Card Of The Week October 3

The then-first place Marines and then-second place Buffaloes played a three game series last week in Chiba and it did not got well for Lotte.  Orix beat them 5-2 on Tuesday and then pummeled them 15-2 on Wednesday.  Things were looking better for the Marines on Thursday as they took a 3-1 lead into the top of the ninth.  With two outs and two on, T-Okada stepped to the plate and this happened:

Yoshihisa Hirano came in in the bottom of the ninth and sealed the 4-3 Buffaloes victory with his 23rd save of the year.  The sweep put Orix back into a virtual tie with the Marines for first place.  The Buffaloes went on to sweep their weekend series against the Hawks while the Marines split two games with the Eagles (with a third game getting rained out) so Orix is now in first place with a game and a half lead.

T-Okada's real name is Takahiro Okada.  He was drafted by Orix back in 2005 and he changed his registered name to T-Okada in 2010 to avoid confusion with the team's new manager Akinobu Okada.  He's kept the name even though A-Okada has not been the Buffaloes' manager since 2012.  Here's his rookie card from the 2006 BBM 1st Version set (#144):

Carpet O'Cards - 500 Home Run Club

There's a guy on Twitter named George Bennett who periodically tweets out photos of "carpets o'cards" - a group of baseball cards laid out that share some sort of theme.  He did one a while back with all the 500 home run hitters from MLB arranged by the number of at bats it took them to reach the milestone.  I was inspired to emulate him with all the 500 home run hitters from NPB.  I arranged them in chronological order of them reaching the milestone though, mostly because I wasn't sure I could find the at bat totals.

I wanted to use a card from the same year that the player hit home run number 500 but that wasn't possible in the case of Katsuya Nomura and Sadaharu Oh as I don't have any cards from 1971 or 1972 respectively (there's a dry period in Japanese baseball card history between the end of menko in 1964 and the start of Calbee in 1973 where there were very few cards published).  And I have to admit to being surprised that Nomura reached 500 home runs before Oh did.  I don't think Oh passed Nomura for the career home run lead until 1973 or 1974.

Here's each card along with the date the player got his 500th home run:

Katsuya Nomura, July 2, 1971

1975/76/77 Calbee #1113

Sadaharu Oh, June 6, 1972

1973 Calbee #7

Isao Harimoto, September 28, 1980

1980 Yamakatsu JY12

Koji Yamamoto, July 26, 1985

1985 Calbee #192

Sachio Kinugasa, August 11, 1987

1987 Play Ball #9

Hiromitsu Kadota, August 15, 1989

1989 Lotte #40

Hiromitsu Ochiai, July 3, 1996

1996 BBM #318

Kazuhiro Kiyohara, April 29, 2005

2005 Calbee #049

Hideki Matsui, July 20, 2011

2011 BBM Hometown Heroes #013

Matsui's total includes the 332 home runs he hit in Japan and the 175 he hit in MLB.  He was playing for the Oakland Athletics when he hit #500 but I'm showing him in a Yomiuri uniform on a card issued in 2011 (or at least with a cover date of 2011 - the set was actually released in late 2010).

Card Of The Week September 26

20 years ago today, the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes clinched their fourth and final Pacific League pennant when pinch hitter Hirotoshi Kitagawa hit a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth against the Orix BlueWave, turning a 5-2 deficit into a 6-5 victory:

It had been 12 years since the Buffaloes had last won the pennant.  They fell to the Swallows in the Nippon Series in 5 games and three years later the team ceased to be, "merging" with Orix to become the Orix Buffaloes.

Kitagawa's home run has been featured a couple of times in BBM sets.  It was included in the "Great Records & Highlights" subset from BBM's 20th Anniversary set in 2010.  The entire game was featured in the third installment of BBM's "Greatest Games" series back in 2013.  The first card ever to show the home run (or at least Kitagawa celebrating it) was his card in the 2002 1st Version set (#194):

BONUS - While looking for Kitagawa's cards today I discovered that he had spent the 1996-97 off season playing for the Hilo Stars in the Hawaiian Winter League.

Fall Releases

I want to do a quick post to get caught up on the sets that have been announced in the last month or so.

- BBM's annual "Rookie Edition Premium" set will be released in late October.  As usual this is a box set containing 38 cards - a 36 card base set plus two "premium" cards.  The base set contains three "rookies" for each of the 12 teams - in this case "rookie" means 2020 draft pick so think Teruaki Satoh, Hiromi Itoh, Takahisa Hayakawa and Ryoji Kurabashi and not Hiroya Miyagi.  The two "premium" cards are either autograph or memorabilia cards.  It is limited to 3000 sets and unopened boxes retail for 16,500 yen ($150).

- BBM is issuing yet another in their "History" line of OB team sets.  This next one is called "Tigers History 1935-2021" and is the fifth "History" set overall and third this year.  The base set will contain 90 cards (just like the other four sets) which will be split into a "Tigers History" subset (7 cards), the Tigers OB players (71 cards) and the subset for active Tigers players (12 cards).  There are two non-premium insert sets - "Legend Of Tigers" (12 cards) and "Team Records" (9 cards) - along with four premium ones - "Phantom" (24 cards), "Cross Foil Signing" (27 cards), "Combo Cross Foil Signing" (6 cards) and "Triple Cross Foil Signing".  Note that the "Cross Foil Signing" cards have facsimile signatures - there are also real autograph cards available as well.  The set will be in stores in late October, making it three months in a row that BBM has released one of these "History" sets (the Dragons in August followed by the Marines in September).

- Baseball Magazine Sha, BBM's publisher, started publishing magazines in 1946.  BBM published a multi-sport set called "Masterpiece" in the fall of 2016 to celebrate the company's 70th Anniversary.  In the fall of each of the following years BBM published another multi-sport set called "Infinity".  Since the company is celebrating their 75th Anniversary this year, BBM has switched back to the "Masterpiece" name for this year's multi-sport set.  There isn't a great deal of information out about this year's set though - I don't know how big the set is or what the inserts are (although it looks like there will be 3D cards along with the "Phantom" cards).  It also looks like there will be autograph cards available.  The list of baseball players includes both OB and active players.  One name that pops out to me is Warren Cromartie, who hardly ever shows up in OB sets.  Other sports features in the set include professional wrestling, boxing, soccer, ice hockey, tennis, rugby, softball, judo, badminton, bowling, gymnastics, volleyball, basketball, table tennis, fencing, archery, skateboarding and horse racing.  The set will out in mid-November.

- Epoch has announced four more of their ultra high-end combination OB/active player team sets called "Stars & Legends".  The teams are the Hawks (out on October 16th), the Lions (October 30th), the Carp (November 6th) and the Giants (November 13th).  I believe that the boxes for the sets will retail for 16,500 yen ($150) and will contain four cards (and I think at least one of those is an autograph).  The Hawks base set has 44 cards, the Lions base set has 45 cards, the Carp base set has 56 cards and the Giants base set has 52 cards.  I think all the base cards are serially numbered.  Each set features the same five insert sets -  "Decomori Signature Black Vision (Gold)" (three cards each numbered to 15), "Decomori Signature Black Vision (Green)" (three cards each numbered to 5), "Decomori Signature Black Vision (Hologram)" (three 1-of-1 cards), "Gem" (six cards numbered to 15), and "Black Gem" (six cards also numbered to 15).  There's a number of different types of autograph cards available in each set and I think the Hawks and Carp sets have memorabilia cards available as well.  The Giants set has a variety of game used bat cards available.

2011 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version set - Where Are They Now?

Ten years ago this month BBM released their latest collegiate set, the Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version set.  It was their ninth collegiate set and the eighth to feature the Tokyo Big Six.  This would be the last set for the league that BBM would issue during the league's Fall season - the remaining sets would all be released in the spring.

The set contained 37 cards - a 36 card base set plus one of 12 possible insert cards.  The insert cards were either one of six "Tokyo Big 6 Heroes" cards (one active player per school) or one of six "Tokyo Big 6 Legends" cards (one OB player per school).  For the first time the base set did not include team cards so all 36 cards were player cards (six per team).

Of those 36 players, eight would go on to play in NPB.  Five of those eight had been featured in one or more of the previous Tokyo Big Six sets.  Seven of the eight players are still active although only five are currently playing in NPB.  Kohei Arihara is the first player featured in one of BBM's collegiate sets to go on to play in MLB.

This set marks the final appearance in a collegiate set for Yusuke Nomura.  I've frequently suggested  that BBM started doing collegiate sets so that they could make cards of Yuki Saitoh but an argument could be made (although not a particularly serious one) that they wanted to make cards of Nomura instead.  Nomura had cards in seven of BBM's first eight Tokyo Big Six sets - he had the most cards of any player in the sets.  (Saitoh had five cards which tied him for third place with nine other players.  The player with the second most cards, Keisuke Okazaki of Rikkio, never played in NPB.  His final collegiate card was also in this set.)

Here's the list of future NPB players from the set:

Player	College	Year	Drafted	Notes
Arihara, Kohei	Waseda	1	2014 Fighters 1st	Played for Fighters 2015-2020, Texas Rangers 2021-present.  2015 Rookie Of The Year.  Lead PL in wins in 2019.  All Star in 2016 & 2019
Fukutani, Koji	Keio	3	2012 Dragons 1st	Played for Dragons 2013-present.  All Star in 2014
Habu, Shohei	Waesda	4	2011 Carp 4th	Played for Carp 2012-18.
Itoh, Hayata	Keio	4	2011 Tigers 1st	Played for Tigers 2011-2020, Ehmine Mandarin Pirates 2021-present
Mikami, Tomoya	Hosei	4	2013 Baystars 4th	Spent two years with JX-ENOS after graduating.  Played for Baystars 2014-present.  All Star in 2014 & 2016
Nomura, Yusuke	Meiji	4	2011 Carp 1st	Played for Carp 2012-present.  2012 Rookie Of The Year.  Lead Central League in wins in 2016.  All Star in 2012 & 2016.  Named to Best 9 team in 2016
Shimauchi, Hiroaki	Meiji	4	2011 Eagles 6th	Played for Eagles 2012-present.  All Star in 2021
Takanashi, Yuhei	Waseda	1	2016 Eagles 9th	Spent two years with JX-ENOS after graduating.  Played for Eagles 2017-2020, Giants 2020-present.  All Star in 2021

Here's each of their cards from the set as well as a card of them in NPB.  As usual I tried to get the most recent card of theirs that I hadn't already shown when possible.  I'm also showing Mikami's "Tokyo Big Six Heroes" card since I pulled that from the box I bought.  Itoh and Shimauchi also had cards in that insert set but I don't have those.

2011 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #26

2020 BBM 1st Version #111

2011 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #02

2021 Epoch NPB #297

2011 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #29

2012 Front Runner Carp Starting Lineup #18

2011 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #05

2018 BBM Tigers #T63

2011 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #13

2011 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #SP03

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-14

2011 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #19

2021 Calbee #136

2011 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #22

2021 BBM 2nd Version #443

2011 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #27

2021 BBM 1st Version #171

 Four of the other 28 players in this set - Naoki Harada of Hosei, Masaki Miyamoto of Keio, Yuji Naka of Rikkio and Ikuhiro Takeda of Meiji - had their only cards ever in this set.  The other 24 players appear in at least one other collegiate set - Naoki Agata (Keio), Yota Hirahara (Rikkio), Ryosuke Itoh (Hosei), Shuhei Iwasaki (Tokyo), Yuki Jibiki (Waseda), Junishi Katori (Tokyo), Kenji Kawabe (Meiji), Kanji Kawai (Meiji), Masato Komura (Rikkio), Koichiro Matsumoto (Rikkio), Masataka Nakamura (Meiji), Hiroshi Nakashima (Meiji), Kensuke Ohno (Waseda), Keisuke Okazaki (Rikkio), Hayato Saitoh (Rikkio), Koki Sasaki (Waseda), Shota Suzuki (Tokyo), Yohei Tachi (Tokyo), Hisanori Takayama (Tokyo), Daisuke Takeuchi (Keio), Hiroshi Taki (Hosei), Kento Tatebe (Hosei), Shota Utsumi (Tokyo), and Ren Yamasaki (Keio).

Card Of The Week September 19

Swallows third baseman Munetaka Murakami hit his 35th home run of the season today against the Carp.  It was also the 100th home run of his career.  At the age of 21 years, seven months, Murakami is now the youngest player to reach that milestone.  Here's his rookie card from the 2018 BBM Swallows set (#S54):

RIP Satoshi "Fibber" Hirayama

Former Hiroshima Carp outfielder Satoshi "Fibber" Hirayama passed away earlier this week at age 91.  Hirayama was born in Exeter, California to Japanese immigrant parents.  He spent several years during World War II interred in the Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona.  He was a star athlete at both football and baseball at Fresno State and signed with the St Louis Browns after graduating.  He played one season with Stockton in the California League in 1952 before drafted into the Army.  Upon discharge he signed with the Carp at the urging of legendary Japanese-American baseball figure Kenichi Zenimura.

Hirayama was one of the first of the nisei Japanese-Americans who played in NPB during the 1950's and early 1960's.  He had a 10 year career with the Carp from 1955 to 1964 and made the All Star team twice (1956 and 1958).  His career was cut short by injury - he suffered nerve damage after running into a wall that damaged the vision in his right eye.  He coached for the Carp for one year after his playing days were over and later scouted for both the Angels and Carp.  He also had a stint running the Carp's Dominican Academy.

There are no modern cards of Hirayama available - other than Wally Yonamine the nisei players from the 1950's have pretty much been ignored in BBM and Epoch's OB sets - but he had several menko, bromide and gum cards during his playing career.  Here are the only two that I have:

1958 "Who Am I?" menko (JCM 54)

1959 JBR 5