2026 Hall Of Fame Class

The Japanese Baseball Hall Of Fame has announced its 2026 inductees and the only one elected was Hideki Kuriyama.  Kuriyama had a seven year career with the Yakult Swallows from 1984 to 1990 and was the manager of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters from 2012 to 2021.  He managed the Fighters to a Nippon Series championship in 2016 along with a Pacific League pennant in 2012 but I think it's pretty clear that he was elected for two reasons.  Reason number one is that he managed Samurai Japan to the 2023 World Baseball Classic championship and reason number two is that he was Shohei Ohtani's only manager in NPB.

Kuriyama is the fourth of the five Japanese WBC team managers to be elected to the Hall Of Fame, following Sadaharu Oh (2006 team), Tatsunori Hara (2009) and Koji Yamamoto (2013).  Only Hiroki Kokubo (2017) has not been elected and he probably will at some point (although at the Hall's glacial pace, the sun may have burned out by then).  Hirokazu Ibata, who will manage the team for this year's WBC, is also not a Hall Of Famer.

Kuriyama was elected on the "Experts" ballot while the other two ballots - the "Players" ballot and the "Special Awards" ballot - did not result in anyone getting the necessary votes.  Masahiro Kawai fell short of election by two votes on the "Players" ballot.  I think this is the first year there's only been one person elected to the Hall since 1984.

Here are cards of Kuriyama as player, Fighters' manager and Samurai Japan manager:

1989 Calbee #103

2015 Calbee Series Two #M-03

2023 Topps Samurai Japan #13

He took part in a First Pitch Ceremony at the first game at the Fighters' new ballpark on March 30th, 2023, less than ten days after winning the WBC.  Former Fighters managers Trey Hillman and Masataka Nashida also participated but only Kuriyama ended up with a card in BBM's 2nd Version:

2023 BBM 2nd Version #FP01

I wanted to share a couple other cards of him.  He hasn't shown up in many of BBM's OB sets but two of the more recent ones had great photos:

2018 BBM Time Travel 1989 #27

2022 BBM Swallows History 1950-2022 #31

Finally I want to share the card I got him to autograph for me when the Fighters did spring training in Peoria, Arizona back in 2016 - which somehow will be ten years ago next month!

2015 BBM 1st Version #055

2025 Hall Of Fame Class

The Japanese Baseball Hall Of Fame announced its 2025 inductees today, and, to no one's real surprise, Ichiro Suzuki was elected in his first year of eligibility.  He is joined by three others - long time Dragons relief ace Hitoki Iwase (who, like Ichiro, was elected on the Player's Division ballot), Tigers slugger Masayuki Kakefu (on the Expert Division ballot after coming two votes short last year) and umpire Hiroya Tomizawa (who I believe went in on the Special Committee vote).  It's always kind of surprised me that Kakefu wasn't already in the Hall Of Fame so I'm happy he's finally in.

Hitoki Iwase

1999 BBM #311

2007 BBM Nippon Series #504

2019 BBM Retirement #01

Masayuki Kakefu

1977 Yamakatsu JY4

1984 Calbee #3

2017 Epoch Tigers #02 (Variant 1)

Ichiro

1993 Takara BlueWave #51

2000 BBM Diamond Heroes #F6

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC #W09R113

As usual, I've updated my spreadsheet listing all the Hall Of Famers in BBM flagship sets.  1994 remains the set with the most Hall Of Fame players although the number has now grown to 18.  The set with the most Hall Of Famers overall (both players and managers) remains 1991 with 25 but it no longer stands alone - the 1994 and 1998 sets now also boast 25 Hall Of Famers each.  Iwase's final season was 2018 which means that that is now the latest year that includes a Hall Of Fame player.

2024 Hall Of Fame Class

The 2024 Japanese Baseball Hall Of Fame class was announced today.  The Player's Division elected former Hiroshima Toyo Carp (and Dodger and Yankee) pitcher Hiroki Kuroda and former Yokohama Taiyo Whale/Baystar and Chunichi Dragon catcher Motonobu Tanishige.  Tanishige was also player-manager with the Dragons for a couple of years in the teens.  The Special Committee elected former umpire Tomoichi Tanimura while the Expert Division didn't elect anyone - former Hanshin Tiger Masayuki Kakefu narrowly missed being selected, getting 109 of the 111 votes he needed to gain admittance. 

I think Kuroda is the eighth former MLB player to be elected to the Japanese HOF following Lefty O'Doul, Randy Bass, Hideo Nomo, Alex Ramirez, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Hideki Matsui and Shingo Takatsu.

Hiroki Kuroda

1997 BBM #496

2007 Calbee #096

2017 BBM Retirement #02

Motonobu Tanishige

1989 Takara Whales #1

2001 Upper Deck Victory #017

2016 BBM Retirement #03

I updated the spread sheet I have listing all the Hall Of Famers in BBM's flagship sets over the years (the one I used to identify the sets with the most Hall Of Famers and the sets with the most Hall Of Fame players).  1994 is still the set with the most Hall Of Fame players with 17 while 1991 remains the set with the most Hall Of Famers (players and managers) with 25.  Since Kuroda was last active in 2016, that's now the most recent year to feature a Hall Of Fame player. 

2023 Hall Of Fame Class

The 2023 Japanese Baseball Hall Of Fame inductees were announced today.  Each of the Hall's three voting divisions elected someone with former Swallows, Giants and Baystars player (as well as former Baystars manager) Alex Ramirez getting elected on the Players Division ballot while Hanshin Tigers legend Randy Bass was elected on the Expert Division ballot and the Special Committee elected composer Yuji Koseki who among many other things is known for composing the Tigers' fight song "Rokko Oroshi".  Ramirez and Bass are the first foreign players elected to the Hall Of Fame since Wally Yonamine was elected in 1994.  Here's some cards of the two of them:

Randy Bass

1986 Calbee #206

2020 BBM Time Travel 1985 #CT7

2009 BBM The Premium Malts #10

Alex Ramirez

2001 BBM Nippon Series #S22

2010 Calbee #002

2020 BBM 1st Version #190

2022 Hall Of Fame Class

The Japanese Hall Of Fame inductees for 2022 were announced today.  There were two players elected on the Players Division ballot, Shingo Takatsu and Masahiro Yamamoto.  They were the first players elected on that ballot in three years.  For the second straight year no one was elected on the Experts Division ballot and the Special Committee elected Shigeyoshi Matsumae, the founder of Tokai University.

Here's cards of Takatsu and Yamamoto:

Shingo Takatsu

1991 BBM #387

2002 Calbee #EX-3

2007 BBM 2nd Version #626

Masashiro Yamamoto

1990 Calbee #64

2006 Dragons #34

2015 Epoch Dragons X Mizuno #13

I updated the spread sheet I have listing all the Hall Of Famers in BBM's flagship sets over the years (the one I used to identify the sets with the most Hall Of Famers and the sets with the most Hall Of Fame players).  It didn't make a difference in the standings since Takatsu appeared in the sets from 1991 to 2007 with the exception of 2004 & 2005 when he played in MLB and Yamamoto appeared in the sets from 1991 to 2015.  The set with the most Hall Of Fame players is still 1994 which now has 16 and the set with the most Hall Of Famers (players and managers) is still 1991 which now has 24.  The most recent year to feature a Hall Of Fame player is now 2015.  Since Takatsu has been the manager of the Swallows since 2020, the sets from the last two years now feature three Hall Of Famers (Takatsu, Kimiyasu Kudoh and Tatsunori Hara).  This year's set will also feature three Hall Of Famers - Takatsu, Hara and Kazuyoshi Tatsunami.

Most Hall Of Fame Players In A BBM Set

I did a post a while back where I looked into which BBM flagship set had the most Hall Of Famers in it.  The answer was the 1991 set which featured 22 Hall Of Famers.  The more I've thought about it since doing that post the less satisfied I am with that answer.  It's not that the numbers are wrong - there are 22 current Hall Of Famers in the 1991 BBM set and that's the most in any BBM flagship set - but there's an aspect that I felt I should take into consideration - managers.

It is much more likely for a star player in NPB to become a manager than it is in MLB.  Let's use the 500 home run club for an example of this.  There are 27 MLB players with more than 500 home runs.  Only four ever managed an MLB team - Mel Ott, Ted Williams, Eddie Mathews and Frank Robinson.  There have only been eight NPB players with more than 500 home runs* and half of them have managed NPB teams - Katsuya Nomura, Sadaharu Oh, Koji Yamamoto and Hiromitsu Ochiai.

*I'm not including Hideki Matsui in this list as his 500 career home runs are split between NPB and MLB

So why does this matter?  There are nine Hall Of Fame managers in the 1991 BBM set.  That means three quarters of the NPB teams were managed by a Hall Of Famer that year!  And 1991 is not alone - there were also nine Hall Of Fame managers in 1998, 1999 and 2001.  So given that there are so many managers in the Hall Of Fame, I thought it'd be interesting to see which BBM sets had the most Hall Of Fame players in them.

Somewhat surprisingly, the answer is the 1994 set with 14.  The 1991, 1992 and 1993 sets each have 13 and the 1995 set has 12.  The numbers drop steadily after that with the 1996-98 sets each having 11, the 1999 set has 9, the 2000 and 2001 sets have 8 each, and so on until 2012 which is the last BBM set to feature a Hall Of Fame player (Tomoaki Kanemoto).

Here's the 14 Hall Of Famers from the 1994 set:

1994 BBM #463

1994 BBM #16

1994 BBM #84

1994 BBM #164

1994 BBM #363

1994 BBM #132

1994 BBM #151

1994 BBM #321

1994 BBM #216

1994 BBM #316

1994 BBM #131

1994 BBM #67

1994 BBM #112

1994 BBM #296

Most Hall Of Famers In A BBM Set

This post was inspired by a post that Night Owl Cards did a month or so ago that calculated how many Hall Of Famers have appeared in each Topps set.  I figured it wouldn't be that hard to do the same thing for BBM sets and I created a spread sheet with the numbers.  I updated it earlier this week with Koichi Tabuchi's selection and thought I'd share the results here.

My criteria for this was that the Hall Of Famer must have a "regular" card as either a player or manager in BBM's "flagship" set(s) for the year.  This means players appearing in an OB subset (like the "Nostalgic Stars" subsets in the 1991-94 sets) don't count.  For "flagship" set I mean the regular BBM set from 1991 to 2001 and the 1st and 2nd Version sets since then.  To be counted the player only needs to be in either 1st or 2nd Version, not both.  Appearances in the Fusion set don't count.

There are a total of 35 Hall Of Famers who appear as either a player or manager in at least one of BBM's "flagship" sets.  They are Koji Akiyama, Motoshi Fujita, Atsuya Furuta, Hiroshi Gondoh, Tatsunori Hara, Osamu Higashio, Tsuneo Horiuchi, Senichi Hoshino, Tsutomu Itoh, Hiromitsu Kadota, Masaichi Kaneda, Tomoaki Kanemoto, Manabu Kittabeppu, Sadao Kondoh, Kimiyasu Kudoh, Hideki Matsui, Masaaki Mori, Shigeo Nagashima, Rikuo Nemoto, Hideo Nomo, Katsuya Nomura, Hiromitsu Ochiai, Sadaharu Oh, Akira Ohgi, Yutaka Ohno, Masaki Saitoh, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Keichi Suzuki, Koichi Tabuchi, Morimichi Takagi, Kazuyoshi Tatsunami, Toshiharu Ueda, Tsutomu Wakamatsu, Hisashi Yamada, Koji Yamamoto and Yoshio Yoshida.  Kudoh has appeared in the most years - 25.  Kaneda and Kondoh each only appeared in one set (1991).

1991 BBM #56

With 22, 1991 is the set with the most Hall Of Famers.  They are Akiyama, Fujita, Furuta, Hara, Hoshino, Itoh, Kadota, Kaneda, Kitabeppu, Kondoh, Kudoh, Mori, Nomo, Nomura, Ochiai, Ohgi, Ohno, Saitoh, Sasaki, Tabuchi, Tatsunami and Yamamoto.

1994 BBM #132

The 1994 set has the second most Hall Of Famers - 21.  They are Akiyama, Furuta, Hara, Itoh, Kanemoto, Kitabeppu, Kudoh, Matsui, Mori, Nagashima, Nemoto, Nomo, Nomura, Ochiai, Ohgi, Ohno, Saitoh, Sasaki, Suzuki, Takagi and Tatsunami.

1992 BBM #146

1993 BBM #130

1995 BBM #50

1998 BBM #520

Four sets are tied for third with 20 Hall Of Famers apiece.  The 1992 set has Akiyama, Fujita, Furuta, Hara, Itoh, Kadota, Kitabeppu, Kudoh, Mori, Nomo, Nomura, Ochiai, Ohgi, Ohno, Saitoh, Sasaki, Tabuchi, Takagi, Tatsunami and Yamamoto.  The 1993 set dropped Fujita, Kadota, Ohgi and Tabuchi and replaced them with  Matsui, Nagashima, Nemoto and Suzuki (literally in one case - Suzuki took over as manager of Kintetsu from Ohgi).  The 1995 set has the same group as the 1994 set except that it dropped Kitabeppu, Mori, Nemoto and Nomo and picked up Higashio, Oh and Ueda.  The 1998 set has Akiyama, Furuta, Gondoh, Higashio, Hoshino, Itoh, Kanemoto, Kudoh, Matsui, Nagashima, Nomura, Ochiai, Oh, Ohgi, Ohno, Saitoh, Sasaki, Tatsunami, Ueda and Yoshida.

There has not yet been a BBM flagship set that didn't feature at least two Hall Of Famers.  Last year's set had Hara and Kudoh (who coincidentally faced off in last year's Nippon Series.  It was the first time that both managers were Hall Of Famers at the time since Nagashima and Oh faced off in 2000 although there have been a number of match ups since then where the manager was elected to the Hall Of Fame after the Series).  Barring any unexpected developments in the next month (like a major sign stealing scandal involving the Giants and/or the Hawks) I would expect that the 2020 set will also include two Hall Of Famers.  The last Hall Of Famer to appear in a BBM set as a player was Kanemoto in 2012.

I intend to do a new instance of this post after the Hall Of Fame vote each year although given the glacial pace of new inductees I don't expect it to change much.  If I get really ambitious I'll try doing it with the Calbee sets!