Items of Interest

A couple quick things:

- BBM has a couple new box sets coming out at the end of the month. The first is a 45 card Collegiate National team set. Looks like there are two cards each of 22 players plus a card from a set of serially numbered insert cards for the same 22 players. So you'll get two cards of 21 players and three cards of one player in the set. The second set is a 50 card Rookie Edition Premium set. There are 36 "regular" cards (I'd bet on three cards per team), 12 "subset" cards (1 per team?) and possibly two premium cards - photo, film, autograph or artifact.

- Deanna Rubin recently has had posts on finding the Mint Card Shop Umeda in Osaka and on her completing the 2008 Bikkuriman Pro Yakyu sticker set.

- The new Prestige Collectibles auction can be found here.

- If you're in Tokyo on November 9th, you can attend a book signing/reading with Rob Fitts and Wally Yonamine for Rob's biography of Wally. Details are here.

Card Of The Week October 12

When I blogged about the Hawks 70th Anniversary set the other day, I mentioned that the set did not contain a card for Katsuya Nomura. Here's one from the 2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 set (#268):

Card Of The Week October 5

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel played six years in Japan for the Swallows and Buffaloes. Here's his 1979 TCMA card (#44):

Sadaharu Oh Tribute Part 2

Following up my post from the other day, here's some cards of Oh as Hawks manager.

1995 BBM #514, his first year as Hawks manager:


1996 BBM #539:


2000 BBM #513:


2002 BBM Giants #G114, showing Oh and Shigeo Nagashima during the 2000 Nippon Series, the "ON Series":


2003 BBM 1st Version #249:


2003 BBM Nippon Series #60:


2005 BBM 1st Version #37:


2008 BBM 1st Version #289:


2006 Upper Deck/Fleer World Baseball Classic Moments #CM-18, showing Oh as Japan's WBC team manager:



NPB Tracker has a link to a Sanspo photo retrospective of Oh's years as Hawks manager.

BBM Hawks 70th Anniversary set

I picked up the new BBM Hawks 70th Anniversary set the other day. It's a very cool set.

A little history on the Hawks: According to Japan Baseball Daily and their Wikipedia article, the Hawks started paly in 1938 as simply Nankai, named for the company that owned them. Their name changed a couple of times in the next few years to Kinki Nihon and then Kinki Great Ring until it settled on the Nankai Hawks in 1947. The Hawks joined the Pacific League when the two league system started in 1950 and won 10 league championships and two Nippon Series in the next 25 years. They played their home games in Osaka Stadium.

Following the 1988 season, Nankai sold the team to Daiei, who moved them to Heiwadai Stadium in Fukuoka and changed their name to the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. They moved into the Fukuoka Dome in 1993. They won an additional three Pacific League pennants and two Nippon Series championships before Daiei sold the team to Softbank after the 2004 season.

The set has 99 cards. There are six "History Of Hawks" cards, 66 cards of OB players (well, some current ex-Hawks are included), 18 cards of current Hawks players (including manager Sadaharu Oh) and nine cards of current Hawks players wearing turn-back-the-clock uniforms. Most of the players are wearing Nankai Hawks uniforms, but Toshiya Sugiuchi is shown in a Daiei uniform.

The OB players include most of the greats from Hawks history - Tadashi Sugiura, Hiromitsu Kadota, Kazuto Tsuruoka, Yutaka Enatsu, Joe Stanka, and Koji Akiyama as well as current MLB players Kenji Johjima and Tadahito Iguchi. Noticeably missing from the set, however, is Katsuya Nomura, who only hit something like 630 home runs for the Hawks between 1954 and 1977 as well as managing them from 1970 to 1977. The omission is really my only quibble with the set.

Here's some example cards. That's one of the "History Of Hawks" cards (#04 which I think is showing the final Nankai game in Osaka Stadium); the OB cards of Kazuo Horii (#09), Don Blasingame (#26), Hiroshi Fujimoto (#45), and Kimiyasu Kudoh (#67); the 2008 Hawks card of Tsuyoshi Wada (#77) and the "Turn Back The Clock" card of Hiroshi Shibahara (#99).

Sadaharu Oh Tribute Part 1

Last week, Sadaharu Oh officially announced his retirement as manager of the Hawks. As he is now 68 years old and has been recovering from stomach cancer for two years, it is expected that this is the end of his baseball career. Not being much with words, I felt that a baseball card tribute would be in order. Today, I'm just doing cards showing him with the Giants. In the next few days, I'll post pictures of him as Hawks manager.

1960 JBR6 Bromide (upper left):


1992 BBM ON Special #481. Nagashima is on deck with Oh batting:


1998 BBM 40 Years Of Shukan Baseball (#559) showing cover of May 8, 1972 Issue:


1975/76 Calbee (#1241):


1976 Yamakatsu showing him passing Ruth:


1995 BBM Untouchable Records subset (#319) showing him passing Aaron:


1978 NST (#58):


1981 Calbee (#2) as Giants coach:


1987 Play Ball (#2) as Giants manager:

Well, not really....

I was listening to the Rays-White Sox game on my XM Radio on my way home today and I heard the Tampa Bay broadcasters mention that Akinori Iwamura had "a lot of post season experience in Japan". The Swallows only made the Nippon Series once with Iwamura on the roster - in 2001 when they beat the Buffaloes in 5 games. Aki had a good series - he hit .450 (9-for-20) with 5 RBI's, good enough to be named an "Outstanding Player" for the Series. But I'm not sure 5 games qualifies as "a lot".

Here's his "Outstanding Player" card from the 2001 BBM Nippon Series set (#S59):