Card Of The Week August 31

I have two things I want to mention this week, one being something I should have noticed a few weeks back.

First of all, Munetaka Murakami of the Swallows has been on a tear lately.  He missed most of the first few months of the season recovering from injuries and didn't make it back up to the top team until late July.  He's been making up for lost time though, having hit 14 home runs in 30-ish games since his return.  His three home run game yesterday put him into a three way tie for sixth place in the Central League home run leader board, despite him having played less than a third of the games that the others have played.  Here's a card of Murakami from last year's BBM Swallows team set (#S79) - I believe he has followed the instructions on the card:

I actually didn't know about this next story until I noticed it on NPB's website when I was looking up the CL home run leaders.  NPB holds something called the "Fresh All Star" game each year a few days before the top team All Star series.  It pits All Star teams from each of the two farm leagues - the Eastern and Western - against each other, although I think that sometimes teams will dispatch young players who've been on the top team to play in the game.  So it's kind of a combination of a minor league All Star game with the MLB Futures game.  What I found interesting is that the MVP of this years game was Taisei Chinen, a member of the Oisix Niigata Albirex BC team.  The reason I find this interesting is that Niigata is not affliated with an NPB team - it's one of the two independent teams that NPB added to their farm leagues last year to give each league an even number of teams.  Chinen hit a two run home run in the top of the first inning of the game which gave the Eastern League their margin of victory - they ended up winning the game 3-1.  Now, obviously one game is a small sample size so you shouldn't read too much into a guy from an independent team winning a game MVP award instead of guys who are actually on NPB rosters but Chinen did lead the Eastern League in batting last year with a .323 average so it's not the first time he's outperformed NPB's farmhands (in fairness, since he couldn't get called up last year, he was able to accumulate enough at bats to qualify for the title while his rivals for it couldn't).  He apparently drew some interest from NPB teams last year but he didn't get drafted.  I'll be curious to see if that changes this year.  

Before signing with Niigata last year, Chinen had spent five years in the corporate leagues with Okinawa Electric and was featured in JABA's sets in at least 2021 and 2022.  I got his 2022 card (#22JP079) from Ryan last month: