New Historic BBM set

BBM recently added information on their website about a new historic set. It's called something like "Golden Legend Of The B's 2011 - 70's Revival". The set highlights both the 2011 Orix Buffaloes and the 1970's incarnation of the two teams that merged in 2005 to become the Orix Buffaloes - the Hankyu Braves (who in 2004 were the Orix Blue Wave) and the Kintetsu Buffaloes. The set has 99 "regular" cards - 19 for the current team, 30 for OB Braves players, 30 for OB Buffaloes players, 2 for a "Masaru Masaru scene" (according to Google Translate) subset, and a nine card subset for each team which I'm guessing are either team Best 9's or some sort of team leaders. There are two nine card insert sets - one for each team - and the possibility for autograph cards. The set will be out at the end of April.

Itsuki Shoda of the Boston Red Sox (briefly)

OK, I've gotten so far behind that this guy has actually been released already, but I still think I should do this post. Back in mid-February, just before spring training started, the Red Sox signed former Fighter and Tiger pitcher Itsuki Shoda to a minor league deal. Now, I've already given away the ending, but Shoda apparently is planning on remaining in the States and trying to sign with someone else.

Shoda was drafted by the Fighters in the 2000 (fall 1999) draft. He became a regular in 2002 and ended up winning the Pacific League Rookie Of The Year award. His effectiveness declined over the next couple years and he ended up being traded to Hanshin in 2007. He spent two years on the Tigers farm team before spending 2009-10 with the Sinon Bulls in Taiwan.

Shoda's first card is actually in the 2000 BBM Preview set's Draft Pick subset (#P125). This was the first time that BBM had done draft pick cards. His rookie card (if you define it as his first appearance in a "regular" set) was #366 in the 2000 BBM set. He doesn't have another BBM card until the 2003 1st Version set (meaning that yes, the 2002 PL Rookie of the Year does not have a 2002 card!). His first Calbee card is from the 2003 set (#077). (As always, this is not a comprehensive list, just a couple of the highlights.)

Here's his first Calbee card (2003 #077), 2004 BBM PL Playoff #P38 and 2007 BBM Tigers #T031:

Card Of The Week March 27

In the comments to my tribute to Koichi Hori post the other day, Deanna and I have been discussing guys who spent their entire career with a single team, especially ones with 20+ year careers. My initial thought was that this was pretty rare in the days before free agency - at least for players with teams other than the Giants. I was looking at how I could do more research on this, so I took a look at the player record section of Japan Baseball Daily's Data Warehouse just to see how hard it would be to simply brute force look at every player record. Lo and behold, in the very first section, I found a guy who had spent 20+ years with the Hankyu Braves in the days before free agency - Mitsuhiro Adachi, who pitched for them from 1959-79. Here's his card from the 2009 BBM Hanyku Memorial set (#05):


So I'm thinking now that I'm wrong and that there are more guys than I thought. I'll have to see if I can find the time to do more research.

Kento Tsujimoto of the New York Mets

As usual, I'm late on writing about this, but a couple weeks ago the Mets signed former Hanshin Tiger pitcher Kento Tsujimoto to a minor league deal. Tsujimoto was drafted in the eighth round of the 2005 (fall 2004) draft by the Tigers and was on the ni-gun roster until 2009. Somehow, he managed to pitch less than 30 innings over those five seasons, although he sat out the 2006 season because Hanshin wanted him to build up his body and he missed the 2009 season due to injury. He spent last year playing for the Maui team in the Golden Baseball League. For some reason, the Mets looked at this body of work and felt they had to sign him, although in all fairness, Tsujimoto is only 22 years old. He was only 15 when he was drafted! (According to NPB Tracker, he was the youngest player ever drafted.)

As you might expect from what little of a career he's had, there aren't a lot of baseball cards of Tsujimoto. He appears in the 2005 BBM Rookie Edition set (#63) and his rookie card is #404 in the 2005 BBM 1st Version set, which is his only appearance in any of BBM "regular" sets. He also appears in the BBM Tigers sets in each season from 2005-2009 (ok, I'm assuming for 2008-09 without actually having seen the checklists). He doesn't appear to have had any Calbee cards. So it looks like just the seven BBM cards. (And as far as I can tell, there was no team set for Na Koa Ikaika Maui last season.)

Of those seven BBM cards, I only have these two - the 2005 BBM 1st Version #404 and 2006 BBM Tigers #041:

Koichi Hori

Been meaning to get to this for a while: Koichi Hori of the Chiba Lotte Marines retired back in December. There was supposed to be a retirement game for him a few weeks ago, but it got postponed by the earthquake (I think).

Hori was drafted by Lotte in 1987 when they were still the Orions. If I'm not mistaken, he was the last Lotte Orion still active (and the last former teammate of Choji Murata). Hori made the All Star team twice in his career (1995-96) and was named to one Best 9 team (2005) (which cover the three years in his career that he hit over .300). He appeared in one Nippon Series in 2005 when the Marines defeated the Tigers.

Hori's been around so long that his first hit and his first home run were against teams (Kintetsu Buffaloes and Orix Braves) that either don't exist or don't go by that name any more in stadiums (Kawasaki and Nishinomiya) that are no longer used.

Here's some cards:

I am fairly confident that this 1990 Takara card is his rookie card. This is definitely his first Takara card and I haven't found any Calbee cards for him from 1988-90:


1993 Tomy 245:


1996 BBM All Stars #A60:


2000 Field Of 9 #FON00T-319


2005 BBM Nippon Series #13:


2010 BBM 1st Version #382:

Card Of The Week March 20

I wanted to highlight a little of Sendai's baseball history this week and mention that the Lotte Orions played there in the mid-1970's, including their Nippon Series winning 1974 season. I was surprised, however, to discover that they did not play their home games in the Series in Sendai, but rather at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo. I suppose this was due to Korakuan seating more people than Miyagi Stadium but that still has to suck. And it's not like Korakuen hadn't just hosted the Series the previous nine years.

On the other hand, the Orions clinched the Series by winning Game Six in Nagoya anyway, so it wasn't like they would have been home anyway. They did complete their sweep of the Hankyu Braves in the Pacific League playoffs at home in Sendai. (The Pacific League played a split season from 1973-82, where the first half winner would play the second half winner in a best of 5 series.) The winning pitcher in the deciding game for both the Pacific League Championship and the Nippon Series was Choji Murata. Here's his 1990 Lotte card (#56):

All Yu-Chan All The Time

BBM has apparently decided that having an insert set for the 1st Version set called "Golden Age 88" featuring players (Yuki Saitoh plus 11 others) born in 1988 just isn't enough. On their website today, they've announced a whole new box set called "Platinum Age - Born in 1988". It's a 28 card box set featuring 21 cards of players born in 1988, six cards of "1988 mates" (maybe multi-player cards with two or more teammates who were born in 1988?) and one insert card. Looks like the insert cards include die cut or foil signature cards as well as possible autograph and jersey cards.

Still waiting to see if BBM just does a "Yuki Saitoh - the Waseda Years" box set. OK, I'm kidding. A little.