Most Cards Per Team

I've really been remiss at reading other people's blogs the last few months.  I've been really busy with any number of things and I just haven't gotten around to do it much lately.  Like I haven't gotten around to reading that stack of the print edition of The Onion sitting on my desk.  So I didn't notice a post that Night Owl had done back in March about the most cards he had for each team until I saw Kenny's version of it when I was looking through his blog to see if he said anything about the last batch of cards he sent me.  I don't know if Night Owl had intended this to be a "Blog Bat Around" but Kenny was treating it that way so I decided I'd do a similar one.  For Japanese teams, of course, not MLB ones like Night Owl and Kenny did.

Night Owl had used his listings at TCDB to generate his numbers but since I don't have my cards listed there, I had to use my own database which has some issues.  So I don't think these numbers are completely accurate but they're probably close enough for the purposes of this post.

We'll go through the teams in alphabetical order by their full names which means that first up is the Chiba Lotte Marines:

2006 SCM #71

I was kind of surprised that the 112 cards I have of Kazuya Fukuura was the most for the Marines but he did a 26 year career.  The Lotte Orion that I have the most cards of is Michiyo Arito with 44.

Chunichi Dragons:

2003 Chunichi Sports #34

This was not a surprise - Masahiro Yamamoto played until he was 50.  The 152 cards I have of him does not include his first cards with Vero Beach in 1988 (since those wouldn't be Dragons cards).

Fukuoka Softbank Hawks:

2023 Hawks #23SBH316

I've got 162 cards of 'Gita.  Just for grins, I ran the numbers for the Daiei and Nankai versions of the team and got Koji Akiyama (81) and Hiromitsu Kadota (57) respectively.

Hanshin Tigers:

2012 Coris #22

Not sure who I thought would be top for the Tigers but it wasn't Fujikawa who I have 148 cards for.

Hiroshima Toyo Carp:

2012 Front Runner Carp Starting Lineup #13

I figured the top player for the Carp would have been someone like Koji Yamamoto but, nope, it's Tomonori Maeda with 140 cards.

Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters:

2012 Bandai Owners League 04 #017

I was kind of disappointed that the 127 cards I have of Sho Nakata with the Fighters was the most for that team.  I was hoping it was going to be Shohei Ohtani but I "only" have 107 cards of him with Nippon-Ham.  Like with the Hawks, I ran the numbers for some of the team's earlier incarnations and I have 76 cards of Yukio Tanaka with the non-Hokkaido version of the Hawks and 37 cards of Isao Harimoto with the Toei Flyers.

Orix Buffaloes:

2011 Orix Player Card #9

The 115 cards I have of T-Okada is the most for any and all of the team's names, just beating out Ichiro's 110, the most for the BlueWave version of the team.  I figured the most for the Hankyu Braves would be either Yutaka Fukumoto or Hisashi Yamada and it turned out to be Fukumoto with 67, beating Yamada by two.  Just for grins, I ran the numbers for the Orix Braves and got seven cards for Nobuyuki Hoshino.

Saitama Seibu Lions:

2018 Lions Rookies & Stars #55 (image variant)

This was absolutely not a surprise - I have 223 cards of Takeya Nakamura which is almost 60 cards more than the second place player - Takumi Kuriyama with 166.  The leaders for the Nishitetsu, Taiheiyo Club and Crown Lighter versions of the team were Kazuhisa Inao (60), Osamu Higashio (14) and Akinobu Mayumi (5) respectively.  It's kind of weird that Mayumi's the most of the Crown Lighter cards since he's remembered mostly as a Tiger but I think BBM has taken some perverse pleasure over the years of reminding everyone he came up as a Lion.

Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles

2007 Konami Baseball Heroes 3 Highlights #B07H006

I would have thought that Masahiro Tanaka's seven years in MLB would have allowed someone else to catch up with him for the most Eagles cards but his 163 card total was 40 more than the second place player, Takahiro Norimoto.  

Tokyo Yakult Swallows:

1994 Kanebo #001

Another non-surprise - Atsuya Furuta's 173 cards beats all other Swallows (and Atoms).  Masaichi Kaneda leads the Kokutetsu version with 24 cards.

Yokohama DeNA Baystars:

2016 Kabaya/Epoch Central League Gum #32

Daisuke Miura's 152 cards leads all Baystars/Whales but because his career straddled the last three eras for the franchise - Yokohama Taiyo Whales, Yokohama BayStars and Yokohama DeNA Baystars, he doesn't lead for any of the particular era.  Kazuhiko Endo (36) has the most for the Yokohama Taiyo Whales, Takuro Ishii (94) has the most for the Yokohama BayStars and Yasuaki Yamasaki (112) has the most for DeNA.  Masaji Hiramatsu's 31 leads the pre-Yokohama Taiyo Whales.

Yomiuri Giants:

1962 Doyusha JCM 55

Another non-surprise.  With 261 cards, Shigeo Nagashima leads all the Yomiuri Giants players.  Hell, the 272 total cards I have of him (including cards with Rikkio University, the Japan National Team and in street clothes) is the most I have of any player.

That's the counts for the 12 current franchises but I also ran the number for the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes:

2001 BBM Preview #P114

I don't know, I guess I was expecting this to be Hideo Nomo but his exit from NPB after 1994 capped his cards at 34, tied for tenth place with Ralph Bryant on the list.  I have 81 cards of Norihiro Nakamura, ten more than for Tuffy Rhodes.

I also ran the numbers for the Japan National Team (including Samurai Japan):

2000 Upper Deck Sydney Olympic Games Japanese Team Cards #213

Actually, I first ran the numbers on "Samurai Japan" and found I had a tie between Shohei Ohtani and Tetsuto Yamada with 17 cards (14 of Ohtani's cards were from the 2023 WBC).  But the Japan National Team has only gone by "Samurai Japan" since 2013 so I decided that I needed to include the previous incarnations as well.  Which resulted in Daisuke Matsuzaka's 27 cards (covering the 2000 Olympics, the 2003 Asian Games and the 2006 and 2009 WBCs) leading the pack.