Most Hall Of Famers In A BBM Set

This post was inspired by a post that Night Owl Cards did a month or so ago that calculated how many Hall Of Famers have appeared in each Topps set.  I figured it wouldn't be that hard to do the same thing for BBM sets and I created a spread sheet with the numbers.  I updated it earlier this week with Koichi Tabuchi's selection and thought I'd share the results here.

My criteria for this was that the Hall Of Famer must have a "regular" card as either a player or manager in BBM's "flagship" set(s) for the year.  This means players appearing in an OB subset (like the "Nostalgic Stars" subsets in the 1991-94 sets) don't count.  For "flagship" set I mean the regular BBM set from 1991 to 2001 and the 1st and 2nd Version sets since then.  To be counted the player only needs to be in either 1st or 2nd Version, not both.  Appearances in the Fusion set don't count.

There are a total of 35 Hall Of Famers who appear as either a player or manager in at least one of BBM's "flagship" sets.  They are Koji Akiyama, Motoshi Fujita, Atsuya Furuta, Hiroshi Gondoh, Tatsunori Hara, Osamu Higashio, Tsuneo Horiuchi, Senichi Hoshino, Tsutomu Itoh, Hiromitsu Kadota, Masaichi Kaneda, Tomoaki Kanemoto, Manabu Kittabeppu, Sadao Kondoh, Kimiyasu Kudoh, Hideki Matsui, Masaaki Mori, Shigeo Nagashima, Rikuo Nemoto, Hideo Nomo, Katsuya Nomura, Hiromitsu Ochiai, Sadaharu Oh, Akira Ohgi, Yutaka Ohno, Masaki Saitoh, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Keichi Suzuki, Koichi Tabuchi, Morimichi Takagi, Kazuyoshi Tatsunami, Toshiharu Ueda, Tsutomu Wakamatsu, Hisashi Yamada, Koji Yamamoto and Yoshio Yoshida.  Kudoh has appeared in the most years - 25.  Kaneda and Kondoh each only appeared in one set (1991).

1991 BBM #56

With 22, 1991 is the set with the most Hall Of Famers.  They are Akiyama, Fujita, Furuta, Hara, Hoshino, Itoh, Kadota, Kaneda, Kitabeppu, Kondoh, Kudoh, Mori, Nomo, Nomura, Ochiai, Ohgi, Ohno, Saitoh, Sasaki, Tabuchi, Tatsunami and Yamamoto.

1994 BBM #132

The 1994 set has the second most Hall Of Famers - 21.  They are Akiyama, Furuta, Hara, Itoh, Kanemoto, Kitabeppu, Kudoh, Matsui, Mori, Nagashima, Nemoto, Nomo, Nomura, Ochiai, Ohgi, Ohno, Saitoh, Sasaki, Suzuki, Takagi and Tatsunami.

1992 BBM #146

1993 BBM #130

1995 BBM #50

1998 BBM #520

Four sets are tied for third with 20 Hall Of Famers apiece.  The 1992 set has Akiyama, Fujita, Furuta, Hara, Itoh, Kadota, Kitabeppu, Kudoh, Mori, Nomo, Nomura, Ochiai, Ohgi, Ohno, Saitoh, Sasaki, Tabuchi, Takagi, Tatsunami and Yamamoto.  The 1993 set dropped Fujita, Kadota, Ohgi and Tabuchi and replaced them with  Matsui, Nagashima, Nemoto and Suzuki (literally in one case - Suzuki took over as manager of Kintetsu from Ohgi).  The 1995 set has the same group as the 1994 set except that it dropped Kitabeppu, Mori, Nemoto and Nomo and picked up Higashio, Oh and Ueda.  The 1998 set has Akiyama, Furuta, Gondoh, Higashio, Hoshino, Itoh, Kanemoto, Kudoh, Matsui, Nagashima, Nomura, Ochiai, Oh, Ohgi, Ohno, Saitoh, Sasaki, Tatsunami, Ueda and Yoshida.

There has not yet been a BBM flagship set that didn't feature at least two Hall Of Famers.  Last year's set had Hara and Kudoh (who coincidentally faced off in last year's Nippon Series.  It was the first time that both managers were Hall Of Famers at the time since Nagashima and Oh faced off in 2000 although there have been a number of match ups since then where the manager was elected to the Hall Of Fame after the Series).  Barring any unexpected developments in the next month (like a major sign stealing scandal involving the Giants and/or the Hawks) I would expect that the 2020 set will also include two Hall Of Famers.  The last Hall Of Famer to appear in a BBM set as a player was Kanemoto in 2012.

I intend to do a new instance of this post after the Hall Of Fame vote each year although given the glacial pace of new inductees I don't expect it to change much.  If I get really ambitious I'll try doing it with the Calbee sets!

2020 Hall Of Fame Class

The 2020 Hall Of Fame Class was announced today.  No one got enough votes on the "Players Division" ballot to be elected (Shingo Takatsu was seven votes shy of the 266 necessary for election) but former Hanshin Tiger and Seibu Lion Koichi Tabuchi was elected on the "Expert Division" ballot.  In addition there were two former Tokyo Big 6 managers elected via the Special Division ballot - Yukichi Maeda of Keio and Renzo Ishii of Waseda.

Tabuchi was the first round pick of the Tigers in the 1968 draft out of Hosei University (and is the fifth Hall Of Famer from that round, following Hisashi Yamada, Koji Yamamoto, Senichi Hoshino and Osamu Higashio.  Meikyukai member Michio Arito was another first rounder that year).  He debuted with the Tigers in 1969 and was named Rookie Of The Year.  He was with Hanshin until after the 1978 season, making the All Star team 9 times and being elected to the Best 9 team five times.  He also led the Central League in home runs in 1975, the only time in the 16 years between 1962 and 1977 that Sadaharu Oh didn't lead the league.  He was traded to the Seibu Lions in the 1978-79 off season in the deal that sent Akinobu Mayumi to Hanshin.  Seibu had just bought the Lions and moved them from Fukuoka to Tokorazawa and I've always felt that they acquired Tabuchi and Katsuya Nomura for the 1979 season to show that they were serious about building a winning team.  He made the All Star team two more times with the Lions and helped them win back-to-back Nippon Series in 1982-83.  He retired following the 1984 season with 474 career home runs, the 11th most in NPB history (and I think he was sixth or seventh on the list when he retired).  He managed the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks from 1990-92 and coached for the Tigers and Eagles as well as the 2008 Olympic baseball team, all with his friend Senichi Hoshino as manager.

Here's a couple cards showing him after different stages of his career:

2011 BBM Legend Of Tokyo Big 6 #051

1974/75 Calbee #344

1976 Yamakatsu JY1

1984 Calbee #72

1992 BBM #209

Card Of The Week January 12

I picked up this card off of Ebay recently.  It's of Toshio "Andy" Miyamoto, a nisei player with the Giants from 1955 to 1962 and the Kokutetsu Swallows from 1963 to 1964.  He was a three time All Star (1956-58), led the Central League in RBIs in 1956 and 1957 and was MVP of the 1961 Nippon Series.  He's one of a number of foreign players from that era that I've been puzzled that BBM has never included in any sets, especially since as far as I know he's still alive and could sign autographs for them. 

I didn't know what set this card was from when I bought it but I was struck by the color image on it.  I assumed the card was a bromide and the color images on most bromides are hand colored and don't look as realistic as this image does. 

I received the card in the mail the other day and was surprised at how big it was.  It's about 7 1/2 inches tall and about 5 inches in width.  It's also on much thinner paper than most of the other bromides I have.  I started looking through the latest edition of Engel to see if I could it among the bromides but I didn't find any set that it looked like.  I went into the "Vintage Food, Candy And Gum Cards" section and it was there that I found something that looked promising.  There's a set called "JF 25: 1959 Fujiya Color Signature and Printed Name Caramel Premiums" that certainly appeared to be the source of this card, especially when I finally noticed the "Fujiya" logo in the lower left corner of the card front.  The size was right and the description of the cards matched.  One problem though - Miyamoto isn't listed as being in the set.

However Engel lists the set as having "31+" cards - the "+" is an indication that Gary Engel believes that the set has more cards that what he knows about.  So I decided to send a scan of the card to Gary and ask him what he thought.  I got a reply back in about an hour letting me know that I had discovered a previously uncatalogued JF 25 card and he'd be adding it to the Guide.  So since I found something on Ebay to be interesting looking because of the color image there's another card known to the hobby.

Shogo Akiyama Of The Cincinnati Reds

Lions outfielder Shogo Akiyama has signed a three year deal with the Cincinnati Reds.  Akiyama was the Lions third pick in the 2010 draft out of Hachinohe Gakuin University.  He made his debut with the ichi-gun team on Opening Day, April 12th, 2011 (Opening Day was pushed back a couple weeks that season due to the March 11th earthquake) and got his first professional hit the next day.  He bounced around between the farm team and the ichi-gun team some his first few seasons but he had a breakout season in 2015 when he broke the NPB single season record for hits (held by Matt Murton with 214).  He hit .359 that season which I think was second only to Yuki Yanagita's .363.  He's been a mainstay in the Lions's lineup ever since although his average has dropped a bit as his power numbers have increased.  He's a five time All Star (2015-19), been named to the Best 9 team four times (2015, 2017-19) and won six Golden Gloves  (2013,2015-19).  He won the Pacific League batting crown in 2017 and has led the league in hits four times (2015 - obviously, 2017-19).  He's played for Samurai Japan in the 2015 Premier 12 and the 2017 World Baseball Classic - he would have played in this past fall's Premier 12 but he broke his foot in a pre-tournament exhibition game and had to drop out.

His first card was #014 in the 2011 BBM Rookie Edition set.  His other appearances in 2011 sets include the 1st Version (#051). 2nd Version (#490) and Lions team set (#L67 and #L81) from BBM, the Series Two set (#86) from Calbee and the Baseball Heroes Opening Version White set (#B11RW023) from Konami.  He's been in every BBM 1st and 2nd Version set and had at least one regular Calbee card every year since 2011.  He is one of only three players to appear in all three of Calbee's Samurai Japan sets (2016, 2017 & 2019) - the other two are Testuto Yamada and Yasuaki Yamasaki.  He also had a card from the 2017 Topps Now Team Japan set (#JPN-7).  As usual, TradingCardDB.com has a fairly good list of his cards.  Here's a selection of them:

2011 BBM Rookie Edition #014

2011 BBM 1st Version #051

2011 BBM 2nd Version #490

2011 SCM #180

2012 Lions Winning Game Card #60

2013 Front Runner Lions Rookies & Young Stars #17

2014 BBM Impact Of Lions Blue #09

2015 Calbee #035

2016 BBM Lions #L78

2017 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-35

2018 Epoch Lions Rookies & Stars #64

2019 Epoch One #461/SL-053

Kwang-Hyun Kim Of The St Louis Cardinals

SK Wyverns pitcher Kwang-Hyun Kim signed a two year deal with the St Louis Cardinals a couple weeks ago.  Kim was the first round pick of SK out of high school in the 2007 KBO draft and has spent his entire career with the team.  He had some really good seasons from 2008-10, going 45-13 with sub-3 ERAs over the three seasons.  Injuries cost him some time over the next few years and he became a less effective pitcher, posting ERAs in the 3's and 4's before he eventually needed Tommy John surgery after the 2016 season.  He missed the entire 2017 season while recovering but pitched pretty well in his 2018 return, going 11-8 with a 2.98 ERA and 130 strikeouts in 136 innings.  He followed that up with one of his best seasons ever in 2019, going 17-6 with a 2.51 ERA and 180 strikeouts in 190 1/3 innings.

He led the KBO in victories in 2008 and 2010, ERA and Winning Percentage in 2009 and strikeouts in 2008.  He was the KBO MVP in 2008 and won the "Best Pitcher" award (this has been called the "KBO Victory Award" since 2015 but I'm not quite sure what it was called before that) in 2008 and 2010.  He also won a Golden Glove in 2008.  He played on the Korean National Team for the 2008 Olympics, the 2009 World Baseball Classic and both the 2015 and 2019 Premier 12 tournaments.

The Cardinals signed Kim via the posting system but this was not the first time SK had posted him.  They posted him following the 2014 season and the Padres won the bidding rights to him but were unable to reach an agreement with him.

As a member of the 2009 Korean WBC team, Kim already has some US based cards.  He appeared in the Bowman Chrome WBC Prospects insert set and there's apparently 11 different parallel versions of his base cards.  There's also a couple different memorabilia cards for him in various Topps issues that year.  He also appeared in the Konami WBC Heroes set that year in Japan.  His first KBO card was from the 2010 KBO Game set.  He's pretty much been a regular in the KBO sets from Ntreev/Duael/SMG (Superstar Baseball) between 2014-16 and SCC between 2018-19.  TradingCardDB.com has a good list of his cards.  Here's a selection of them:

2009 Bowman Chrome #BCW34

2009 Konami WBC Heroes #W09R123

2010 KBO Game #AW-001

2014-15 Superstar Baseball Blue Edition #SBCBE-193-N

2015 Superstar Baseball Season Two Sticker

2016-17 Superstar Baseball Black Edition #SBCBK-028-AS

2018 SCC KBO Collection #SCCR-01/100

2019 SCC Premium #SCCP1-19/004

Shun Yamaguchi Of The Toronto Blue Jays

Yomiuri Giants pitcher Shun Yamaguchi signed a two year deal with the Toronto Blue Jays a couple of weeks ago.  Yamaguchi was the first round pick of the Yokohama Baystars in the high school portion of the 2005 draft out of Yanagaura High School.  He made his ichi-gun debut with the Baystars in June of 2006 but he spent most of his first couple seasons with the farm team.  In 2009 he made 51 appearances as a setup man in the Baystars' bullpen and moved into the closer role the next season, notching 86 saves between 2010 and 2012.  His effectiveness as closer kind of fell apart over the next season and a half though and he was moved into the starting rotation in the second half of the 2014 season and remained there for the remaining seasons he was in Yokohama.

Following the 2016 season he left as a free agent and moved north to Tokyo, signing a three year deal with the Yomiuri Giants.  His first season was a mixed bag - he missed the first part of the season due to a shoulder injury but combined with Scott Mathieson and Arquimedes Caminero to no hit the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks.  He got himself suspended for the second half of the season after a drunken incident resulted in a broken hospital door.  He bounced back in 2018, throwing a no-hitter all by himself on July 27th against Chunichi and had the best season of his career in 2019, going 15-4 with a 2.91 ERA 188 strikeouts in 170 innings.  He led the Central League in wins and strikeouts last year and was named to the Best 9 team.  He also pitched in a Nippon Series and played for Samurai Japan for the first time last year.  He made the All Star team in 2019 after previously making it in 2010 and 2011 (he was selected in 2016 but declined).

His first card was #68 from the 2006 BBM Rookie Edition set.  His other rookie cards from 2006 are BBM 1st Version #320, BBM Baystars #YB02 and #YB79 and Calbee #261.  He's been in either or both of the 1st and 2nd Version sets in every year since his rookie season except 2008.  TradingCardDB.com's list of his cards is here.  Here's some assorted cards from his career:

2006 BBM Rookie Edition #68

2006 BBM 1st Version #320

2009 BBM Baystars #YB03

2011 BBM All Stars #A51

2013 Calbee #108

2015 Baystars Team Issue #105

2018 Epoch One #422/YG-064

2019 BBM Giants #G72

I want to note that he's wearing a Shonan Searex uniform on his 2006 BBM 1st Version card.  The Baystars had sold the naming rights to their farm team to Shonan between 2001 and 2010 so they were called the Searex during that period.

The Epoch One card commemorates his no-hitter against the Dragons.

Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh Of The Tampa Bay Rays

Finally trying to get caught up on the recent MLB signings...

Yokohama DeNA Baystars outfielder Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh signed a two year deal with the Tampa Bay Rays back in mid-December.  Tsutsugoh was a first round pick out of Yokohama High School by his hometown team back in 2009 and has spent his entire career with the Baystars.  He spent most of 2010 with the Baystars farm team in Yokosuka although he made his debut with the ichi-gun team that October, hitting his first home run against the Hanshin Tigers on October 7th.  He was originally a corner infielder but injuries and other players limited his opportunities for playing time in his first couple seasons.  Manager Kiyoshi Nakahata moved him to the outfield in 2014 and he responded with a breakout season, hitting .300 with 22 home runs and 77 RBIs.  He improved on that in 2015 with a .317 average, 24 home runs and 95 RBIs and had his best year in 2016 with a .322 average, 44 home runs and 110 RBIs.  He's a five time All Star (2015-19), been named to the Best 9 team three times (2015-17), and led the Central League in home runs and RBIs in 2016.  He's played in one Nippon Series (2017) and represented Japan in the 2015 Premier 12 and the 2017 World Baseball Classic.  He won an All Star Game MVP award in 2016 and was one of the WBC first round MVPs in 2017.

Tsutsugoh's first card is from the 2010 BBM Rookie Edition set (#042).  His other 2010 BBM cards include two cards in the 1st Version set (#212 & #476) as well as a card in 2nd Version (#617) and five cards in the Baystars team set (#YB54, #YB80, #YB88, #YB89, #YB90).  He's been in every BBM Baystars team set since then 2010.  He was only in 1st Version in 2011, was in both 1st and 2nd in 2012, only in 1st Version in 2013, only in 2nd Version in 2014 and has been in both 1st and 2nd Version every year since then.  His first appearance on a Calbee card is one of the checklists (#C-1) of the 2011 Series One set which shows him hitting his first home run on October 7th, 2010 but his first actual player card wasn't until 2012 (#141).  He's had at least one card in every Calbee set since 2012 although he only had a "Title Holder" card in 2017, not a regular player card.  He's also appeared in sets from Bandai, Konami, Epoch and Front Runner over the years.  TradingCardsDB.com has a good list of a lot of his cards.

I'm going to do something a little similar to what I did last year for Yusei Kikuchi and concentrate the first part of this post on his early cards:

2010 BBM Rookie Edition #042

2010 BBM 1st Version #212

2010 BBM 1st Version #476

2010 BBM 2nd Version #617

2010 SCM #156

2012 Calbee #141

Since he played in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, Tsutsugoh already has a number of American cards.  For the second part of this post I wanted to concentrate on those.  If we include memorabilia cards, he had seven different cards from Topps in 2017 - the Topps Now Team Japan set (#JPN-4), the Bowman Paper Prospects card (#BP62 which had some ridiculous number of parallels including Chrome), a Museum Collection Quad Relic (#WBCQR-YT with three parallels), a Allen & Ginter WBC Relic (#WBCR-YT with a "framed mini" parallel), a Triple Threads WBC Relic (#WBCR-YT with five parallel versions), a Triple Threads WBC Combo Relic with Hayato Sakamoto and Tetsuto Yamada (#WBC-SYT with five parallel versions) and a Diamond Icons Single-Player Relic (#SR-YT with two parallels).  Here's what I have of these:

2017 Topps Now Team Japan #JPN-4

2017 Bowman Paper Prospects #BP62

2017 Topps Allen & Ginter #WBCR-YT

2017 Topps Triple Threads #WBC-SYT