Card Of The Week August 3

On Friday, Giants third baseman Shuichi Murata hit his 300th career home run off of Kenta Maeda of the Carp:



251 of Murata's home runs came when he was a member of the Yokahama Baystars between 2003 and 2011.  I always mentally pair up Murata and Seichi Uchikawa as the two of them were the main offensive threats in the Baystars lineup through much of the late 00's.  Uchikawa left as a free agent before the 2011 season and won a Nippon Series championship that year with Softbank.  Murata left a year later and immediately won the Nippon Series with the Giants.

Here's an insert card of Murata from the 2004 BBM Baystars team set (#BN5) .  The insert set was called "Baystars Nine" and it paired each member of the set with one of the "traditional" nine planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth, etc including Pluto.  Murata (obviously) was paired with Jupiter.  Assuming the other cards are paired in number order to the planets, Kazuhiro Sasaki was Mercury, Ryoji Aikwa was Venus, Tyrone Woods was Earth, Uchikawa was Mars, Takuro Ishii was Saturn, Tatsuhiko Kinjoh was Uranus, Takanori Suzuki was Neptune and Hitoshi Tamura was Pluto.  The only card I have from this set other than Murata is Suzuki so that's the only other pairing I know for sure.

Upcoming Releases

I've been putting off doing a post on upcoming sets because I've been waiting for BBM to put up information on the Dragons team set on their website.  They still haven't but I figure that I've waited long enough that if I wait much longer, the other sets will already be out...

- The second half of BBM's celebration of 80 years of professional baseball in Japan, the 80th Anniversary Batters Edition, will be released on August 23.  Like the Pitchers Edition, this will be a pack based set with 99 cards in the base set.  The 99 cards are split between 90 "regular" player cards and 9 "Leader" cards celebrating single season and career batting records (again like the Pitchers Edition).  I don't think there are any insert cards in the set (although there are parallels of all the base cards) but there's any number of autographed inserts included in the set.  Just eyeballing the checklist in the latest SCM, I don't think either Ichiro or Hiromitsu Ochiai are in the set,

- The aforementioned Dragons team set will be out in mid-August (Niki says August 21).  It's a pack based set with 90 cards in the base set.  Now I'm going by the print ad in SCM to determine what the names of the subsets are and (of course) they're all in Japanese (as opposed to the Giants team set where all the subsets are titled in English in the print ad), so I'm going to attempt to make a guess based on the sample cards in the ad.  There are 77 cards for the players, coaches and manager, four cards for "Fresh, Local Stars", three cards for veterans(?) and three three card "sequential card series".  There's a nine card insert set that I have absolutely no idea what the theme is and some number of autographed cards available. UPDATE - BBM finally put something up on their website for the set.

- I've been kind of expecting that at some point this year BBM's going to do an 80th Anniversary set for the Giants.  Maybe they still will, but I was kind of surprised to see that Front Runner is putting out a Giants Stars And Legends box set.  This is a 32 card set with 30 base cards plus one serially numbered insert card and one autographed card.  The 30 base cards are split between 12 cards of active players (including manager Tatsunori Hara) and 18 cards of OB players.  Unlike the Carp Stars and Legends set Front Runner did last year, it looks like Front Runner got most if not all the biggest OB names - Shigeo Nagashima, Sadaharu Oh, Isao Harimoto, Isao Shibata, Suguru Egawa and Masumi Kuwata.  Front Runner appears to be marketing this as an 80th Anniversary set but I'm still hoping BBM does a larger set before the end of the year.  This set will be released sometime in August.

2014 BBM 80th Anniversary Pitchers Edition Set

NPB is celebrating 80 years of professional baseball in Japan this season and BBM is issuing two separate historic sets as part of the celebration.  The first set, called 80th Anniversary Pitchers Edition, came out back in May.  To restate the obvious, the set is devoted entirely to pitchers.

The base set contains 99 cards.  90 of these are "regular" player cards.  Unlike most of BBM's other OB sets, this one has a decent representation of players from all eras, rather than just the 1970's and later.  Most of the major pitching names in history are included in the set, including Eiji Sawamura, Victor Starffin, Masaichi Kaneda, Kazuhisa Inao, Keishi Suzuki, Minoru Murayama, Shigeru Sugishita, Yoshio Sotokoba, Hisashi Yamada, Kimiyasu Kudoh and Masumi Kuwata highlight the retired players.  Active players are also included in the set including both NPB players (Masahiro Yamamoto, Kenta Maeda) and MLB players (Yu Darvish, Masahiro Tanaka, Hisaashi Iwakuma, Koji Uehara).  Players appear to have been selected because of their performance over their career as well as dominance over short periods of time (Hiroshi Gondoh, Marc Kroon).  Foreign players in the set (in addtion to Kroon) include Joe Stanka, Gene Bacque and Taigen and Genji Kaku (who I don't think are related to each other).

There are a couple players who don't often show up in the OB sets who appear in this one.  This is only the fourth OB set Masaichi Kaneda has appeared in in the last 10 years (in contrast it's at least the ninth BBM OB set Kazuhisa Inao has appeared in over the same period of time).  This is the first OB set that Yu Darvish has appeared in and the first NPB set of any type he's been in since he left for MLB prior to the 2012 season.

There are a couple notable omissions.  Hideo Nomo and Choji Murata should be in the set but Nomo hasn't been in an NPB set in 20 years and Murata almost never shows up in an OB set (only one BBM set in the last 10 years).  The most surprising omission is Yutaka Enatsu who if nothing else was one of the most interesting pitchers in NPB history.  And Enatsu appears in OB sets with some frequency (although he was also a surprising no show in last year's Hawks 75th Anniversary set).

The other 9 cards in the set are for single season and career pitching records.  The players included are Akira (Takehiko) Bessho (Most Complete Games in a Season), Hideo Fujimoto (Best ERA), Kazuhisa Inao (Most Wins In A Season), Hitoki Iwase (Most Saves), Masaichi Kaneda (Most Wins), Victor Starfin (Most Wins In A Season), Keishi Suzuki (Most Complete Games w/o BB & HBP), Masahiro Tanaka (Highest Winning % in a Season), and Tetsuya Yoneda (Most Games Pitched).  And that's not a typo - Inao and Starffin are tied for most wins in a single season with 42.

For the most part, I really like the set.  I like a lot of the photographs used, especially the ones of players from the 1950's and 1960's.  And as I mentioned above, I really like the player selection in the set.

Here's some example cards:

#13

#24

#18

#72

#82

#98

I did notice one oddity in the cards.  Takehiko Bessho appears in the "regular" cards by that name but in the "Leader" subset as Akira Bessho.  I'm not entirely sure, but I think Bessho went by "Akira" when he was with Nankai in the 40's but by "Takehiko" when he was with the Giants in the 1950's.  I've seem him listed by either name in previous sets but I think this is the first set I've seen that has him by both names:

#06 & #96

Ryan did a write up of this set back when it came out and you can see all the cards at Jambalaya.

Sports Card Magazine #106

The latest issue of Sports Card Magazine (#106) hit the newsstands in Japan last Saturday.  It's the usual mixed bag of articles and ads that are of limited appeal to non-Japanese readers.  The issue has a full color listing of all the BBM cards for Tomoyuki Sugano (around 54 in only a year and a half) along with nice full color ads for a bunch of new BBM releases, including 2nd Version, Giants, Dragons, 90's All Star Memories, 80th Anniversary Batters Edition, and the new team box sets for the Fighters, Lions, Tigers, and Hawks (2 different ones).  There's also ads for the new Dancing Heroine set (Mai), a box set for the Hawks cheerleaders (the Honeys) called "Honeys Flash!!" and a J-League set.  There's an actual article on the 80th Anniversary Batters Edition set in the "newsprint" section of the magazine (so it's in black and white).  There are checklists for a bunch of the new releases, including the 2nd Version set which will be out next week.  One thing I learned from the magazine is that the "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards in the 2nd Version set will be numbered separately from the rest of the set.  I'm assuming that they are still considered part of the base set but I don't know that for sure.

SCM rotates the checklist/price guides that appear in every issue.  This month's issue has non-BBM baseball issues - Calbees from 1973 on (with the exception of the 1977-79 issues) as well as Lotte, Tomy, Kanebo, Future Bee, Broccoli, Upper Deck and Epoch/OB Club as well as a couple issues I don't recognize off hand (someone did a Randy Bass set in 2000?).

The "Best Item Of This Month" is the BBM Pitchers Spirits Of Carp set and the "Best Card Of This Month" is the Daichi Ohsera autograph card from that set.  The Rookie cards on the "Hot List" are (in order) Daichi Ohsera (2014 BBM 1st Version), Allen Kuri (2014 BBM 1st Version), Yuki Matsui (2014 BBM 1st Version), Seiji Kobayashi (2014 BBM 1st Version), Masahiro Tanaka (2007 BBM 1st Version), Daichi Ohsera (2014 Calbee), Yuki Matsui (2014 Calbee), Daiki Tohmei (2014 BBM 1st Version), Tomoya Mori(2014 BBM 1st Version) and Yuta Yoshida (2014 BBM 1st Version).  Ohsera is well represented in the top 10 Autograph & Memorabilia cards at #1 (2014 BBM Carp), #3 (2014 BBM Carp with Takeru Imamura) and #4 (the aforementioned "Best Card" from the Spirits Of Carp set).  Masahiro Tanaka shows up twice on the list (#5 from the 2007 BBM Eagles set and #7 from the 2013 Genesis set) as does Shohei Ohtani (#6 and #9 which I think are both from the 2014 BBM Fighters set).  The remaining three cards are Yuki Matsui (#2 from the 2014 BBM Eagles set), football player Keisuke Honda (#8, don't know the set) and Tomoe Nonoyama (#10 from the 2014 BBM Dancing Heroine Hana set).

Of course, the best part of SCM is the baseball cards.  Once again there are twelve.  Six of them are the latest Cosmic Cross cards.  The other six are all bonus cards for the 2nd Version set.  Three of them are late signing foreign players - Rhiner Cruz and Zach Lutz from the Eagles, and Joey Butler from the Buffaloes.  The others are (I think) former Ikusei players who made their ichi-gun teams this year - Abner Abreu of the Lions, Yuya Iida of the Hawks and Kohei Mantani of the Baystars.

SCM #266 (2nd Version #697)

SCM #267 (2nd Version #698)

SCM #268 (2nd Version #699)

SCM #269 (2nd Version #700)

SCM #270(2nd Version #701)

SCM #271 (2nd Version #702)

I'm a little disappointed that they didn't have a card of Yulieski Gurriel but it's still pretty cool having bonus cards in the set.

UPDATE: YakyuBaka posted a list of all the player moves from the beginning of the season until today (the "Trade And New Contract" deadline).  The cut-off for BBM's 2nd Version set is usually around May 20.  The three new foreign players (Cruz, Lutz and Butler) all signed after that so none of them would have been expected to make 2nd Version.  Abreu's upgrade from ikusei status also came after that date but the other two players could have been included in the set (but weren't, not even in the 1st Version Update).

And looking at the ad in SCM for 2nd Version, I just now noticed that Yulieski Gourriel is included in the 1st Version update subset, so the deadline is more like June 2nd this year.

Card Of The Week July 27

There was a wild play in the bottom of the eighth in yesterday's Tigers-Carp game.  With the score tied at 5 each, the Carp had runners on second and third with one out.  Ryosuke Kikuchi was the batter and on the third pitch of the at bat (the first was a swinging foul and the second was a pitch out), he laid down a beautiful squeeze bunt.  The runner on third (Masato Akamatsu) scored without a throw and when Mauro Gomez, the Tigers 1st baseman threw to first in an unsuccessful attempt to put Kikuchi out, Shogo Kimura (the runner on second who was already at third when Gomez reached the ball) broke for the plate.  He just beat the throw to score the second run of the inning.  The 7-5 score held up (despite the Tigers loading the bases in the top of the ninth) for a Carp victory.

The only video I could find (well, I didn't find it - Reddit NPB tweeted the link) is of the entire bottom of the eighth.  The squeeze play happens are 7:30 in the clip:



While it was an amazing play, it does highlight the NPB managerial philosophy of "bunt early and bunt often".  Carp manager Kenjiro Nomura actually attempted to bunt in three straight at bats - the first resulted in a walk by Kimura who was obviously squaring to bunt, the second was a successful sacrifice by Shota Dohbayashi to move Akamatsu and Kimura up and the third was the squeeze play.

Here's a 2012 card of Kikuchi from the Front Runner/Hiroshima Athlete Magazine Carp Starting Lineup set (#16):

1988 IFT Round Menko

I am not generally a fan of round menko and I'm also not generally a fan of cards that show caricatures of players rather than pictures.  So I was kind of surprised at myself that I ended up kind of liking an odd little set from 1988, the IFT Round Menko set catalogued in Engel as JRM 29.

I'd seen these cards being offered on Ebay and I just kind of ignored them.  But I bought some Calbee cards from the same seller and he included a handful of them as a bonus.  I looked them up for the first time then and realized that Engel had given them a scarcity rating of "R5", the most scarce rating he has.  It indicates that only "3 or fewer copies are known of most cards".  I still wasn't sure I was that interested in them but when the seller put the complete 30 card set up for sale at $30 (with free shipping from Japan), I was intrigued.  When he put them on sale for $27, I decided to go for it.

And I'm actually glad I did.  I get a kick out of the cartoon drawings of the players.  The cards are small, less than an inch and a half in diameter.  The drawings of the players do not include the team logos.  Of the 30 players in the set, there's only one gaijin player (Carlos Ponce).  With the exception of a handful of players from the Seibu Lions (Koji Akiyama, Kazuhiro Kiyohara, Hiromichi Ishige, Taigen Kaku), all of the players in the set are from the Central League.  Most of the big names from the time are in the set - Hiromitsu Ochiai, Kazuyoshi Tatsunami, Tatsunori Hara, Norihiro Komada, Masumi Kuwata, Takehiro Ikeyama among others.

Engel mentions that there's a metallic parallel issue for the set.  Most of the cards I got in the complete set are actually the parallel issues.  Some of them have gold foil on them and some have silver - I don't know if there are two different parallels or just the one.

Here's some examples:

Regular and Silver Parallels of Meishi Ro of the Giants

Koji Akiyama

Katsumi Hirosawa

Masumi Kuwata

Hiromitsu Ochiai

I think it's kind of funny that the caricature of Ochiai looks more like he does now than how he looked in 1988.

Alfredo Despaigne

The latest Cuban import to Japan is Alfredo Despaigne, who will likely make his debut with the Chiba Lotte Marines in the next week or so.  Despaigne actually started this season playing for Piratas de Campeche of the Mexican League but he was suspended for life from the league after it was discovered he was using a fake Domincan passport.  (Interestingly he is not the first Campeche player to move to the Pacific League this year - John Bowker started the season there before joining the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.)

Despaigne has had a pretty impressive career in Cuba, setting the single season home run record for Serie Nacional a few years back with 36 (breaking the record held jointly by Jose Abreu and Yoenis Cespedes).  He played on the Cuban World Baseball Classic team in both 2009 and 2013 and well as their 2008 Olympic team.  He doesn't have many cards, however.  Jason has listed 17 cards over at Sports Card Forum's Inventory Manager but 14 of those are parallels.  He had a card in the 2009 Bowman Chrome WBC set (along with 11 parallels) and the 2013 Topps Tribute WBC set (along with three parallels).  He also appeared in the 2009 Konami WBC Heroes set in Japan.

2009 Bowman Chrome WBC #BCW50

2009 Konami WBC Heroes #W09R059

2013 Topps Tribute WBC #87

I'm not sure if Despaigne will have any cards in Japan this year.  It's way too late for him to show up in BBM's 2nd Version and the Marines' team set's been out for a month or so.  Calbee Series Three is probably the best possibility as that won't be released until mid-September (probably).

In addition to Despaigne, there's a fourth Cuban player coming to Japan shortly as well.  The Giants signed pitcher Hector Mendoza last week.  Mendoza is only 20 and did not play in last year's WBC.  His likelihood of getting a card this year is roughly the same as Despaigne's.