Former Saitama Seibu Lions pitcher Yusei Kikuchi signed a contract with the Seattle Mariners last week. Kikuchi had originally been interested in signing directly with an MLB team out of high school in 2009 but like Ohtani a few years later decided to stay in Japan and join an NPB team first (although unlike Ohtani he decided this before the draft). He was taken by six teams in the first round of the 2009 draft (Lions, Tigers, Swallows, Eagles, Dragons and Fighters) and the Lions won the lottery for him. He spent all of 2010 with the Lions' farm team and debuted with the top team in June of 2012. He's been a part of the Lions starting rotation pretty much ever since then and has been their top starter for at least the past three years. His best year was 2017 when he went 16-6 with a 1.97 ERA with four shutouts, leading the Pacific League in wins, ERA and shutouts. He's a three time All Star (2013, 2017-18) and two time Best 9 winner (2017-18). He also won a Golden Glove Award in 2017.
Kikuchi's first BBM cards are #067 from the 2010 Rookie Edition set and #355 from the 2010 1st Version set. He's appears in both the 1st and 2nd Version in 2010 but doesn't appear in either set in 2011. He's only in 1st Version in 2012 but he appears in both sets from 2013 on to the present. His first Calbee card is #078 from the 2010 set. He doesn't have a Calbee card in 2011 but he has at least one every year since then. He also has cards in various Bandai, Front Runner and Epoch sets during his career. TradingCardDB.com has a fairly complete listing of his cards.
I'm going to take a slightly different tack with showing cards for Kikuchi than what I usually do for the new imports. Instead of showing a bunch of cards from the entire span of his career I'm going to concentrate on his early cards instead. This is mostly due to me still recovering from my hip surgery so I want to reduce the number of binders I'm taking off my shelves.
P-Town Tom of Waiting 'til Next Year is again running a contest/challenge for bloggers to pick their favorite card of the year. I've waited so long to decide on a card that I'm almost too late but I finally decided on Daichi Ohsera's card from BBM's 1st Version set this year (#165):
Just a beautiful picture of him warming up on the sidelines at Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium in Hiroshima on a sunny afternoon.
BBM's first set with a cover date of 2019 came out about three weeks ago. It's the third edition of their annual Time Travel set. The point of these sets is to highlight a particular year and this year's edition is 1979. (I will mention that the fact that 2019 is 40 years after 1979 is probably a coincidence since the previous two editions were for 1975 and 1989 but I'll change my mind if net year they do 1980.)
1979 is kind of a watershed year for NPB. Over the 1978-79 offseason the Taiheiyo Club Lions were sold to Seibu and the team moved from Fukuoka to Tokorozawa. This would be the last team sold, moved or renamed until 1989 when the Hawks were sold by Nankai to Daiei and moved from Osaka to Fukuoka and the Braves were sold by Hankyu to Orix. This might not seem like a big deal but the 10 year period between 1979 and 1988 is the longest period in NPB history where no team was sold, merged, moved or renamed. (2019 will be the eighth consecutive year of the current NPB team "situation" - the last change was DeNA buying the Baystars before the 2012 season.)
The set has a base set of 96 cards which is three cards less than the two previous editions. Like the two previous editions the cards have a retro feel to them - they have a matte finish rather than the usual glossy finish and monochromatic backs rather than the standard full color ones. The bulk of the cards in the set are the 72 player cards which (as usual) are split evenly among the 12 NPB teams. The cards are meant to look like they were actually issued in 1979 as the backs only contain stats up to and including that year.
I'm going to skip my usual nit-picking about who got left out of the set. There's only 72 cards so someone's going to be left out. I'll focus instead on who's in the set. I was excited to see that Choji Murata was in the set as he pretty much hasn't shown up in a BBM set since 2004! He was in the 2009 BBM Legends set that I think was issued as magazine inserts, the 2009 Epoch All Japan Baseball Foundation set and I think he's in a Bandai Owners League set but other than that his last cards were in the 2004 Golden Arm, 70th Anniversary and Marines sets. Other notable players in the set are Sadaharu Oh, Tsutomu Wakamatsu (who I think is the only player to appear in all three Time Travel sets so far), Katsuya Nomura, Masayuki Kakefu, Koichi Tabuchi, Koji Yamamoto, Jinten Haku, Sachio Kinugasa, Yutaka Fukumoto, Hisashi Yamada, Morimichi Takagi and Masaji Hiramatsu. There are "rookie" cards (with the same rookie icon used in the 2018 BBM cards) for several players including Suguru Egawa and Shigekazu Mori. There's six foreign players - Charlie Manuel, Jim Lyttle, Felix Millan, John Sipin and the Lee brothers - Leon and Leron. (OK, I can't resist - significant players who aren't in the set are Senichi Hoshino, Keishi Suzuki and Isao Harimoto.)
The cards themselves have a nice design - I can't off hand think of any other sets BBM's done with colored borders although I'm probably forgetting something. I like the little 1973 Topps-ish position icon in the lower right although it would have been better if they'd used more symbols than just a pitcher and a batter. BBM used a pretty good variety of photos in the set although they used a couple black and white photos for some reason. Here's some example cards:
#27
#23
#42
#11
#55
#54
Here's what the card backs look like:
#04 (Sachio Kinugasa)
The remaining 24 cards in the set are split between four different subsets. There are six cards for players who retired after the 1979 season - Takenori (Iwao) Ikebe, Kiyoshi Morimoto, Yozo Nagabuchi, Atsushi Nagaike, Yoshihiro Sotokoba and Soroku Yagisawa.
#76
There are eight cards showing baseball highlights from 1979 - the first home game for the Seibu Lions (and the opening of then Seibu Stadium) on April 14th (not sure if it was their first ever game or not), Makoto Shimada stealing three bases in one inning on June 5th, Charlie Manuel being hit in the face on June 9th, Yoshihiko Takahashi's 33 game hitting streak from June 6th to July 31st (longest in NPB history), Shigeru Kobayashi's 8 consecutive wins against the Giants from April 4th to September 5th (Kobayashi had been traded to the Tigers from the Giants the previous off season as compensation for the Giants signing Tigers draft pick Egawa), Kintetsu winning their first ever Pacific League pennant on October 16th, the Carp winning their first ever Nippon Series on November 4th and the Giants "Hell Camp" from October 28th to November 22 (not quite sure what this was). Here's the card for the Lions first home game:
#79
There's a six card subset featuring people born in 1979. In the two previous sets the people in the "Born In X" subset have all been baseball players but this set's a little different. In addition to five players (Shinnosuke Abe, Kazuyuki Hoashi, Yoshiyuki Ishihara, Akinori Iwamura and Atsushi Nohmi), BBM also included a card for politician Taizo Sugimura (who apparently played tennis in his youth).
#90
#91
The final subset in the set contains four cards dedicated to Pop Culture from 1979. The cards are for the rock band Godiego's song "Gandhara", enka singer Sachiko Kobayashi's song "Omoide Sake" (best selling song of the year in Japan), the introduction of the NEC PC-8001 personal computer and the debut of the anime series "The Rose Of Versailles". Here's the card for Kobayashi:
#94
If it's not obvious I really like this set. I've been enjoying BBM's Time Travel series and I think this is the best one so far. You can take a look at all the card (including the insert cards which feature statistical leaders and award winners from the year) over at Jambalaya.
In a bit of synchronicity - the radio station I listen to (WXPN out of Philadelphia) is doing a special program each Saturday during 2019 where they highlight the music from one year out of the past 50. As it happens the year they've chosen for today was 1979 so I've had appropriate background music as I've been writing this post. Although there's a song from the mid-90's that would have been appropriate as well:
I learned from Ryan recently that Konami has issued a set called Baseball Collection. I don't know much about it but it is some sort of collectible card game - looks like you use the cards in an on-line game. I have no idea how many cards there but I do know for sure that they are physical cards as I've seen a couple for sale on Ebay. This is the first set offered by Konami in several years and the first collectible card game set for NPB in Japan since Bandai's last Owners League set in 2015.
There were a couple food related sets. For the third consecutive year Nippon-Ham and BBM teamed up on a Fighters team set that was given away with packages of "Home Run Sausage". The set has a total of 147 cards that appears to include two cards for every player on the Fighters' roster plus the manager and the mascots - I think the cards were issued in two separate series. There are also 44 or so "rare" cards split between "We Love Hokkaido" and "Hokkaido Be Ambitious" sets. There was also a 36 card set of Central League players (six per team) given away one at a time in packages of "Central League Home Run" popsicles from Meito.
Epoch significantly upped their game in 2018. They issued 27 sets (although one of them technically should have been a 2017 set but it was delayed until February) which was four more than they issued in 2017. It wasn't the amount of sets they issued that indicated them upping their game however - it was the fact that a number of the sets they issued were a direct challenge to BBM's dominance in the Japanese card market.
The most significant challenge Epoch made to BBM was in issuing an actual flagship set. Epoch's set was called "NPB" and featured 432 cards, over 50 more than BBM's 1st Version set. All the cards were player (or manager) cards and were split evenly between the 12 teams so there were 36 cards per team. That was nine more players per team than 1st Version had for a total of 108 more players in the set. Unlike many of Epoch's offerings, this set was reasonably priced.
Epoch also released "comprehensive" team sets for seven NPB teams - the Carp, the Lions, the Swallows, the Buffaloes, the Dragons, the Baystars and the Tigers. The sets were all labelled "Rookie & Stars", were reasonably priced and contained 90 cards each. They featured each team's entire 70 man roster along with the manager and in some cases coaches and ikusei players. These are the first "comprehensive" team sets I know that were not either a team issue or a BBM set. I don't know why Epoch didn't do all 12 teams and I don't know if they are planning on issuing these team sets (or the flagship) set again in the future.
They also issued a box set called "Pacific League Rookies" which featured the 2017 draft picks for all the Pacific League teams (so essentially half of the 2018 BBM Rookie Edition set).
The remaining 17 sets Epoch issued were all expensive high end and ultra high end sets which typically featured a box containing four to six cards for over 10,000 yen. Each box is guaranteed to contain at least one autograph card.
Three of these sets were done in conjunction with the Japan Baseball Promotion Association (JBPA) which is also known as the OB Club - "Award Winners", "Career Achievements" and "Batting Leaders". These sets feature only retired (OB) players. Epoch also issued several other sets that featured OB players from specific teams - "Tigers Glorious Players", "Legend Of Yokohama" (which celebrated the 40th Anniversary of the Whales/Baystars being in Yokohama) and "Seibu Lions 40th Anniversary" (which obviously celebrates the 40th Anniversary of the Lions being sold to Seibu and moving to Tokorozawa from Fukuoka). The latter two sets are another challenge to BBM as previously team anniversary sets such as these were issued by BBM.
The remaining sets all feature active players only. Three of these were "Season Achievements" sets for the Lions, Baystars and Tigers (although the Tigers set was really a 2017 set but it didn't come out until February of 2018). The other set was the "Pacific League Premier Edition" set (which has now been issued by Epoch for three years in a row) which only contained players from the six Pacific League teams.
In addition to all these sets, Epoch also started doing something similar to Topps Now called Epoch One. Epoch started offering cards on-line for a limited time for 500 yen apiece. Like the Topps Now cards these cards are tied into actual on (and off) field events. They only did cards for seven of the 12 teams (oddly enough they aren't the same seven teams they did "Rookie & Stars" sets for) - the Lions, the Dragons, the Tigers, the Marines, the Giants, the Carp and the Fighters. They ended up issued 680 cards total this year. I found it interesting that the final cards for the year featured the Dragons 2018 draft picks - the photos are from the team's rookie introduction ceremony held on December 8th which will also be the source of the photos for BBM's Rookie Edition set coming out next month.
2018 was a return to normalcy for Calbee. From 2003 to 2015 Calbee issued their flagship set in three separate Series and that was all they put out each year. In 2016 they issued two other sets - an All Star set in January and a Samurai Japan set in November - along with the three Series, In 2017 the Hokkaido Potato Crisis forced Calbee to limit their flagship set to just two Series although they did also issue a Samurai Japan set. For 2018 though it was back to a three Series flagship set with no other sets.
As usual Series One was released in March. It had 88 cards in its base set - 72 player cards (six per team), a 12 card "Dora-ichi" subset featuring the first pick for each team from the fall 2017 draft and four checklist cards. There were two insert sets - 24 "Star" cards and 3 "Legend" cards (featuring three players who retired after the 2017 season - Tadahito Iguchi, Yuya Andoh and Masahiko Morino). The "Lucky Card" box set (available as a mail-in redemption) was a 12 card set called "AVG Leader".
Series Two came out in June and followed a similar pattern. The 88 card base set broke down into 72 player cards, a 12 card subset featuring the managers for all the teams and four checklist cards. The only insert set was 24 more "Star" cards and the "Lucky Card" box set was another 12 card set - this one was called "Wins Leader".
Series Three hit the shelves in September and continued the same pattern as the first two Series. Once again there was an 88 card base set split into 72 player cards, a 12 card "Exciting Scene" subset and four more checklist cards. The "Star" insert set was rounded out with 24 more cards (for a total of 72 across all three Series) and there was yet one more 12 card set available through "Lucky Card" redemption - this one was called "RBI Leader".
Across the three Series there were 216 player cards. 24 players had more than one card so the total number of players represented in the set was 192. There are a couple big name players who did not have regular player cards and only appear in the "Exciting Scene" subset in Series Three - Tomoyuki Sugano, Norichika Aoki and Daisuke Matsuzaka.
BBM issued 32 sets in 2018 which I think is the fewest they've done in one year since 2008. As usual I'm counting the cards that have "2018" as their cover date even though a couple of the sets were actually issued in late 2017.
I will mention here that after having issued a set for one particular team's cheerleader/dance squad every year from 2014-17 (Hawks in 2014, Dragons in 2015, Giants in 2016 and Fighters in 2017), BBM did not issue a similar set this year.
After issuing nine team box sets in each of the last two years, BBM only did five this year. Three of these were "Premium" box sets for the Carp ("Invincible"), Fighters ("Ambitious") and Tigers ("Marvelous"). They also issued a box set for the Hawks that was tied into their 80th Anniversary ("Celebration") as well as another box set for the Carp celebrating their third consecutive Central League Championship ("Three-Peat").
The "Celebration" box set wasn't the only set BBM did in conjunction with the Hawks' 80th Anniversary. They also issued a pack based Hawks 80th Anniversary set in March that featured OB as well as current players (the "Celebration" box set had mostly current players). They also took a unique approach to chronicling the history of the Hawks - they created a 27 card "Hawks History" subset that was spread across three sets. The first nine cards were in the Hawks 80th Anniversary set and covered 1938-68. The second nine cards were in the Hawks comprehensive team set and covered 1969-88. The final nine cards were included in "Celebration" and cover 1989 to the present.
The other set BBM did this year was a box set for Shohei Ohtani called "Grateful Days". This was the first "single player" set they had done in two years.
