2012 Hall Of Fame Class

The 2012 inductees for the Japanese Baseball Hall Of Fame were announced last week and both players elected from the Player's Division were former Hiroshima Toyo Carp pitchers - Manabu Kitabeppu and Tsunemi Tsuda.

Kitabeppu pitched for the Carp for 19 seasons from 1976 to 1994, winning 213 games.  He and Kimiyasu Kudoh are the last two pitchers in NBP to reach 200 wins.   He won the Sawamura Award in 1982 and 1986 and was also Central League MVP in 1986.

1989 Lotte #82

2008 BBM Hiroshima Memorial Set #19 - this commemorates Kitabeppu
getting his 198th victory, passing Ryohei Hasegawa (shown with him)
for most career wins by a Carp pitcher.

Tsuda pitched for the Carp from 1982 to 1991, although health issues limited him to only six games total in his last two seasons.  He was Rookie Of The Year in 1982.  After a couple of seasons as a starter, he converted to relief and became the team's closer from 1986-1989.  He passed away from a brain tumor in 1993.

1984 Takara Carp #15

2008 BBM Hiroshima Memorial Set #22 - this picture was not taken on
July 20, 1993 - that was the day Tsuda passed away, 12 days short of his
33rd birthday

NOTE - I realized a couple of days after posting this that Masahiro Yamamoto had reached 200 wins also since Kitabeppu did, so I thought I should retract the comment altogether in case I missed someone else.

Yu Darvish Of The Texas Rangers

Between a rash of recent signings and my crazy work schedule last week, I've really gotten behind on the new imports.  I'll start getting caught up with the big one...

This week, after years of speculation about when and if he was going to come to the US, we finally have an answer.  Yu Darvish will be pitching for the Texas Rangers in 2012 (and 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17).  I'd actually done a post on Darvish cards a few years back, but that was almost 4 years ago, so there's a lot more to talk about now.  (There's a wide variety of Darvish cards showing up on eBay.  I'm kind of surprised that I'm only seeing one out-and-out bogus card - although it seems like I'm seeing it every other auction.  Guess the guy printed up a boatload of them.)

Darvish's first card is in the 2005 BBM Rookie Edition set (#12).  His BBM Rookie card is #116 in the 2005 1st Version set.  He doesn't really have a card in the 2005 2nd Version set but there's a card showing him pitching in an interleague game against the Carp (#760) that SportsCardForum is treating as a Darvish card.  He's been in every 1st and 2nd Version BBM set starting with the 2006 editions.  He also been in the BBM All Star sets from 2007-11 and the Nippon Series sets in 2006, 2007 and 2009.  He was on the Japanese Olympic team in 2008 and appears in the BBM set for the team.

His first Calbee card was #037 in the 2006 set.  He pitched for Japan in the 2009 World Baseball Classic and appears in many of the card sets Topps put out in conjunction with the event.  (He had seven different "base" WBC cards with Topps - more than any other Japanese player and I think more than any other player - Derek Jeter and Ichiro both only had six.)

As always, this is just some of the highlights.  Check SportsCardForum for a more complete list.

Here's a selection of cards (I don't have the 2005 Rookie Edition, so I can't show it):

2005 BBM 1st Version #116

2005 BBM 2nd Version #760

2005 Konami Baseball Heroes New Black Edition #C05B051

2006 BBM Fighters # F85

2009 Topps WBC Redemption #7

2009 BBM Nippon Series #S30

2009 BBM All Stars # A04

2011 Calbee #096

New BBM sets

BBM released information about a couple of sets last week:

- The Orix Buffaloes PEDIGREE set is a 37 card box set highlighting the Orix Buffaloes throwback series last year - one where they wore old Hankyu Braves uniforms and one where they wore old Kintetsu Buffaloes uniforms.  It's similar to the Lions Classic sets from 2008 & 2009 except that there are no OB players in the set.  There are 36 "regular" cards in the set plus one "premium" card which may be an autograph or memorabilia card.  Of the 36 "regular" cards, it looks like there are 12 for each team uniform (including the "normal" Orix uniform).  11 of these 12 are player/manager cards and one is a team card of some sort.  In looking at the on-line checklist, I think that there are 10 people who appear in all three uniforms, one player (Hayato Terahara) who is only in two uniforms and one (Chihiro Kaneko) who is only shown in one uniform.  The set will be released on January 26.

- BBM is highlighting the players who retired last year with the "Farewell" set.  This used to be a subset in the 1st or 2nd Version set until last season when they released the first of these sets (but never mentioned it on their website).   This is a 28 card box set containing 27 "regular" cards and 1 "special" card - looks like some sort of autograph card.  Kimiyasu Kudoh, Masahide Kobayashi and Kiyoshi Toyoda are some of the players to expect in the set - I think there may be multiple cards of some of the players so there may be less than 27 players represented.  It will be released in late January.

- This year's edition of the Rookie Edition set will be released on February 16.  This is a pack based set featuring the players who were taken in last October's draft (since it's for players who will begin their careers in 2012, it is called the 2012 draft even though it takes place in 2011).  There are 111 cards in the set - 97 cards for the drafted players, 2 cards for "2011 Draft Picks" (I'm betting an excuse to print another card of Yuki Saitoh) and 12 "active player" cards (I'm betting one active player from each team).  There are also two insert sets available - a 24 card "Next Generation" set (probably 2 guys from each team) and a 2 card "Rookie Of The Year" set (probably the 2011 Rookie Of The Years - Kazuhisa Makita and Hirokazu Sawamura).  There are also autograph cards of OB players available - the website shows cards of Yasushi Tao, Koji Uehara, Akio Saitoh, Shigetoshi Hasegawa and Daijiro Ohishi.

Card Of The Week January 15

Sorry about being late this week - spent last week in Software Integration Hell and I'm just now recovering.

A couple of months ago, I mentioned that True Stories of Korean Baseball had part 1 and part 2 of an interview with Masaichi Kaneda.  They've recently published part 3 and part 4.  Very interesting stuff.

Here's a card of Kaneda from his playing days - 1964 Fujiya Gum:

I was amused to discover recently that Kaneda was born one day after my father was.  (In fact, taking time zones into account, they could have actually been born on the same day.)

Card Of The Week January 8

Hiroyuki Nakajima and the Yankees failed to settle on a contract last week for Nakajima will be returning to the Lions this coming season.  I've heard rumors that the Rangers-Darvish negotiations aren't going well either and the fact that the Brewers are making Norichika Aoki work out for them isn't a real positive sign.  Last year was the first time that a posted player had failed to reach an agreement with the team that had won the bidding.  It could potentially happen three times this year.  It's probably time to reevaluate the posting system.

In the meantime, here's Nakajima's rookie card (if you hadn't already seen it on eBay) - #426 from the 2001 BBM set:

Hisashi Iwakuma of the Seattle Mariners

Last week Hisashi Iwakuma signed a one year deal with the Mariners.  Iwakuma's rookie card was #388 in the 2000 BBM set when he was a member of the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes.  His next "regular' issue BBM card was in the 2002 1st Version set (#191) and he's appeared in all the 1st and 2nd Version sets since then.  When Kintetsu merged with Orix following the 2004 season, he decided to join the new Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles instead of staying in Osaka with Orix.  He didn't have a Calbee card until the 2003 set (#054).  His only 2001 card commemorated his appearance in that year's Nippon Series for the Buffaloes against the Swallows - this is also his only appearance in a BBM Nippon Series set.  For someone who's been as successful as he has, it's kind of surprising that he's only made the All Star team three times (2003, 2004 and 2008) and thus only appears in three BBM All Star sets.  He played for the Japanese World Baseball Classic team in 2009 (and should have been MVP instead of Daisuke Matsuzaka) and made four appearances on the various Topps WBC card sets.

This is not a complete list, merely some of the highlights.  Check SportCardForum's Inventory Manager for a more comprehensive list.

A smattering of Iwakuma cards:

2000 BBM #388

2001 BBM Nippon Series #S38

2003 Calbee # 054

2005 BBM Eagles Box Set #E11

2007 BBM Eagles #E108

2008 BBM All Stars #A42

2009 Allen & Ginters World Baseball Classic Highlights #CB5

Card Of The Week January 1

Happy New Year!

(2008 BBM Lotte 40th Anniversary #04)