I don't usually post about cards that I don't actually own but I saw this Epoch One card for Takayuki Kishi that I liked so much, I had to write about it. Especially since I'm not going to actually get it.
Last week, Kishi started a game against the Hawks in Hirosaki in Aomori prefecture, up at the northern tip of the island of Honshu. It was the 400th start of his career and, with the Eagles winning the game 10-3, he picked up his 170th victory. In commemoration of this achievement, Epoch One issued this card:
I just thought this was a stunning photo, showing Kishi pitching in Hirosaki City Sports Park Baseball Stadium with the fans on the outfield berm behind him and the slope of Mount Iwaki in the distance. That's Luke Voit, the 2020 MLB home run champ, playing first base behind Kishi.
The card went on sale on Thursday and was available until yesterday. If you want one, you'll have to look for it on the secondary market now.
Very cool card. Love seeing the mountain in the background.
ReplyDeleteThat is a great card and it highlights another problem with photography on pretty much all contemporary NPB sets (even Topps Stadium Club) - its not just the predictable poses, its also that the photos are always cropped so that the player takes up almost the entire image and almost nothing in the background is visible.
ReplyDeleteIf this image was used in a regular Calbee or BBM set they'd have cropped out about 70% of the image so that Kishi's body took up the whole card. No mountain in the background, most of the trees and audience would be gone, the first baseman wouldn't be in the shot, etc.
This is another reason I love Calbee sets from the 1970s so much - they weren't afraid to use "zoomed out" photos where the featured player was relatively small and you got a ton of interesting stadium background in the shot.