one contained only one baseball card, a DreamOrder card of Akiyoshi Katsuno of the Dragons. This was from last year's Central League Booster Pack Vol. 1 set and is #CBP01-C03. It's also very shiny but it still seems to have scanned pretty well. I assume it's shiny-ness means it's a good card to use in the game but I have not learned how to play it.
I was pretty excited about all of the cards but I think I was the most excited about what objectively is the dullest card in the batch - the unnumbered "Title Card" for the 1999 Teleca Premium "Korea Dream Team" insert set. This was the last card I needed to complete this set. The front of the card has details about the 1999 Asian Championship, a qualifier to the baseball competition for the 2000 Sydney Olympics:
The back of the card has the scores of all the games in the tournament and shows the standings of the final round and the team's overall finishes (Korea won the tournament which is why Teleca did cards for the team):
The rest of the cards were all from the 2000 Teleca set. Dan sent me eleven base set cards and two "Rookies" insert cards. The first of these is arguably the biggest card in the set, at least to MLB fans:
2000 Teleca #72
Here's one of the other base set cards and the two "Rookies" insert cards:
2000 Teleca #107
2000 Teleca #R15
2000 Teleca #R17
The remainder of the cards were all members of the SK Wyverns. I've written about this in the past - I believe that these are all short printed cards that were included in a second printing of the set, replacing the cards of the defunct Ssangbangwool Raiders from the first printing:
2000 Teleca #195
2000 Teleca #197
2000 Teleca #201
2000 Teleca #202
2000 Teleca #207
2000 Teleca #209
2000 Teleca #210
2000 Teleca #214
2000 Teleca #215
With the exception of Son Cha-hoon, all of these players also appear in the set with Ssangbangwool.
The KBO portion of my want list is now down to just 14 cards - one from the 1999 Teleca set, two from the 2000 Teleca base set, five from the 2000 Teleca "Rookies" insert set and six from the 2000 Teleca "'99 Korea Japan Super Games" insert set. Thanks, Dan!
Interleague play wrapped up this past week with a makeup game on Tuesday between the Giants and the Marines. The Hawks were the interleague champions for the ninth time (although the first time since 2019). This was the twentieth season of interleague play - it started in 2005 but they didn't have it in the COVID-shortened 2020 season - and the Hawks have had the best record in almost half of those seasons. No other team has won it more than twice.
Hawks outfielder Tatsuru Yanagimachi was named Interleague MVP. Here's a card of him from last year's team issued "2024 Season Vol, 1" set (#24SBH152):
I was away from home this past week on a business trip to Alabama. I managed to do a couple fun things on the trip, like visiting Rickwood Field and having dinner with Jason. I got home late last night after a bit of an odyssey caused by scattered thunderstorms across the south to learn that I had received yet another envelope full of baseball cards from Kenny, aka Zippy Zappy.
There was a bit of a twist, though. The envelopes that I had gotten from Kenny over the past few months had contained baseball cards from this year but this envelope had some nine year old cards in it. What Kenny had sent me was the entire nine card "Enter The Dragon" insert set associated with the 2016 BBM Dragons set. Most of BBM's team sets have 18 non-premium insert cards split into a handful of sets and there's usually a nine card one featuring the main players of the team. This was that insert set for the Dragons set that year. Here's all nine cards:
#ED1
#ED2
#ED3
#ED4
#ED5
#ED6
#ED7
#ED8
#ED9
I've had the base set for the Dragons set since 2016 but, thanks to Kenny, I'm now just six insert cards from a master set. He'd previously given me the three "Fresh Stars" cards so all I need now are the three "Artful Reliever" cards and the three "Powerhouse" cards - although I'm not sure I'm going to pursue this. He's also given me six autographed cards from the set.
Thursday night in Tokyo, Koki Kitayama of the Fighters came close to making history. Pitching against the Giants in the ballpark that Nippon-Ham once shared with Yomiuri, Kitayama took a perfect game into the seventh inning before giving up a two out walk. The no-hitter was still intact but, sadly, both it and his shutout ended with one out in the ninth inning on a solo home run by Takumi Ohshiro. Kitayama had to settle for a complete game, one-hit victory as the Fighters beat the Giants 4-1.
Here's a card of Kitayama from last year's 2nd Version set (#370):
I returned home from running some errands this morning to discover that Kenny (aka Zippy Zappy) had made good on his recent threat promise to send me some more 2025 baseball cards. I opened the envelope to discover a handful of cards from both the Calbee Series One set (not that there's another Calbee option since the summer solstice has now passed without the release of Series Two for a third straight year) and the new Topps NPB set which came out a few weeks back.
First, let's take a look at the Calbees. In his last envelope to me, Kenny had sent me six "regular" player cards. This envelope included four more cards but all of them were either subset or insert cards. Here they all are:
#T-10
#SO-11
#S-19
#C-06
Sean had mentioned that the Title Holder cards looked a lot better this year and I agree. I had not realized that the "Strikeout Leader" cards (of which the Miyagi card is one) were issued in the packs this year - I guess Calbee isn't doing the box sets through their Amazon.co.jp store anymore. The cartoon images of the team mascots on the checklist cards are interesting but it's a shame they come at the expense of what are frequently the more interesting photos of the set.
Kenny had sent me an email a few weeks back, letting me know that he was including some Topps cards in the envelope. I told him that I was wondering how I was going to get a chance to dump on Topps this year so I really appreciated him sending me the cards. So without further ado, here's all but one of the Topps cards he sent me:
#63
#186
#84
#69
#198
The other card he sent me was a /150 blue border parallel:
#59
They're fine, I guess. They use the same design as the 2025 Topps MLB cards although I see that they didn't bother to actually indicate the player's position in the baseball diamond widget in the lower right corner. It's kind of a bland set of photos but that's not representative of the set - one of the few things I give Topps credit for with their NPB sets is that, for the most part, they feature pretty good photography (with the exception of the 206 sets, obviously). You can check out the cards for yourself over at Jambalaya.
My main gripe about the cards is the same as it was for the 2023 and 2024 editions - the photos are all from last year and no player who switched teams over the winter is included in the set. The rookie photos (like Shoji above) are all posed shots that were probably taken last December. I do not understand why Topps can't get their act together and put together an up-to-date set when BBM does one that's larger and out a month earlier.
Oh, yeah, the backs continue to suck as well:
It might not sound like it, but I am, as always, grateful to Kenny for sending me these cards. I must have been a very nice person in a previous life because I don't think I've done anything in THIS life to have earned being the beneficiary of his generosity. Thanks again, Kenny!
Dan Skrezyna - aka Korean Cardboard - is selling his card collection. He contacted me a few weeks ago about some cards on my KBO want list and we made a deal for nine cards. He shipped them off and they showed up at my house today.
There are four KBO sets that I'm trying to complete - the 1999 Teleca base set, the 1999 Teleca Premium "Korea Dream Team" insert set, the 2000 Teleca base set and the 2000 Teleca "'99 Korea Japan Super Games" insert set. The cards from Dan included two of the three "Korea Dream Team" cards I needed and just over half of the "'99 Korea Japan Super Games" cards.
Once upon a time, NPB and KBO made an agreement that they'd play a post-season All Star series every four years. They only ended up doing it three times - 1991, 1995 and 1999. The 1999 games were commemorated in the "'99 Korea Japan Super Games" insert set from the 2000 Teleca set. There are 46 cards in this subset and I'm down to only needed six more of them - four of which feature Lee Seung-yeop. Here are the seven cards I got from Dan:
2000 Teleca '99 Korean Japan Super Games #KJ03
2000 Teleca '99 Korean Japan Super Games #KJ13
2000 Teleca '99 Korean Japan Super Games #KJ14
2000 Teleca '99 Korean Japan Super Games #KJ25
2000 Teleca '99 Korean Japan Super Games #KJ31
2000 Teleca '99 Korean Japan Super Games #KJ34
2000 Teleca '99 Korean Japan Super Games #KJ39
I'm curious who the pitchers on the cards of Park and Lee are. They both appear to be from the Baystars. According to the Japanese Wikipedia page about the series, there were four Yokohama pitchers who appeared in the games - Daisuke Miura, Kazuo Fukumori, Yukiya Yokoyama and Takeo Kawamura. All of them are right handed like the players on the cards so that doesn't narrow it down at all.
The pitcher on Park's card is wearing an away uniform and Fukumori and Yokoyama were the only two who appeared in games where Japan was the visiting team. The game Fukumori appeared in was in Gifu while Yokoyama's was at Tokyo Dome. I think that looks like the Dome in the photo so I'm inclined to guess that it's Yokoyama. It certainly looks like him:
1999 BBM #48
The pitcher on Lee's card is wearing the home uniform and you can probably guess that Miura and Kawamura pitched in games that Japan was the home team in. Both of those games were inside - Miura was in Fukuoka and Kawamura was in Nagoya - and there's absolutely nothing in the photo that would distinguish one Dome from the other. If I had to guess, I'd say it's Kawamura but only because I think it looks like him:
1999 BBM #42
Dan discovered that he had some more KBO cards from my want list and those are now on their way to me as well. So there'll be another post like this in the next few weeks.
Thanks for selling me these cards, Dan!
UPDATE - I forgot to mention that I think that's Hideki Matsui playing center field in the background on Park's card
