Calbee announced information today (I think) for Series Two. Like Series One, there will be 84 player cards in the set (7 per team). There will be two non-premium subsets included - the 12 card "Opening Pitcher" subset featuring the Opening Day starting pitchers for all 12 teams and the four card Checklist subset featuring what looks like candid/action shots. The base set (the player cards plus the two non-premium subsets) will total an even 100 cards, just like Series One. There will also be (as usual) the 24 card Star insert set/premium subset (2 cards per team).
In addition, there will be a 12 card "AVG Leader" box set available on-line somehow and two more "Lucky" cards available in exchange for randomly inserted prize cards.
The entire checklist can be seen here. The official release date of the cards is June 23 but from what Ryan and Sean say it may be a few days or so later that the bags will actual appear at your neighborhood grocer or convenience store (assuming you're in Japan of course).
Monday, May 19, 2014
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Card Of The Week May 18
I picked up this card off Ebay recently and had a difficult time trying to identify it.
Looking at Engel, the back matches the 1958 JCM 29 "Cartoon Catcher Back" set. The menko number indicates that it's Atsushi Aramaki of the Daimai Orions. But I wasn't quite sure of that - the uniform looked kind of like the Hawks to me and I couldn't see any text on the card that confirmed it was Aramaki. I guess I was kind of hoping it was actually Tadashi Sugiura. But when I scanned the card in and looked at a enlarged image, it became clear:
With the enlargement, I can see that the uniform has pinstripes, like the Orions uniform did in 1958. I can also see (although it's very difficult) that there is actually text on the front. The text is to the left of the player and is next to impossible to see because it's white or creme colored on the yellow background. So the conclusion is that it's Aramaki after all.
With the enlargement, I can see that the uniform has pinstripes, like the Orions uniform did in 1958. I can also see (although it's very difficult) that there is actually text on the front. The text is to the left of the player and is next to impossible to see because it's white or creme colored on the yellow background. So the conclusion is that it's Aramaki after all.
2014 BBM Rookie Edition Set
There are some things in life that are dependable. The sun will come up tomorrow morning. The tides will go in and go out. Yoshinobu Takahashi will get injured. The Cubs will not win the Series. And BBM will put out a Rookie Edition set that looks like every other Rookie Edition set they've ever done.
It's not necessarily a bad thing that most editions of BBM's Rookie Edition sets look alike. It just limits what I can say about it. I guess BBM has decided that collectors will be interested in the set because of who's in it, not because of what it looks like.
The twelfth edition of BBM's Rookie Edition set (which was released back in February) contains 102 cards. 89 of these cards feature the players taken in last October's draft. As usual, the cards show the players posing in their NPB jerseys, holding balls or bats or making a "guts" pose. As usual, I'll make the comment that the cards would be much more interesting if they showed the players in their high school, college or industrial league team uniforms. There is also a single checklist card that lists all of the draft picks in the set, but not all the cards in the set. There are also 12 "Then & Now" cards - one for each team. Each card features one of the team's new draft picks along with a veteran player for the team. The veteran player for the team is not necessarily a current player for the team - the Baystars card features Masaji Hiramatsu from when the team was the Taiyo Whales and the Buffaloes card has Yukihiko Yamaoka of the Hankyu Braves. The Eagles card features both Yuki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka. I was kind of amused by the Fighters card as the draft pick featured (Hiromi Oka) is actually older than the "veteran" player - Shohei Ohtani.
Here's a couple example cards (you can see all of them at Jambalaya):
It's not necessarily a bad thing that most editions of BBM's Rookie Edition sets look alike. It just limits what I can say about it. I guess BBM has decided that collectors will be interested in the set because of who's in it, not because of what it looks like.
The twelfth edition of BBM's Rookie Edition set (which was released back in February) contains 102 cards. 89 of these cards feature the players taken in last October's draft. As usual, the cards show the players posing in their NPB jerseys, holding balls or bats or making a "guts" pose. As usual, I'll make the comment that the cards would be much more interesting if they showed the players in their high school, college or industrial league team uniforms. There is also a single checklist card that lists all of the draft picks in the set, but not all the cards in the set. There are also 12 "Then & Now" cards - one for each team. Each card features one of the team's new draft picks along with a veteran player for the team. The veteran player for the team is not necessarily a current player for the team - the Baystars card features Masaji Hiramatsu from when the team was the Taiyo Whales and the Buffaloes card has Yukihiko Yamaoka of the Hankyu Braves. The Eagles card features both Yuki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka. I was kind of amused by the Fighters card as the draft pick featured (Hiromi Oka) is actually older than the "veteran" player - Shohei Ohtani.
Here's a couple example cards (you can see all of them at Jambalaya):
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| #001 |
 |
| #063 |
 |
| #021 |
 |
| #096 |
Saturday, May 17, 2014
2014 BBM Orix 25th Anniversary set
The Orix corporation purchased the Braves from Hankyu following the 1988 season. After two years as the Orix Braves playing in Hankyu's old stadium (Nishinomiya Stadium) in (greater) Osaka, Orix moved the team to Kobe and renamed it the Orix Blue Wave. Following the 2004 season, the team "merged" with the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes (essentially Orix assimilated the Buffaloes) and the team changed its name again to the Orix Buffaloes.
BBM celebrated the 25th Anniversary of Orix acquiring the Braves by putting out a pack based set back in February (I just got my set recently). The set includes an 81 card base set that breaks down to 61 cards of OB Orix players, 11 cards for all the team's managers and nine cards for the current team.
BBM had done a 55 card box set back in 2009 to celebrate Orix's 20th Anniversary. That set had featured 33 OB Orix players. My primary complaint about their selection was that almost all of the players featured had been Blue Wave players - there were no Braves players and only one Buffalo. This set has rectified that situation. There are a number of players who are obviously wearing Orix Braves uniforms such as Boomer Wells and Hiromitsu Kadota (who was only a Brave) and a large number of Buffaloes as well. The set includes pretty much all the big names for Orix - So Taguchi, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Takeshi Yamasaki, Kazuhiro Kiyohara, Koji Noda, Arihito Muramatsu, Alex Cabrera, Nobuyuki Hoshino, and Tuffy Rhodes. There were a couple surprises - I had not realized that Akinobu Okada had spent two seasons with the Blue Wave after being let go by the Tigers. Deadbeat dad Troy Neel also is in the set. 32 of the OB players who appeared in the 2009 set also appear in this one. The only one who doesn't is the biggest OB player that this set is missing - Ichiro Suzuki.
Here's some examples:
The 11 card Managers subset features all the former managers of Orix as well as the current manager Hiroshi Moriwaki. The other managers are Toshiharu Ueda, Shozo Doi, Akira Ohgi, Hiromichi Ishige, Leon Lee, current Lions manager Haruki Ihara, Katsuhiro Nakamura, current Mets manager Terry Collins, Daijiro Ohishi and Akinobu Okada (his second card in the set),
The nine cards for the current team are not a Best 9 but simply who BBM thought were the most significant players, such as Yoshio Itoi, T-Okada and Chihiro Kaneko. The nine cards include a card for Yoshitomo Tani, who spent 10 years with Orix before leaving for the Giants in 2007 but has returned for the 2014 season. The picture on the card shows Tani wearing a Buffloes jersey and hat over street clothes while standing in the seats in a ballpark.
There's also a nine card insert set with this set. I normally don't get these but the guy I buy cards from included them with this set for some reason. The set is entitled "Strongest Nine Players" and is basically a Best 9 set for Orix (although without Ichiro it is more accurately "Strongest Nine Signed Players"). The set includes Nobuyuki Hoshino, Satoshi Nakajima, Boomer Wells, Junichi Fukura, George Arias, Hirofumi Ogawa, Kazuhiko Ishimine, So Taguchi and Yoshitomo Tani.
I'm kind of "meh" about this set although that's partly driven by the fact that I'm not a big fan of Orix. The fact that the set doesn't include the team's most important player from the last 25 years (Ichiro) is kind of hard to overcome. A lot of the pictures from the 1990's seem kind of grainy and I don't like the borders (I prefer the full bleed photo designs that BBM usually uses). And like the Eagles 10th Anniversary set, I think the set suffers from a lack of historic highlights. The Blue Wave won two Pacific League pennants and a Nippon Series in the 1990's and the Buffaloes have made the Climax Series once so there actually have been some highlights over the years. I do like the player selection for the set (other than not including Ichiro) and the managerial subset - Leon Lee was the first (and only so far) African-American manager in NPB and it's nice that he has a card in the set, even though he only managed the team for part of a season.
As always you can see all the base cards and the insert set over at Jambalaya.
BBM celebrated the 25th Anniversary of Orix acquiring the Braves by putting out a pack based set back in February (I just got my set recently). The set includes an 81 card base set that breaks down to 61 cards of OB Orix players, 11 cards for all the team's managers and nine cards for the current team.
BBM had done a 55 card box set back in 2009 to celebrate Orix's 20th Anniversary. That set had featured 33 OB Orix players. My primary complaint about their selection was that almost all of the players featured had been Blue Wave players - there were no Braves players and only one Buffalo. This set has rectified that situation. There are a number of players who are obviously wearing Orix Braves uniforms such as Boomer Wells and Hiromitsu Kadota (who was only a Brave) and a large number of Buffaloes as well. The set includes pretty much all the big names for Orix - So Taguchi, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Takeshi Yamasaki, Kazuhiro Kiyohara, Koji Noda, Arihito Muramatsu, Alex Cabrera, Nobuyuki Hoshino, and Tuffy Rhodes. There were a couple surprises - I had not realized that Akinobu Okada had spent two seasons with the Blue Wave after being let go by the Tigers. Deadbeat dad Troy Neel also is in the set. 32 of the OB players who appeared in the 2009 set also appear in this one. The only one who doesn't is the biggest OB player that this set is missing - Ichiro Suzuki.
Here's some examples:
 |
| #45 |
 |
| #52 |
 |
| #19 |
 |
| #49 |
 |
| #38 |
The 11 card Managers subset features all the former managers of Orix as well as the current manager Hiroshi Moriwaki. The other managers are Toshiharu Ueda, Shozo Doi, Akira Ohgi, Hiromichi Ishige, Leon Lee, current Lions manager Haruki Ihara, Katsuhiro Nakamura, current Mets manager Terry Collins, Daijiro Ohishi and Akinobu Okada (his second card in the set),
 |
| #66 |
 |
| #80 |
There's also a nine card insert set with this set. I normally don't get these but the guy I buy cards from included them with this set for some reason. The set is entitled "Strongest Nine Players" and is basically a Best 9 set for Orix (although without Ichiro it is more accurately "Strongest Nine Signed Players"). The set includes Nobuyuki Hoshino, Satoshi Nakajima, Boomer Wells, Junichi Fukura, George Arias, Hirofumi Ogawa, Kazuhiko Ishimine, So Taguchi and Yoshitomo Tani.
 |
| #BN8 |
I'm kind of "meh" about this set although that's partly driven by the fact that I'm not a big fan of Orix. The fact that the set doesn't include the team's most important player from the last 25 years (Ichiro) is kind of hard to overcome. A lot of the pictures from the 1990's seem kind of grainy and I don't like the borders (I prefer the full bleed photo designs that BBM usually uses). And like the Eagles 10th Anniversary set, I think the set suffers from a lack of historic highlights. The Blue Wave won two Pacific League pennants and a Nippon Series in the 1990's and the Buffaloes have made the Climax Series once so there actually have been some highlights over the years. I do like the player selection for the set (other than not including Ichiro) and the managerial subset - Leon Lee was the first (and only so far) African-American manager in NPB and it's nice that he has a card in the set, even though he only managed the team for part of a season.
As always you can see all the base cards and the insert set over at Jambalaya.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Card Of The Week May 11
I picked up the 2009 BBM Masaichi Kaneda set recently. It's a cool little set that deserves a post of its own in the near future but I thought I'd show off one of my favorite cards from the set (#33):
The card commemorates Kaneda's election into the Hall Of Fame in 1988 and shows him with two other HOF pitchers from the 1950's - Hideo Fujimoto of the Giants and Shigeru Sugishita of the Dragons.
The card commemorates Kaneda's election into the Hall Of Fame in 1988 and shows him with two other HOF pitchers from the 1950's - Hideo Fujimoto of the Giants and Shigeru Sugishita of the Dragons.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Card Of The Week May 4
Every so often I discover someone from MLB had played in Japan that I had not known about. Most recently it was Matty Alou, who spent three years with the Lions in the mid-70's. He has not shown up in any of BBM's OB Lions sets but he did have a card in each of the 1974/75 and 1975/76 Calbee sets. Here's his card from the latter of those sets (#602):
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Another One Bites The Dust
Looks like BBM has decided to retire another of their annual sets this year. Every April since 2008 BBM has issued a box set for the Tokyo Big Six collegiate league. The set's release has always coincided with the start of the spring season in early to mid April. This year I've seen no information for the set on either BBM's website or any of the card shop websites. Now last year, BBM released the set with very little fanfare - it just kind of showed up on their website as soon as they were releasing it. So I was kind of hoping that maybe they were doing something similar this year. But it's May now and there still has been nothing.
I asked Deanna Rubin, who was in Japan last week and went to some Tokyo big Six games if she saw any sign of the set but she had not. She asked at both the games and at a Mint store but no luck.
I've been kind of expecting BBM to drop this set ever since Yuki Saitoh went pro after 2010 so it's not a huge surprise but I will miss the set.
I will note that prior to 2012, BBM put out two different Tokyo Big Six sets, one for the spring season and one for the fall season. I suppose that it's possible that BBM will release a set in conjunction with the start of the fall season in September but I don't think that it's very likely.
I asked Deanna Rubin, who was in Japan last week and went to some Tokyo big Six games if she saw any sign of the set but she had not. She asked at both the games and at a Mint store but no luck.
I've been kind of expecting BBM to drop this set ever since Yuki Saitoh went pro after 2010 so it's not a huge surprise but I will miss the set.
I will note that prior to 2012, BBM put out two different Tokyo Big Six sets, one for the spring season and one for the fall season. I suppose that it's possible that BBM will release a set in conjunction with the start of the fall season in September but I don't think that it's very likely.
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