Card Of The Week April 11

A little over a year ago I got curious about what was the oldest BBM flagship set that had contained a card of a currently active NPB player.  The answer last year was the 1998 set which had Ryota Igarashi's rookie card.  With Igarashi's retirement, the oldest BBM set to contain a card of an active player is now the 1999 set which has the rookie cards for both Kosuke Fukudome (#310) and Daisuke Matsuzaka (#413) - although whether Matsuzaka should be considered "active" is an open question as this is his second season on Seibu's roster but he hasn't even pitched with the farm team during that time:

Both of these cards were on my short list for inclusion in my "One Iconic Card For Each Team" post.

As I said last year, this statistic only started to be interesting in recent years.  Until 2016, the answer was always 1991.  But after both Satoshi Nakajima and Masahiro Yamamoto retired in 2015, the answer moved up to 1994 (Kazuya Fukuura, Kazuo Matsui and Daisuke Miura) and remained there until last year (Muira retired after 2016, Matsui after 2018 and Fukuura after 2019).

If these two guys retire this year, the answer next year is likely to skip at least one year as no member of the 2000 NPB rookie class is still active in the league (although at least two - Munenori Kawasaki and Itsuki Shoda - are still active in independent ball). 

One Iconic Baseball Card For Every Team

As part of Topps' 70th Anniversary, MLB.com had an article up earlier this week that listed "One Iconic Baseball Card For Each Team".  I thought it might be interesting to do something similar for NPB.

I'm not entirely sure how MLB.com decided that these cards were iconic - they had asked fans and members of their staff to submit their favorites cards but "favorite" doesn't necessarily equal "iconic".  Some of their choices are kind of odd - the Yankees' card is Don Mattingly's 1984 Topps rookie card and not the expected 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle and their White Sox card (Frank Thomas' 1990 Topps draft pick card) doesn't actually show a player in a White Sox uniform.  Actually, neither does the Royals card - must be something about guys from Auburn.  In their defense, the article says they're showing "an" iconic card for each team, not "the" iconic card for each team.

I'm going to use that same caveat - here's "an" iconic card for each NPB team.  Some teams were pretty obvious while others , especially Chunichi, Hanshin and Lotte, were a lot more difficult.  I tried to stay away from going too heavy on the rookie cards but there's a couple I just didn't feel I could ignore.  I decided to not only do the 12 current NPB teams but also the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes.  Please feel free to let me know which obvious cards I missed because I'm sure I missed some.

Chiba Lotte Marines: Kazuya Fukuura, 1994 BBM #529

As I said before, it was hard to come up with a card for Lotte.  I ended up picking Fukuura's rookie card because he played for the Marines for 26 years and I've always been amused that he started out as a pitcher (not that that's that unusual in Japan). 

Chunichi Dragons: Shinichi Kondoh, 1987 Calbee #204

The Dragons were another difficult team.  I originally thought about going with Hiromitsu Ochiai's 2011 BBM All Star card showing him at his Hall Of Fame induction but I decided instead to pick this card of Shinichi Kondoh instead.  Kondoh had pitched a no-hitter in his NPB debut against the Giants on August 9th, 1987 and the event was commemorated on this card.  That same photo has been used on several different BBM OB cards over the last 10-15 years.

Fukuoka Softbank Hawks: Sadaharu Oh, 2001 Upper Deck #154

I had a couple possible Hawks cards - this 1985 Calbee Hiromitsu Kadota card or this 2019 Epoch One Kenji Akashi one - but I decided instead to go with a card I fell in love with the second I pulled it out of a pack almost 20 years ago.  The 2001 Upper Deck set is beautiful and this is just a great looking card.

Hanshin Tigers: Gene Bacque, 1967 Kabaya-Leaf #102

I was trying to come up with a Randy Bass card for Hanshin but I didn't like any of the ones I had.  So instead I went with another gaijin Tiger.  And pretty much EVERY card from the 1967 Kabaya-Leaf set is iconic.

Hiroshima Toyo Carp: Sachio Kinugasa, 1987 Calbee #325

Like the Kondoh card from the same set, this card's iconic more because the image is iconic.  This card commemorates Kinugasa breaking Lou Gehrig's consecutive game played streak on June 13th, 1987.  As with Kondoh, I have other cards showing this image although this is the only one from the year it happened.

Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters: Shohei Ohtani, 2013 BBM 1st Version #183

As I said, I didn't want to pick a lot of rookie cards but there were a couple I couldn't ignore.

Orix Buffaloes: Ichiro Suzuki, 1993 BBM #239

Like I said, some rookie cards I couldn't ignore.  And I still need to upgrade this card to one that's not miscut.

Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes: Hideo Nomo, 1991 BBM #379

An argument could be made that this is NOT Hideo Nomo's rookie card since he had a card in the 1990 Takara Buffaloes set but this is probably the Nomo card in most demand. 

Saitama Seibu Lions: Koji Akiyama, 1991 BBM Nippon Series #S58

Lots of candidates for the Lions but I decided to again go with a card I loved.  Koji Akiyama did back flips when he hit a home run against the Carp in the Nippon Series in both 1986 and 1991.  I don't know if he ever did a back flip after any other home runs.

Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles: Masahiro Tanaka, 2007 BBM 1st Version #211

Another rookie card that was impossible to ignore.

Tokyo Yakult Swallows: Atsuya Furuta, 1991 BBM All Stars #445

Like Nomo, Atsuya Furuta's rookie year was 1990 but unlike his 1988 Olympic team battery-mate, Furuta didn't have any cards issued that year so his rookie cards are indisputably from 1991.  There's an interesting thing about his 1991 BBM All Star card and you can probably figure it out if I mention that Furuta is not left handed.  In 2000 as I think was part of the celebration of their 10th anniversary, BBM issued a corrected card in an issue of Sports Card Magazine:

Yokohama DeNA Baystars: John Sipin, 1975/76 Calbee #345

This was another team that was difficult to pick a card for but I decided to go with this one.  Between the green and gold uniform and Sipin's muttonchops, this card just screams 1970's.  You could argue it's the Japanese equivalent of MLB.com's Indians card, especially since it's a using a pseudo-1975 Topps design.

Yomiuri Giants: Shigeo Nagashima, 1973 Calbee #1

As soon as I thought about doing this post, I knew I'd be including this card.  It's the first card in the first ever Calbee set and it shows Nagashima in an odd pose that's been duplicated on cards at least three times that I know of by two different players.

Tomomi Takahashi

You'd be forgiven if you had thought Lions pitcher Tomomi Takahashi had retired before the end of last season - he's been on Seibu's ikusei roster the last two years.  Takahashi had spent a couple seasons playing for Seino Transportation of the industrial leagues after graduating from Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University and was the Lions fourth pick in the 2012 draft.  He made his debut with the ichi-gun team midway through the 2013 season and by the middle of 2014 he was the Lions closer.  He finished the year with 29 saves and an ERA of 2.01.  He came in second to Ayumu Ishikawa in the Pacific League Rookie Of The Year voting that year and made the roster of the Samurai Japan team that took on the MLB All Stars in November.  

He recorded 22 saves for the Lions in 2015 and made the All Star team but lost his closer job to Kazuhisa Makita in the middle of the season.  He suffered a fractured leg late in the season that prevented him from playing for Japan in the inaugural Premier 12 that fall.  His leg was healed in time for the start of the 2016 season but he blew out his elbow in late April and needed Tommy John surgery which kept him off the field for a year.  He spent most of the second half of 2017 with the farm team but made a couple appearances with the top team at the end of the year.  He hurt his shoulder in his first appearance in 2018 and missed the rest of the season.  The Lions released him at the end of the year and then signed him as a development (ikusei) player.  He was still unable to get healthy though and didn't pitch at all in 2019.  His only pitching appearance in 2020 was his retirement game in which he threw one 66 mph pitch that Israel Mota of the Giants flied out on.  

His first cards were in the 2013 BBM Rookie Edition (#51) and 1st Version (#215) sets.  His first Calbee card was from the limited edition "Guardian" box set that was associated with the 2014 Series Three set - they only sold on this set on their online Amazon.co.jp store.  His only "normal" Calbee cards were in the 2015 Series One (#034) and 2016 Series Two (#094) sets.  Here's a small selection of his cards:

2013 BBM Rookie Edition #51

2013 BBM 1st Version #215

2013 BBM Lions #L23

2014 Front Runner Lions Rookies & Young Stars #11

2015 Lions Fan Club #43

2016 Calbee ##094

2018 Epoch Lions Rookies & Stars #25

I figure that the photos from his 2013 1st Version and Lions cards must have been taken within seconds of each other.

Jeong Keun-Woo

Jeong Keun-Woo, most recently with the LG Twins and longtime mainstay of the Korean National Team, retired at the end of last season.  Jeong was originally drafted by the SK Wyverns in 2004 and made his debut with the team the following season and by mid-2006 was the team's regular second baseman.  He remained with SK during their "dynasty years" in the late 00's/early 10's when they made the Korea Series six years in a row from 2007 to 2012 and won it three times (2007, 2008 & 2010).  He left for the Hanwha Eagles as a free agent after the 2013 season and spent six years in Daejeon.  He spent the 2020 season with the LG Twins.

He won three Golden Gloves at second base during his career (2006, 2009 and 2013).  He never led the league in stolen bases but he had more than 20 steals in a season for 11 straight seasons (2006 to 2016) which is a KBO record.  His 371 career steals are tied for the sixth most all time in Korea.

He played in five major international tournaments as a professional - the 2006, 2009 and 2013 World Baseball Classics, the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2015 Premier 12 - and was part of the gold medal winning team in 2008 and 2015.  He played a key part in Korea's shocking comeback from being down 3-0 to Japan in the Premier 12 semi-final game, hitting a double to knock in the team's first run of the game in the top of the ninth and then later scoring the tying run as Korea rallied to score four runs that inning and hold on to win the game 4-3.

His first card that I know about is from the 2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC set.  This is also the only card of him with the National Team that I know about.  His first cataloged Korean card is from the 2010 KBO game set.  He appears fairly regularly in the official KBO cards from Duall/SMG/Ntreev from 2012-16 and SCC from 2018-20.  Here's all the cards I have of him:

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC #W09R131

2010 KBO Game Set #AW-005

2014 Superstar Baseball Season Two #SBC02-113

2015 Superstar Baseball Season One #SBC1501-136-N

2015 Superstar Baseball Hell's Fireball #PA01-HA004

2016 Superstar Baseball Diamond Winners #PA02-HA001

2016 Superstar Baseball Forever Ace #PA03-HA004

2018 SCC KBO Collection #SCCR-01/185

2018 SCC KBO Collection 2 Black #SCCR-02B/098

2019 SCC KBO Premium Collection #SCCP1-19/060

2020 SCC KBO Premium Collection #SCCP1-20/T14

Hisashi Iwakuma

Back to the retirement posts...

Hisashi Iwakuma announced his retirement last season.  He was a fifth round pick of the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes in the 1999 draft out of Horikoshi High School.  He made his ichi-gun debut in 2001 and was Kintetsu's starter in Game 2 of the Nippon Series that year, the only game the Buffaloes won (although he didn't pitch well as the Swallows got three runs off of him in 2 1/3 innings).  He had his best season in Osaka in 2004, going 15-2 with an ERA of 3.01, leading the Central League in wins and winning a Best 9 award and the Most Valuable Pitcher award.  It was his last season with Kintetsu as the team "merged with" the Orix BlueWave ("was absorbed by" is more accurate).  He was taken by Orix in the distribution draft held for Orix and Kintetsu players but he refused to join the team.  He wanted to join the new Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles because his father-in-law (Koju Hirohashi) was a coach with them.  Eventually a deal was worked out where Rakuten bought his rights from Orix.  

He started (and won) the Eagles' first game ever in 2005.  After a couple seasons where he struggled with injuries he had another monster year in 2008, going 21-4 with an ERA of 1.87 ERA, leading the league in wins and ERA.  He cleaned up in awards that season as well, winning Best 9 and Most Valuable Pitcher awards again along with the Sawamura Award and the Pacific League MVP.  Rakuten posted him following the 2010 season but he was unable to reach an agreement with the winning bidder Oakland and he returned to Sendai for the 2011 season.  

He joined the Seattle Mariners as a free agent for the 2012 season and spent seven seasons with them, although he missed a lot of 2017 and 2018 with injuries.  He threw a no-hitter against the Orioles in 2015.  He returned to Japan for the 2019 season and spent two years with the Yomiuri Giants.  His injuries continued to cost him playing time - he played in two games with the farm team in 2019 and no games at all in 2020.

He made the All Star team four times - three times in Japan (2003-04, 2008) and once in the US (2013).  He suited up for the Japanese National Team twice - the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2009 World Baseball Classic.  He was named to the All Tournament Team for the 2009 WBC.

His first card was #388 from the 2000 BBM set.  He didn't have another BBM flagship card until 2002 but starting that year he was in every 1st and 2nd Version set until 2011.  After he returned to Japan his only flagship appearance for BBM was in the 2019 1st Version set although he was also in Epoch's NPB set that year.  His first Calbee cards were #54 and #J-08 (from the "Jump Up To The Stars" subset) in the 2003 Series One set.  Here's a selection of his cards:

2000 BBM #388

2001 BBM Nippon Series #S38

2003 Calbee #AS-31

2005 BBM Eagles box set #E11

2007 Calbee #052

2009 BBM 1st Version #433

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC #W09A002

2011 BBM Touch The Game #M11

2020 BBM Giants #G08

Card Of The Week April 4

Carter Stewart Jr of the Hawks made his second start of 2021 with Softbank's farm team yesterday and threw 5 shutout innings against the Dragons, striking out five while walking one and giving up six hits.  He got the decision in the Hawks' 7-0 win over Chunichi.  It came almost two weeks after his first start when he gave up one run in two innings of work, striking out three while giving up four hits and a walk.  Here's the highlights of yesterday's game from Pacific League TV (subscribers can watch the whole game here):

Here's Stewart's card from last year's BBM Hawks set (#H02):

Spring Team Sets

There's been a bevy of new set announcements over the past few weeks, most of which are team sets.  Here's a quick round up of them:

- BBM has announced four more of their annual "comprehensive" team sets for 2021 - these are for the Lions, the Carp, the Baystars and the Giants.  The base sets for each one contains the standard 81 cards.  Each one also has at least two premium serially numbered insert sets associated with it - "Phantom" (15 cards each for the Lions and Baystars; 18 cards each for the Carp and Giants) and "Esperanza" (15 cards for each set).  The Lions set has 68 cards for the manager and players along with four subsets - "L's Pedigree" (five cards), "Powerhouse" (three cards), "Cannon Ball" (three cards) and "Road To 2000" (two cards - I assume for Takumi Kuriyama and Takeya Nakamura).  It also has three insert sets (other than the premium ones) - "High Road" (nine cards), "Evolver" (six cards), and "Heritage" (three cards).  The Carp set will have 69 cards for the players and manager plus a four card "Newcomer" subset and a eight card "Stats Leaders" one.  There are also three non-premium insert sets that are only generically defined on the website - a nine card "main players" one, a four card "pinch hitter" one and a five card "pitchers you can rely on" one.  The set also has another premium set called something like "Hyakka Ryoran" which has 24 cards that are each serially numbered to 50.  The Baystars base set is split into 66 cards for the manager and players, six "Destiny" cards, four "Flagship" cards and five "Advance" cards.  It will also have three non-premium insert sets - "Navigator" (nine cards), "Rising Tide" (six cards) and "Artisan" (three cards).   The Giants set has only 62 cards for the manager and players (27 of which have a foil facsimile autograph parallel version) along with one card for the mascots, a three card "Join The Team" subset, a seven card "Endeavor" subset, a four card "Good Competitor" subset and a four card "Overpowering Bats" subset.  The Giants set always has a bunch of associated insert sets and this year is no exception.  It has (*deep breath*) a nine card "Greatest Of Giants" set, a three card "Next Break" set, a three card "Iron Wall" set, a three card "Giants Succession" set, a 15 card "Cross Foil Signing" set, a two card "Combo Cross Foil Signing" set, a "Triple Cross Foil Signing" card, a three card "Triple X 2021" set (3D card I think) and a nine card "Super Metallic Giants" set (metal cards limited to the uniform number of the subject - so there are only six cards for Hayato Sakamoto, 18 cards for Tomoyuki Sugano, etc).  Add them all up and there's 81 total insert cards - same number of cards as in the base set.  I think that the "Foil Signing" cards are facsimile signatures simply because BBM didn't list them with the "special insert cards" but I could be mistaken.  The Lions, Carp and Baystars sets all have a variety of autograph cards available while the Carp set also has jersey cards.  The Giants set appears to only have bat relic cards available.  The Lions set will be out in late April, the Carp and Baystars sets will be out in mid-May and the Giants set will be out in late May.

- Epoch has announced three more of their "Rookies & Stars" team sets - the Tigers, the Lions and the Hawks.  I haven't seen the details on the Hawks set yet but I'm pretty confident that they are the same as the those for the other two sets.  Each of these sets has a base set of 36 cards, each of which has a parallel hologram version.  There are 12 different insert sets for each set as well.  There are four "Regular Printed Signature" sets ("Silver", "Gold", "Hologram" & "Variation Hologram") - there are 9 "Variation Hologram" cards and 18 each for the other three sets.  There are three 18 card "Metal Power" insert sets: "Silver", "Gold" (serially numbered to 50) and "Hologram" (serially numbered to 10) and three six card "Time To Shine Hologram" sets: "A" (serially numbered to 50), "B" (serially numbered to 15) and "C" (serially numbered to 5).  Finally there 6 "Gem" insert cards (each serially numbered to 15) and 6 "Black Gem" insert cards (each serially numbered to 5).  There are also four different types of autograph cards available - "Authentic" (looks like everyone in the base set has this type of autographed card), "Authentic 1-of-1" (again it looks like everyone in the set has literally one of these), "Rookie" and "Star" (there's a different number of these per team).  The Tigers set comes out on May 1st, the Lions set on May 15th and the Hawks set on May 22nd.

- Hits (or TIC or whatever) has announced a pair of their "Game Used Ball" team sets - the Swallows and the Baystars.  While these are from the same folks that do the "mini colored paper" sets of oversized cards, the sets contain standard sized cards.  Each set has a base set of 81 cards but only include a subset of the players on the team - 15 for the Swallows and 16 for the Baystars.  Each set also includes "special" (i.e. insert) cards although there's no description of what they are.  Both sets also have "rare" cards like raw photographs, autographs and (of course) game used ball relics.  It looks like each player in the set has autographed cards available and the Baystars set also features autographed cards of manager Daisuke Miura who is not in the base set.  The Swallows set hits the stores on May 22 followed by the Baystars set on June 5th.

- The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles are selling "Eagles Masahiro Tanaka Chips" at their ballpark this year.  You can buy a bag of potato chips for 450 yen ($4.50) that includes one of 18 cards of Masahiro Tanaka.  The first nine cards of the set feature highlights from Tanaka's career in Japan while the final nine cards show random photos of him on the field.  These are pretty pricey at the moment.  I've seen some auctions on Yahoo! Japan Auctions for them and the starting prices have been either 500 yen or 999 yen although I don't know if they've been selling or not.

- Lastly, Epoch One has returned for the fourth year.  As I've described them before, Epoch One is essentially the Japanese version of Topps Now - cards that are offered online for a limited time and have print runs limited to the number of cards that get ordered.  The main differences is the price (500 yen vs $9.99), the time the cards are available (three days vs 24 hours) and the fact that only a subset of the teams participate.  This year there will again be nine teams that the cards are produced for - the Dragons, Eagles, Fighters, Giants, Hawks, Lions, Marines, Swallows and Tigers.  This will be the first time the Eagles will have Epoch One cards but the Baystars have dropped out after one year.  In addition Epoch is doing two special versions of the cards although I'm not sure I fully understand what they're doing.  There's a "Holospectra" version of some of the cards that will sell for 3000 yen.  These will be serially numbered to only 10.  (They've done this for three years but I haven't really paid too much attention to it before now.)  There is also going to be a "Signature Team" edition that will be released probably after the season.  There will be a 12 to 14 card team set available for 30,000 yen that will contain 10 to 12 printed signature cards plus two "authentic" signatures.  The sets will be serially numbered to some low print run (the ones from last year were between 25 and 60).  The Carp haven't had "regular" Epoch One cards since 2019 but apparently there are plans for them to have one of these "Signature Team" editions this year.  For both the "Holospectra" and "Signature Team" issues Epoch urges you to "Please refrain from purchasing for resale."  I kind of suspect that that won't keep shops and collectors from flipping them.