Card Of The Week September 17

There were two events that I thought would make a good "Card Of The Week" topic this week but since I couldn't decide between them, I decided to do both of them.

On Thursday the Hanshin Tigers clinched the Central League pennant with a win over the Giants.  Manager Akinobu Okada's team won their first pennant since 2005 when they were managed by...Akinobu Okada.  The Central League didn't start doing playoffs until 2007 so the Tigers also clinched a spot in the Nippon Series that year by winning the pennant.  Here's Okada's card from the 2005 BBM Nippon Series set (#26) - that's Bobby Valentine, manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines on the right side of the photo.  The Marines swept the Tigers that year 4-0:

Yesterday, Chusei Mannami of the Fighters led off the bottom of the first inning against the Hawks with a solo home run.  The Hawks tied the game with a run in the fifth inning and the game remained knotted at 1 until the bottom of the ninth.  With one on and one out, Mannami stepped to the plate and did this:

Mannami became the first player in Pacific League history to both lead off and walk off a game with a home run.  The only other player to do it was Alonzo Powell of the Dragons in 1993.  Here's Mannami's rookie card from the 2019 Epoch NPB set (#105):

2023 BBM 2nd Version set

2023 BBM 2nd Version Set Summary

Size: 330 cards (cards numbered 337-600, the 30 cards of "Ceremonial First Pitch" subset are separately numbered FP01-FP30 and 36 cards for the "Cross Moon" subset are separately numbered CM37-CM72)
Cards Per Team: 19 (team card + 18 players)
Team Card Theme: Early Season Candids
Number Of Leader Cards: N/A
Checklists: 0
Subsets: 1st Version Update (36), Ceremonial First Pitch (30), Cross Moon (36)
Inserts: Mr Franchise (12), Fireworks (24), Kirinji (24), Combo Cross Foil Signing (12, #'d to 10), Treasure (12, #'d to 25), Foil Picturesque (12, #'d to 15)
Memorabilia Cards: Jersey cards for Kosei Shoji, Kota Yazawa and Shion Matsui plus a combination jersey card featuring all three of them.  I'm guessing that these are serially numbered and there's a rarer patch version of all of them but BBM's checklist doesn't indicate that.  There are autographed cards for players that use a landscape version of the "Cross Moon" cards that have print runs between 5 and 30 cards and other autograph cards that are #'d between 3 and 5.  There are autographed versions of sixteen of the "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards with print runs between 24 and 55 with a silver parallel autographed version that are #'d to 5.  There are also 8 players with autograph cards using the format for the autograph cards in the player's team set - these are mostly for players who BBM was not able to include autograph cards in their team set.

Parallels: 12 cards (one per team) have a "Secret" version which is a short printed photo variation.  12 other cards (also one per team) have an "Ultra Secret" version which is an even shorter printed photo variation.  12 addition cards have a "Super Ultra Secret: version which is a yet even more short printed photo variation.  108 of the "regular" and "1st Version Update" cards have SEVEN different facsimile autograph parallels - silver (unnumbered), gold (#'d to 100), blue (#'d to 75), hologram (#'d to 50), red (#'d to 25), purple (#'d to 10) and sky blue (1-of-1).  Each of these 108 cards also have a "kira" parallel - no signature but just a "kira" finish.  Note - the various "Secret" versions do not have the parallels.  Each "Cross Moon" card has two parallels - one that's #'d to 100 and a "1 of 1" version.  There are five different parallels for the "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards - holo (#'d to 300), silver (#'d to 200), gold (#'d to 100), silver holo (#'d to 50) and gold holo (#'d to 25).  The "Fireworks" inserts have seven parallels - "Gold" (#'d to 300), "Kiwi Green" (#'d to 200), "Blue" (#'d to 100), "Holo" (#'d to 50), "Red" (#'d to 25), "Royal Purple" (#'d to 10) and "Sky Blue" (1-of-1).  There are four parallels for the "Kirinji" inserts - "Gold" (#'d to 200), "Light Green" (#'d to 100), "Shrinking Gold" (#'d to 50) and "Shrinking Light Green" (#'d to 25).  The "Mr Franchise" inserts also have four parallels - "Gold" (#'d to 200), "Green" (#'d to 100), "Blue" (#'d to 50) and "Pink" (#'d to 25).

Notable Rookies: Tokumasa Chano, Hayate Matsui

BBM released their 2nd Version set, the middle installment of their annual three flagship sets back in the first week or so of August.  I received my set last week but I'm just now getting around to writing about it.

There aren't any surprises with this set as it pretty much follows the pattern of almost all the 2nd Version sets going back to 2015 - 216 "regular" player cards with 18 cards per team?  Check!  12 team checklist cards?  Check!  36 "1st Version Update" cards?  Check!  36 "Cross Something" cards?  Check and in this case Something is "Moon".  A random collection of Japanese celebrities throwing out the first pitch at a game?  Check!  The base set has a total of either 300 or 330 depending on whether you want to count the 30 short printed "First Pitch Ceremony" cards as part of the base set.

The regular player cards in the set look...ok, I guess.  Don't get me wrong, I like designs with mostly borderless photos but there's something that kind of annoys me about this design.  Maybe it's the big uniform number that dominates the nameplate part of the card.  I think this might have looked better moving the number to the lower right corner next to the nameplate rather than superimposed over the top of it.  The photos are a bit of a mixed bag as well - not nearly as many interesting photos as 1st Version had.  I do like that they have a number of horizontally formatted cards.  Here's some examples:

#512

#427

#475

#460

#556

#408

Here's what the backs look like - they the player's stats from this season up until May 15th:

35 of the 216 players with "regular" cards did not appear in 1st Version.  Most of these are Japanese players who had maybe more of an impact on the first two months of the season than BBM had expected while some of the others are new foreign players like Frank Schwindel and Jharel Cotton of Orix.  As always I'm not sure why BBM decides to give some players who weren't in 1st Version "regular" 2nd Version cards and others "1st Version Update" cards although I kind of feel like BBM treats the "1st Version Update" cards as more of the "cards of record" for a player so I think they try to put the "bigger" players there.

That's a good segue into the "1st Version Update" subset.  The "1st Version Update" subset contains 36 cards (3 per team) using the 1st Version design featuring players who didn't appear in that set.  A couple of these are new foreign players - Luis Perdomo of Lotte, Marwin Gonzalez of Orix - but there's a lot fewer of those this year than there's been the last couple seasons.  The subset also includes Ariel Martinez of the Fighters who I think didn't make the 1st Version set since he was playing in the WBC for Cuba and Hirokazu Sawamura of Lotte who apparently signed with the team too late for 1st Version.  None of the guys who are most likely to win the Rookie Of The Year awards - Shunpeita Yamashita of Orix, Shoki Murakami of Hanshin and Yuto Akihiro of Yomiuri - were in 1st Version but all three show up in this subset.  There's a number of veterans included like Shingo Kawabata of Yakult, Yuito Mori and Ryuya Kurihara of Softbank, Ryuhei Matsuyama of the Carp and Kazuki Mishima of DeNA.  There's a couple former development (ikusei) players who were moved to their team's 70 man roster.  Two of them - Hayate Matsui of Yomiuri and Takumasa Chano of Orix - were 2022 draft picks and so feature the "rookie" icon on the front of their cards.  Here's a couple examples from this subset:

#365

#338

#361

Once again the theme for the team cards can best be described as "Early Season Highlights".  A little more than half of them appear to show a post game victory celebration:

#595

For the roughly billionth year in a row, BBM has done a cross set subset and this year's iteration is called "Cross Moon".  Half of it was in the 1st Version set and the other half is in this one.  As I said when I wrote about it in my post on the 1st Version set, the "Cross Moon" cards aren't unattractive but I'm more than ready for BBM to move onto the their next gimmick.

#CM72

At 30 cards, I think this year's "First Pitch Ceremony" subset is the largest one ever.  This is the fourth time that the subset has been short printed and it probably accounted for 40 to 50 per cent of the 5000 yen I paid for the set.  As usual most of the people in the subset are Japanese celebrities who have no relationship to baseball although I was pleased that four cards featured baseball subjects - Randy Bass, Hideki Kuriyama, Hideki Matsui and Wakana Mori of the Tigers' Women's Team.  The other celebrities are Idols Shiori Kubo and Haruka Kaki from Nogizaka46 and Karen Hara from NMB48; Gravure Idols Risa Yukihira and Honoka; actors Akiyoshi Nakao, Katsuhiro Higo and Junpei Mizobata; actresses Rika Adachi, Yuna Taira, Ayano Kudo, Minami Sakuma and Akane Sakanoue; singers Nanase Aikawa and Marina Kawano; voice actors Ryota Osaka, Yuki Ono and Machico (the latter two are also singers); comedian Keisuke Okada; comedy duo Pekopa; YouTubers Toshimitsu (from Tokai On Air) and Koyakky's Studio; MMA fighter Hideo Tokoro; climber Yoki Tanaka; golfer Kumiko Kaneda and figure skater Kaori Sakamoto.  Several of these celebrities were in earlier "First Version Ceremony" subsets - Kubo was in 2020 Fusion and 2021 2nd Version, Honoka was in 2022 2nd Version, Rika Adachi was in 2013 2nd Version; Kudo was in 2017 and 2022 2nd Version; Sakamoto was in 2019 2nd Version and Okada was in 2009 2nd Version.  Here's a couple examples from this subset:

#FP07

#FP01

#FP20

You can see all the cards over at Jambalaya.  I also need to point out that Jason has translated the checklist and put it up at the Trading Card Database - I found it very helpful in identifying all the memorabilia, autograph and parallel cards.

Card Of The Week September 10

For the second time in as many years, Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Orix Buffaloes has thrown a no-hitter.  He victimized the Chiba Lotte Marines yesterday, flirting with a perfect game until the sixth inning and ending up throwing only 102 pitches while striking out eight, walking one and hitting one batter.  This was the 100th no-hitter in Japanese professional baseball history and Yamamoto is the tenth pitcher to throw multiple no-hitters (and the first since Keishi Suzuki did it in 1971* - not including the two no-hitters Hideo Nomo threw in MLB).  Yamamoto has also become the first pitcher to throw no-hitters in back-to-back seasons since Tadashi Kameda did it in 1940-41.

*I put something up on Twitter that the last pitcher to throw multiple no-hitters was Yoshiro Sotokoba in 1972.  While Sotokoba DID throw a no-hitter that season, it was the third of his career so he already had multiple no-hitters.  The last guy to throw his second no-hitter (and therefore join the multiple no-hitter club) was Suzuki in 1971.

We nearly had back-to-back no-hitters today as Orix starter Hiroya Miyagi held the Marines hitless until the fifth inning.  The Marines only managed two hits all weekend against Orix (Friday night's game was rained out).

Here's two cards of Yamamoto in honor of him having thrown two no-hitters.  The first one is the "Secret Version" of his 2021 BBM 1st Version card (#140 and the second is his card from the 2023 Topps NPB set (#7) showing him after his no-hitter from last year:

Autumn Releases

It's time once again to get caught up on the latest set releases which this time includes not only some NPB sets but an odd Korean set and another probably high end WBC set.

- Epoch is continuing to prove my "Epoch is done with their Premier Edition sets for 2023" proclamation I made back at the end of June was very wrong.  On September 30th they'll be releasing the Eagles Premier Edition team set which will be the tenth such set this year (and third since I said they were done).  The set will have a 34 card base set featuring 31 active Eagles players and three OB players and there's a hologram parallel version available for all 34 cards.  The set has the same bewildering collection of insert cards which I will again copy from previous posts:  "Regular Printed Signature (Silver)" (18 cards), "Regular Printed Signature (Gold)" (18 cards), "Regular Printed Signature (Hologram A: Silver)" (18 cards), "Regular Printed Signature (Hologram A: Gold)" (18 cards), "Regular Printed Signature Variation (Hologram A: Silver)" (9 cards), "Regular Printed Signature Variation (Hologram A: Gold)" (9 cards), "Regular Printed Signature Variation (Hologram B: Silver)" (9 cards), "Regular Printed Signature Variation (Hologram B: Gold)" (9 cards), "Metal Power (Silver)" (18 cards), "Metal Power (Gold)" (18 cards), "Metal Power (Hologram A: Silver)" (18 cards), "Metal Power (Hologram A: Gold)" (18 cards), "Metal Power (Hologram B: Silver)" (18 cards), "Metal Power (Hologram B: Gold)" (18 cards), "Time To Shine (Hologram A)" (6 cards), "Time To Shine (Hologram B)" (6 cards), "Time To Shine (Hologram C)" (6 cards), "Decomori Signature (Gold) (6 cards), "Decomori Signature (Green) (6 cards), "Decomori Signature (Hologram) (6 cards), "Gem" (6 cards) and "Black Gem" (6 cards).  There are six varieties of autographed cards available - "Authentic" (all 34 players), "Rookie" (6 different), "Star" (9 different), "Record Breaker" (10 different), "1 of 1" (all 31 active players) and "Baseball" (6 different).  The only teams Epoch has not done a "Premier Edition" set for this year are the Marines and Giants.

- It's kind of odd Epoch didn't do a "Premier Edition" set for the Marines because they're the next team to get Epoch's ultra high end "Stars & Legends" active/OB team set treatment.  The "Marines Stars & Legends with Memorabilia" set will be out on October 28th.  Boxes containing four cards (two "special insert cards" - i.e autograph and/or memorabilia cards - plus two "regular" cards) will retail for 20,000 yen or right around $135.  The base set will contain 45 cards and there are (mercifully) only five insert sets - "Decomori Signature (Gold) (6 cards), "Decomori Signature (Green) (6 cards), "Decomori Signature (Hologram) (6 cards), "Gem" (6 cards) and "Black Gem" (6 cards) - all of which are serially numbered.  There are five types of autographed cards - "Authentic" (all 45 players), "Rookie" (5 different), "Legendary" (17 different), "1 of 1" (23 different) and "Baseball" (17 different) - and six different varieties of player used bat cards - Core, Grip A, Grip B, Barrel, Knob A, Knob B.  There are four of each bat card available.

- For the second year in a row, Epoch releasing the "NPB Luxury Collection" set, basically an expensive ugly parallel version of a subset of this year's NPB set - think of it as Topps Chrome if Topps only did ugly versions of only part of their flagship set.  I'm not fully sure of the breakdown of the set but it looks like the base set is only 90 cards.  There's something on the web page advertising the set about 70 rookie cards but it's not clear if those are an insert set or if the base set contains 70 rookie cards that all have a bunch of different parallels.  There's a bunch of "Gem" insert cards include - 36 in all I think - along with two different kinds of autograph cards.  One type has 126 subjects which obviously must include 36 players who aren't in the base set - I think they may be OB players.  The other translates as "1-of-1 signature cards" which may actually be facsimile autographs rather than authentic ones.  There are 85 of these available.  The set will be released in mid-October.

- Speaking of Topps Chrome, the Chrome version of Topps' NPB set will be released on November 25th.  Like the original set, it has 216 cards in the base set (18 per team).  There are three 24 card insert sets - "Topps 2001" (Chrome version of the same insert set from the original set), "Volcanic" and "TAITAN".  There will be a metric sh*t ton of parallels but there's no details on the website about them.  There will be autographed cards but oddly enough, none of the players are active NPB players.  They're either retired or playing in MLB.  The list is Shohei Ohtani, Shintaro Fujinami, Masataka Yoshida, Kodai Senga, Ichiro, Hideki Matsui and Masanori Murakami.  I'm assuming that like the first two iterations of the Chrome version of the NPB set that players featured and photos used in this set will be the same as in the original set.  If so, that means almost all the photos in the set will be over a year old by the time the set comes out since most of the photos in the original set were taken last season.

- Topps is also issuing a Bowman NPB set on November 11th.  This set will contain 180 cards - 15 per team ("12 young players + 3 veteran players").  The "young players" will include 2022 draft picks as well as development (ikusei) players.  There will again be a bunch of different parallels including printing press and "1 of 1" cards.  There are three 24 card insert sets - "Bowman1989", "Spotlights" and "Youth Culture" and autographed cards from six of the seven guys I mentioned having autographed cards in the Chrome set - everyone except Hideki Matsui.

- BBM will be releasing the 2023 version of their annual "Rookie Edition Premium" set in late October.  This is a 38 card box set containing the 36 card base set (three 2022 draft picks per team) plus two "premium insert cards" which include three types of autograph cards, memorabilia cards, "super patch" cards and "booklet" cards.  With basically a guarantee of getting autograph cards the set retail for 16,500 yen or about $112.  

- Yesterday Dan Skrezyna of Korean Cardboard tweeted out some information about a new Korean set that's kind of confusing.  The set is from an outfit called Hobby Korea and is called "2023 EPIC Series Baseball Legend Baek In-Cheon" and celebrates Korean baseball legend Baek In-Cheon who played in NPB for 19 years under the name Jinten Haku before joining the KBO in their inaugural season of 1982.  He played three years in Korea and later managed a couple teams.  What's confusing about the set is whether it contains anything other than autographed cards of Baek.  There are five different autographed cards of Baek - two showing him with the Taiheiyo Club Lions and one each showing him with the Toei Flyers, Lotte Orions and MBC Chungryong.  There are 60 numbered parallels for each autograph - one "pinnacle" (numbered 1/60), nine "flame" (numbered 2/60 through 10/60) and fifty "base" (numbered 11/60 to 60/60).  I'm not sure if there are any non-numbered autograph cards or not.  Each box contains one autograph card so if there's no non-numbered autographed cards, there's only 300 boxes available.  Each box retails for 99,000 won or about $75.  I think the set has already been released.  Dan is attempting to learn more about it and will put the information up at the Trading Card Database.  UPDATE - according to this tweet, each box contains five facsimile versions of the autographed cards plus one actually autographed card.  This probably means that the five card non-autographed set can be picked up pretty cheap although there's still possibly only 300 of them.,

- Finally I want to mention that the new Bowman Chrome set being released in the US next week apparently has some sort of WBC insert set.  It's listed here as "WBC Flag Refractor Variations" which to me implies that it's a parallel but there doesn't appear to be any non-refractor cards.  There's 100 cards in all including eleven members of Samurai Japan - Yu Darvish, Shohei Ohtani, Lars Nootbaar, Masataka Yoshida, Shugo Maki, Roki Sasaki, Munetaka Murakami, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tetsuto Yamada, Kensuke Kondoh and Kazuma Okamoto - and four South Korea players - Park Kun-woo, Lee Jung-hoo, Kim Ha-seong and Tommy Edman.  I think there are players from 17 of the 20 WBC teams represented - everyone except Australia, China and the Czech Republic.  From what I've seen, these cards are being inserted at a rate of 1 in every 34 packs so this will not be cheap (and, like the Topps Finest ones, I will not be collecting them).

The Florida Project

In 1975, the Yomiuri Giants did part of their spring training as guests of the Los Angeles Dodgers in Vero Beach, Florida, USA.  This would be the fourth time that the Giants visited the Sunshine State, having been guests of the Dodgers previously in 1961, 1967 and 1971, and they would return again in 1981.  What sets 1975 apart from the other visits is that it is documented on baseball cards.

I've posted about this before but there is a 24-ish 22 card subset in the 1974/75 Calbee set that features photos of Giants players taken in Vero Beach.  The cards start with number 693 and go to 714 either 715 or 716 UPDATE - finally saw card #716 and while it's of Oh, it's not from this subset UPDATE TO THE UPDATE - also saw card #715 and it's not from Florida either.  I only had three of these cards when I did the original post but I've added a few over the years - most recently as part of a big order from COMC - so I now have 12 cards which is roughly half the subset.  I'm not sure how serious I am about trying to complete this subset but I thought I'd do an updated post showing the cards I have so far.

According to the back of each card, the Giants were in Vero Beach from March 1st to March 17th.  This first card shows the team jogging on the warning track of a ballpark.  I'd originally assumed that this was Holman Stadium in Vero Beach but I'm not so sure anymore.  Holman appears to have had a berm in the outfield behind a wire fence as opposed to the more traditional fence with advertising.  Also note the flags flying on the left side of the photo - there's a US flag along with a Canadian flag.  Either this is Vero Beach and the Giants are playing the Expos or this is actually Daytona City Island Ballpark (now Jackie Robinson Ballpark), spring training home for the Montreal Expos during much of the 1970's (it certainly resembles the outfield wall in the background of a bunch of 1977 Expos cards):

1974/75 Calbee #693

This next card shows another group shot of the team, this time lined up along the first baseline.  It looks to me that this is at the same ballpark as the other card but the flag on the right flagpole doesn't look like a Canadian one - it's probably the Japan flag:

1974/75 Calbee #694

This next card is my favorite one in the subset, showing Sadaharu Oh in the batting cage with a bunch of Atlanta Braves players watching him hit.  Given the stands in the background, I suspect this photo was taken at West Palm Beach Municipal Stadium, the spring training home for the Braves at the time:

1974/75 Calbee #695

1975 was Shigeo Nagashima's first year as Giants manager.  Here he is with pitcher Shoji Sadaoka:

1974/75 Calbee #696

Here's another Sadaharu Oh card:

1974/75 Calbee #700

Toshimitsu Suetsugu batting:

1974/75 Calbee #701

Another great shot of Oh in the batting cage:

1974/75 Calbee #702

This next card shows Giants pitcher Kazumi Takahashi pitching against an unnamed Montreal Expos batter.  Once again I suspect that this was taken at the ballpark in Daytona, especially since the ad on the outfield wall behind Takahashi has the Expos logo on it:

1974/75 Calbee #703

Masaru Tomita batting in a game.  I suspect that this photo was actually taken at Holman Stadium in Vero Beach:

1974/75 Calbee #705

Officially this is a card of Kazumasa Kono who's the player catching the ball but that's Takeshi Ueda (#2) behind him with I think Tomita to the left of Ueda - I'm assuming this is infield practice and Tomita's the only other infielder with a uniform number in the 20's (#25).  I have no idea who the Dodger's coach wearing #75 is - if anyone knows, please let me know:

1974/75 Calbee #710

Another card featuring Nagashima - there are seven total in the subset:

1974/75 Calbee #711

The final card is another one of Oh in a batting cage - there are sixfive cards of Oh in the subset:

1974/75 Calbee #712

That's all the Calbee cards I have depicting the Giants doing spring training in Vero Beach (or elsewhere in Florida) but I should mention that there are also cards (stickers) in the 1975 NST "Mr Baseball" set that show scenes of the Giants in the US.  It's not clear how many of them there are, however, and I only have two that I know for sure fall into this category.  The first is this card showing Nagashima with Expos manager Gene Mauch:

1975 NST #189

I should mention that Mauch is not identified in the sticker album - the text for this card implies that it's Walt Alston.  Engel identifies two similar cards in the set - one showing Nagashima with Stan Wasiak who would have been the manager of the Dodger's Triple-A Albuquerque team in 1975 (#188) and the other showing him with someone who might be Royals manager Jack McKeon (#190).  Unfortunately I have neither of these cards.

What I do have is a card I've shown several times in the past showing Giants pitcher Tsuneo Horiuchi pitching to Ron Cey of the Dodgers:

1975 NST #224

As I said, I'm not sure how seriously I'm collecting these cards but I do find them endlessly interesting.  

Card Of The Week September 3

This past week my wife returned from six weeks in Europe - mostly in Spain but a little in France.  She was walking the Camino de Santiago or the Way Of St James, a medieval pilgrimage route that is still used by thousands of people each year.  She flew in Paris and traveled by train to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the foothills of the Pyrenees.  From there she set out on foot to follow the Camino Frances (the French Way) up into the mountains and all the way to Santiago, Spain.  It took her 34 days to walk the 779 kilometers to reach the cathedral in Santiago, the traditional end of the pilgrimage.  She continued to walk for an additional four days until she reached Cape Finisterre on the Atlantic coast, a distance of 89 more kilometers.  She took a bus back to Santiago before taking a train to Madrid where she spent a day touring art museums before flying home.  I'm so proud of her that she accomplished this although I'm not surprised in the least as my wife is a very impressive woman.

We were adding up her mileage the other day and I was amused when I realized that adding the 779 kilometers between Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago and the 89 kilometers between Santiago and Cape Finisterre totaled 868 kilometers.  868, of course, is the number of home runs that Sadaharu Oh hit in his career.  I thought I'd celebrate the synchronicity with three cards commemorating the number.  As an added piece of synchronicity, today is the 46th anniversary of Oh hitting home run 756 to pass Henry Aaron.

1995 BBM #319

2002 BBM 2nd Version #824

2014 BBM 80th Anniversary Batters Edition #94

More Calbees from COMC

I recently placed another order with COMC for a bunch of Calbee cards - mostly from the mid-70's.  I wanted to do a quick post to show off what I got.

First up is this card of Shinichi Eto from the 1975/76 set.  Eto was player-manager of the Taiheiyo Club Lions for the 1975 season and I think this photo was taken during spring training that year:

1975/76 Calbee #624

Ron Woods (left) and Gene Martin (right) of the Chunichi Dragons:

1975/76 Calbee #682

Team card for the Carp from the 1975/76/77 set.  Top row is manager Takeshi Koba (#72), Kojiro Ikegaya (#11), Yoshiro Sotokoba (#14) and Yukinobu Miyamoto (#19).  Middle row is Kazushi Saeki (#21), Shiro Mizunuma (#22), Tsuyoshi Ohshita (#1) and Sachio Kinugasa (#3).  Bottom row is Gail Hopkins (#6), Toshiyuki Mimura (#9), Richie "Shane" Scheinblum (#5) and Koji Yamamoto (#1).  

1975/76/77 Calbee #461

Hiromitsu Kadota of the Nankai Hawks celebrating winning the MVP award for the second All Star game on July 18th, 1976 at Korakuen Stadium:

1975/76/77 Calbee #917

This next card shows Hisashi Yamada of the Hankyu Braves but I'm not sure what the occasion is.  I was thinking it might be from the 1976 Nippon Series but there's nothing on the card to indicate that.  Still, it's kind of an interesting shot of him:

1975/76/77 Calbee #1161

Yoshimasa Takahashi of the Nippon-Ham Fighters:

1975/76/77 Calbee #1375

"Rivals" card showing Ikegaya of the Carp (left) and Yamada of the Braves (right):

1975/76/77 Calbee #1402

Have to do a bit of a time jump for this last card - a "Legend" insert card from 2017 celebrating the retirement of Giants pinch running specialist Takahiro Suzuki:

2017 Calbee #L-4

This isn't quite all the Calbee cards I picked up in this order but the others are part of a subset that I want to do a separate post about.  I'm hoping to do it in the next few days.