Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Sports Market Report Follow Up
I wanted to do a quick follow up to my post a few weeks back about the issue of Sports Market Report devoted to Japanese Baseball Cards. Most (if not all) of the articles from the magazine are now available on-line. There are articles on collecting Sadaharu Oh, Ichiro and Shohei Ohtani as well as the 1967 Kabaya-Leaf set. There's also two articles on the history of Japanese baseball cards - split between vintage and modern.
Sunday, April 8, 2018
Card Of The Week April 8
I wasn't going to feature Shohei Ohtani this week.
I really wasn't. I knew he had a good week. His first MLB start as pitcher last Sunday went pretty well - he went six innings against Oakland and gave up three runs on three hits and a walk while striking out six. The only real blemish was the three run home run he gave up to Matt Chapman. Then as a batter this week he homered in his first three home games - Tuesday vs the Indians (in his first at bat at Angel Stadium), Wednesday against the Indians again and then Friday against the A's. But I wasn't going to feature him this week.
I've probably featured Ohtani in Card Of The Week more than any other player. Frankly I'm not sure how many cards I have of Ohtani that I haven't already shown on the blog. And there were others to consider. Takahiro Norimoto got his 1000th career strikeout on Friday. The Lions have won their first 8 games of the season. And 300+ pound Japhet Amador stole a base yesterday - his first steal ever in NPB. So I was going to go with Amador.
And then Ohtani had his second start as a pitcher today.
He was perfect for the first 6 1/3 innings of the game. He ended up going 7 innings, giving up one hit and one walk while striking out 12. And it seemed he was pitching effortlessly, at least until the seventh inning. He struck out the side twice - in the first and fifth innings - and it didn't seem like any ball got hit particularly well off him. It was one of the best pitching performances I've ever watched on TV.
The 2018 season is now 11 days old and Ohtani is 2-0 with a 2.08 ERA. He's given up four hits and two walks in 13 innings while striking out 18. As a batter he's hitting .389 with an OBP of .421 and a slugging percentage off .889. He's 7 for 16 with three home runs and seven RBIs. He's walked once and struck out four times. It's early but so far it doesn't look like Ohtani is having issues adjusting to MLB. Now obviously MLB will be adjusting to him and how successful he continues to be will depend on how he adjusts to the league's adjustments (and so on) but he's doing well for now.
I thought I'd show off a subset that BBM included in their 2014 Fighters which commemorated Ohtani's first three wins and first three home runs of the 2013 season (he went 3-0 that year with four home runs). I've shown two of these cards before but here's all six:
I really wasn't. I knew he had a good week. His first MLB start as pitcher last Sunday went pretty well - he went six innings against Oakland and gave up three runs on three hits and a walk while striking out six. The only real blemish was the three run home run he gave up to Matt Chapman. Then as a batter this week he homered in his first three home games - Tuesday vs the Indians (in his first at bat at Angel Stadium), Wednesday against the Indians again and then Friday against the A's. But I wasn't going to feature him this week.
I've probably featured Ohtani in Card Of The Week more than any other player. Frankly I'm not sure how many cards I have of Ohtani that I haven't already shown on the blog. And there were others to consider. Takahiro Norimoto got his 1000th career strikeout on Friday. The Lions have won their first 8 games of the season. And 300+ pound Japhet Amador stole a base yesterday - his first steal ever in NPB. So I was going to go with Amador.
And then Ohtani had his second start as a pitcher today.
He was perfect for the first 6 1/3 innings of the game. He ended up going 7 innings, giving up one hit and one walk while striking out 12. And it seemed he was pitching effortlessly, at least until the seventh inning. He struck out the side twice - in the first and fifth innings - and it didn't seem like any ball got hit particularly well off him. It was one of the best pitching performances I've ever watched on TV.
The 2018 season is now 11 days old and Ohtani is 2-0 with a 2.08 ERA. He's given up four hits and two walks in 13 innings while striking out 18. As a batter he's hitting .389 with an OBP of .421 and a slugging percentage off .889. He's 7 for 16 with three home runs and seven RBIs. He's walked once and struck out four times. It's early but so far it doesn't look like Ohtani is having issues adjusting to MLB. Now obviously MLB will be adjusting to him and how successful he continues to be will depend on how he adjusts to the league's adjustments (and so on) but he's doing well for now.
I thought I'd show off a subset that BBM included in their 2014 Fighters which commemorated Ohtani's first three wins and first three home runs of the 2013 season (he went 3-0 that year with four home runs). I've shown two of these cards before but here's all six:
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| 2014 BBM Fighters #F76 |
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| 2014 BBM Fighters #F77 |
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| 2014 BBM Fighters #F78 |
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| 2014 BBM Fighters #F79 |
 |
| 2014 BBM Fighters #F80 |
 |
| 2014 BBM Fighters #F81 |
Thursday, April 5, 2018
Epoch One
I used to make April Fools' jokes here on the blog. Most of them weren't particularly clever and I ran out of ideas after a couple years. But I still think try to think of ones and this year I considered trying to make some joke about BBM doing a version of Topps Now. I just really couldn't come up with anything funny to say about the idea - other than maybe BBM publishing them within 30 minutes of the game ending and each card having some ridiculous number of parallels. As I said, I really couldn't come up with anything good - which is why I didn't do a post for it.
It probably good that I didn't try to joke about it because it turns out that Epoch is actually doing it! I got a tweet from Kenny (aka Zippy Zappy) the other night telling me that Epoch had launched something called Epoch One which was their version of Topps Now. There's a couple nice differences though - the cards are only 500 yen (about $5) and they are available for about three days. There are discounts for ordering several cards at one - 3 cards are 1350 yen, 5 cards are 2000 yen and 10 cards are 3500 yen. There doesn't appear to be a shipping charge.
On the negative side however - they don't ship to the US. Kenny already sent them an email and asked. So the only way to get them outside of Japan would be to use a proxy company (although none of them are set up to buy from them automatically so you'd need to contact them to ask if they'd do it) or have a friend in Japan who can order them for you. They also apparently only have licenses with seven teams to do cards - the Lions, the Dragons, the Tigers, the Marines, the Giants, the Carp and the Fighters.
As of right now there's 35 cards so far through the games of April 4. I swiped the image of the front and back of the first card from their site:
Each card has a couple numbers on the back. The number at the upper left is the overall card number. There's a number at the lower right that is the team-specific number. This particular card is "NF-001". The card will also have the number of cards in the print run on the lower left side.
I think this is a cool idea and I wish there was an easy way for me to get some of them. I don't want to get all of them - I mean even at 350 yen a card we're already looking at over 10,000 yen for what they've put out just in the first week of the season.
It probably good that I didn't try to joke about it because it turns out that Epoch is actually doing it! I got a tweet from Kenny (aka Zippy Zappy) the other night telling me that Epoch had launched something called Epoch One which was their version of Topps Now. There's a couple nice differences though - the cards are only 500 yen (about $5) and they are available for about three days. There are discounts for ordering several cards at one - 3 cards are 1350 yen, 5 cards are 2000 yen and 10 cards are 3500 yen. There doesn't appear to be a shipping charge.
On the negative side however - they don't ship to the US. Kenny already sent them an email and asked. So the only way to get them outside of Japan would be to use a proxy company (although none of them are set up to buy from them automatically so you'd need to contact them to ask if they'd do it) or have a friend in Japan who can order them for you. They also apparently only have licenses with seven teams to do cards - the Lions, the Dragons, the Tigers, the Marines, the Giants, the Carp and the Fighters.
As of right now there's 35 cards so far through the games of April 4. I swiped the image of the front and back of the first card from their site:
Each card has a couple numbers on the back. The number at the upper left is the overall card number. There's a number at the lower right that is the team-specific number. This particular card is "NF-001". The card will also have the number of cards in the print run on the lower left side.
I think this is a cool idea and I wish there was an easy way for me to get some of them. I don't want to get all of them - I mean even at 350 yen a card we're already looking at over 10,000 yen for what they've put out just in the first week of the season.
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Team Sets Galore!
There are a bunch of upcoming team sets that have been announced in the past few weeks:
- BBM has announced their annual pack-based team sets for the Baystars, Fighters, Carp and Giants. I've started referring to these as "comprehensive" team sets because they contain most if not all of the players on each team's 70 man roster at the time the set went to press. The base set for each of these sets contains 81 cards.
- There's not a lot of details available for the Baystars set other than it will have 33 associated insert cards - 15 "Phantom" cards and 18 others - and various autographed cards. It will be released in mid-April.
- There's a little more detail on the Fighters set (which will be released in early May). The base set is broken into 71 "regular" cards for the manager, players and probably mascots, a three card "Fresh Breeze" subset, a four card "The Beginning" subset and a three card "Centerpiece" subset. There's a whopping 48 insert cards available - three "Thunder & Lightning" cards, six "Future Is Born" cards, nine "Diamond Dust" cards, 18 "Phantom" cards and 12 "Royal Purple" cards. There are jersey cards available for Hirotoshi Takanashi, Go Matsumoto, Kensuke Kondoh and Kohei Arihara as well as a bunch of autographed cards that are not fully defined.
- The base set for the Carp set breaks down to 69 cards for the manager, players and mascot (probably), three cards for "Youngsters Of Expectation", four cards for "Main Pitchers" and five cards for "Main Hitters". Like the Fighters set there are 48 insert cards - six "Starting Pitcher", three "Relief Pitcher", two "Main Types Of Defense", three "Hits Production Machines", four "Kinds Of Weight Bowing Line", 12 "Royal Purple" and 18 "Phantom" (most of those are probably not the real names of the insert sets). There are jersey cards available for Akitake Okada, Yoshiharu Maru, Ryusuke Kikuchi, Kosuke Tanaka and Kazuki Yabuta as well as an undefined as of press time batch of autograph cards. The set will be out in mid-May.
- The Giants base set breaks down to 67 "regular" cards for the manager and players, a single checklist card that also features the mascots, a four card "New Arrivals" subset, a three card "Giant Guns" subset, a three card "High Quality Triangle" subset and a three card "Young Sinergy" subset. There are three different parallels of each of the "regular" cards - gold leaf, holo foil and orange foil - I'm assuming these are all facsimile signature parallels but I could be wrong. There are 66(!) insert cards - 15 "Giants Pride" (which have serially numbered parallels), three "My Generation" (which also have serially numbered parallels), 18 "Cross Foil Signing" (serially numbered to 15), nine "Super Metallic Giants" (serially numbered to the player's uniform number - so there's only six Hayato Sakamoto cards for example. These are available via an exchange card), three "Triplex" (these are 3D cards that are serially numbered to 25) and 18 "Phantom" cards (serially numbered to 25). There will also be memorabilia and autographed cards but what they are were not listed at press time. There set will be out in mid-May.
- In addition to the Carp "comprehensive" team set, BBM is also releasing a "Premium" box set for the team called "Carp Invincible". This is a 29 card box set. Each box contains the entire 27 card base set plus one "Invincible" insert card (one of six possible) and one autographed card. The autographed card may be of a player who is not in the base set. This set reminds me quite a bit of the "Premium" team sets BBM did last year for the 2016 pennant winning Carp and Fighters so it wouldn't surprise me to see a similar set for the Hawks be released in the next month (and before you email me to correct me, keep in mind that in NPB the pennant winner is the team that finished first, not the team that wins the Climax Series, so the 2017 Central League pennant was won by the Carp, not the Baystars). The set will be released in late April.
- Epoch has announced three more of their team based "Rookies & Stars" sets. The newly announced ones are for the Swallows, Dragons and Buffaloes. Each of these features a 90 card base set along with various insert and autograph cards. I'm more convinced than ever that Epoch is attempting to challenge BBM in the "comprehensive" team set arena. This is now five announced "Rookies & Stars" sets and one of these (the Buffaloes) is a team that Epoch did not do an inexpensive team set for last year. The first of these sets (for the Carp) is due to be released this weekend and then we'll know for sure if it is a comprehensive set (potentially including the ikusei players who have not been included in BBM's team sets for the past few years). The Swallows set will be released on April 21st, the Buffaloes set will be out on May 12th and the Dragons set will be released on May 19th.
- Hits has announced another "Mini Color Paper" team set this year - this time it's for the Hawks. There are 12 players represented in the set and each player has two versions of a "card" - a "normal mini colored paper" and a "gold foil signed special mini colored paper". The set comes out in early April.
- BBM has announced their annual pack-based team sets for the Baystars, Fighters, Carp and Giants. I've started referring to these as "comprehensive" team sets because they contain most if not all of the players on each team's 70 man roster at the time the set went to press. The base set for each of these sets contains 81 cards.
- There's not a lot of details available for the Baystars set other than it will have 33 associated insert cards - 15 "Phantom" cards and 18 others - and various autographed cards. It will be released in mid-April.
- There's a little more detail on the Fighters set (which will be released in early May). The base set is broken into 71 "regular" cards for the manager, players and probably mascots, a three card "Fresh Breeze" subset, a four card "The Beginning" subset and a three card "Centerpiece" subset. There's a whopping 48 insert cards available - three "Thunder & Lightning" cards, six "Future Is Born" cards, nine "Diamond Dust" cards, 18 "Phantom" cards and 12 "Royal Purple" cards. There are jersey cards available for Hirotoshi Takanashi, Go Matsumoto, Kensuke Kondoh and Kohei Arihara as well as a bunch of autographed cards that are not fully defined.
- The base set for the Carp set breaks down to 69 cards for the manager, players and mascot (probably), three cards for "Youngsters Of Expectation", four cards for "Main Pitchers" and five cards for "Main Hitters". Like the Fighters set there are 48 insert cards - six "Starting Pitcher", three "Relief Pitcher", two "Main Types Of Defense", three "Hits Production Machines", four "Kinds Of Weight Bowing Line", 12 "Royal Purple" and 18 "Phantom" (most of those are probably not the real names of the insert sets). There are jersey cards available for Akitake Okada, Yoshiharu Maru, Ryusuke Kikuchi, Kosuke Tanaka and Kazuki Yabuta as well as an undefined as of press time batch of autograph cards. The set will be out in mid-May.
- The Giants base set breaks down to 67 "regular" cards for the manager and players, a single checklist card that also features the mascots, a four card "New Arrivals" subset, a three card "Giant Guns" subset, a three card "High Quality Triangle" subset and a three card "Young Sinergy" subset. There are three different parallels of each of the "regular" cards - gold leaf, holo foil and orange foil - I'm assuming these are all facsimile signature parallels but I could be wrong. There are 66(!) insert cards - 15 "Giants Pride" (which have serially numbered parallels), three "My Generation" (which also have serially numbered parallels), 18 "Cross Foil Signing" (serially numbered to 15), nine "Super Metallic Giants" (serially numbered to the player's uniform number - so there's only six Hayato Sakamoto cards for example. These are available via an exchange card), three "Triplex" (these are 3D cards that are serially numbered to 25) and 18 "Phantom" cards (serially numbered to 25). There will also be memorabilia and autographed cards but what they are were not listed at press time. There set will be out in mid-May.
- In addition to the Carp "comprehensive" team set, BBM is also releasing a "Premium" box set for the team called "Carp Invincible". This is a 29 card box set. Each box contains the entire 27 card base set plus one "Invincible" insert card (one of six possible) and one autographed card. The autographed card may be of a player who is not in the base set. This set reminds me quite a bit of the "Premium" team sets BBM did last year for the 2016 pennant winning Carp and Fighters so it wouldn't surprise me to see a similar set for the Hawks be released in the next month (and before you email me to correct me, keep in mind that in NPB the pennant winner is the team that finished first, not the team that wins the Climax Series, so the 2017 Central League pennant was won by the Carp, not the Baystars). The set will be released in late April.
- Epoch has announced three more of their team based "Rookies & Stars" sets. The newly announced ones are for the Swallows, Dragons and Buffaloes. Each of these features a 90 card base set along with various insert and autograph cards. I'm more convinced than ever that Epoch is attempting to challenge BBM in the "comprehensive" team set arena. This is now five announced "Rookies & Stars" sets and one of these (the Buffaloes) is a team that Epoch did not do an inexpensive team set for last year. The first of these sets (for the Carp) is due to be released this weekend and then we'll know for sure if it is a comprehensive set (potentially including the ikusei players who have not been included in BBM's team sets for the past few years). The Swallows set will be released on April 21st, the Buffaloes set will be out on May 12th and the Dragons set will be released on May 19th.
- Hits has announced another "Mini Color Paper" team set this year - this time it's for the Hawks. There are 12 players represented in the set and each player has two versions of a "card" - a "normal mini colored paper" and a "gold foil signed special mini colored paper". The set comes out in early April.
Monday, April 2, 2018
My Other Blog
I decided to start another blog dedicated to the 1988 Orioles. The 1988 Orioles were truly a historically bad team but 1988 was a very special year for me and the Orioles, bad as they were, were part of that. I'm going to try to do a post about every game of the season which I'm sure will end up difficult to maintain but I'm going to give it a shot.
Sunday, April 1, 2018
Play Ball! (2018)
OK, Opening Day was two days ago but I've been inspired by something Night Owl Cards has been doing for the past ten years but I just saw for the first time the other day. He's been doing a post each year that shows a baseball card from the last year each of the 30 MLB teams last won the World Series (well, make that 23 teams because seven MLB have still never won one). I saw that and thought to myself "What a great idea that I could totally steal for NPB!" So here we go with the NPB version:
The last time the HAWKS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
The last time the FIGHTERS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
The last time the EAGLES won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
The last time the GIANTS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
The last time the MARINES won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
The last time the LIONS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
The last time the DRAGONS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
The last time the SWALLOWS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
The last time the BAYSTARS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
The last time the BUFFALOES* won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
The last time the TIGERS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
The last time the CARP won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
*The Buffaloes were called the BlueWave in 1996
All 12 current NPB teams have won the Series at least once so there are no "Photo Not Found" teams.
The last time the HAWKS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:
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| 2017 BBM 1st Version #046 |
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| 2016 BBM 2nd Version #405 |
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| 2013 BBM 1st Version #246 |
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| 2012 Bandai Owners League 03 #100 |
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| 2010 BBM 1st Version #378 |
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| 2008 BBM 2nd Version #694 |
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| 2007 BBM 1st Version #221 |
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| 2001 Upper Deck #78 |
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| 1998 Calbee #118 |
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| 1996 BBM #382 |
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| 1985 Calbee #33 (Randy Bass) |
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| 1984 Takara Carp #3 (Sachio Kinugasa) |
*The Buffaloes were called the BlueWave in 1996
All 12 current NPB teams have won the Series at least once so there are no "Photo Not Found" teams.
Card Of The Week April 1
The NPB season kicked off the other day. The first (and so far only) player this season to have a multi-homer game was Seiya Inoue of the Marines who did it yesterday by hitting two home runs against the Eagles. Here's a card of Inoue from the 2014 BBM 2nd Version "Birth Of Hero" subset (#663):
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