2013 In Review - Calbee

Calbee Series One for sale at Yokohama Stadium

As they've done for a number of years, Calbee issued their cards in three series this past season.  Each Series had a base set of roughly 100 cards, a 24 card "Star" insert set and an associated box set that was available as a some sort of mail in premium.  The total number of cards in the base set was 301, down a little from last year (322).

Series One and Three had 72 "regular" player cards in the base set (6 per team) while Series Two had 84 (7 per team) for a total of 228 cards (19 per team).  As usual, some players showed up in multiple Series so the actual number of unique players is about 182.  Oddly enough, Kazuhiro Hatakeyama of the Swallows ended up with a base card in all three Series for some reason.

Each of the three Series had at least one subset unique to it.  Series One had the "Title Holder" subset - 24 cards of players who either won an individual award in 2012 or lead their league in some category.  Series Two had the "Exciting Rookie" subset - 12 cards featuring the top draft pick for each team.  Calbee did not do any other cards of these 12 players (with the exception of an All Star card for Shohei Ohtani) so there are no base cards in the set for Ohtani, Tomoyuki Sugano or Shintaro Fujinami.  Series Three had both the "All Star" subset - 23 cards featuring the players elected to the All Star teams by the fans - and the "Hideki Matsui Memorial" subset - 2 cards featuring Hideki Matsui, one a reprint of one of his 2003 Title Holder cards and the other showing him and Shigeo Nagashima from the National Honor Award ceremony in May.

As usual, Calbee had 12 checklist cards, four in each Series.  The theme this season was team mascots.

 The "Star" insert set included in each Series featured 24 cards (2 per team) for a total of 72 cards in all (6 per team).  As usual, there was a rarer gold facsimile version of each "Star" card available as well.

The mail in box sets were a 15 card "Best 9" set for Series One, a 12 card "Speedstar" set for Series Two and a 12 card "Strikeout Pitcher" set for Series Three.  The Series Two and Three sets featured one player per team.  The "Best 9" subset was for the 2012 Best 9 teams, but Calbee left off two players because they had left for MLB (Hiroyuki Nakajima and Kensuke Tanaka) and two others because they had switched teams in the off season (Tony Blanco and Yoshio Itoi).

I noticed that there were a handful of players who had cards in a subset but not a "regular" player card.  Beyond the 12 players in the "Exciting Rookie" subset, Jun Hirose (All Star), Hirotoshi Masui (All Star, Title Holder), Tatsushi Masuda (All Star) and Hisayoshi Chono (Title Holder) all fell into this category.  This is apparently not that unusual for Calbee - neither Kenta Maeda nor Masahiro Tanaka have "regular" cards in the 2012 set.  The only other glaring omission in the 2013 set that I've noticed is the PL Rookie Of The Year Takahiro Norimoto, although the CL Rookie Of The Year, Yasuhiro Ogawa does appear in the set.

2013 In Review - Other Card Companies

I'm doing this a little out of order - I did BBM yesterday and I'll do Calbee later this week.  I could be imagining things, but it seemed like there were a lot more card sets being done by outfits other than BBM or Calbee this past year.  There were 12 sets that made it onto Jambalaya's page for 2013 - that's twice as many as were listed in 2012 and three times as many as 2011.  I'm assuming that this indicates that more card sets are getting made and not that Jambalaya has simply started listing these after ignoring them previously, but I have to admit that's a possibility.  (Although I didn't see these cards listed at Niki or AmiAmi, so they would have to have been ignoring them also...)

Epoch and the OB Club (formerly known as the All Japan Baseball Foundation, also known as the Japan Baseball Promotion Association) continued to produce sets in 2013.  They put out two box sets - the "History Of Best Nine Part 2" set (which was a follow up to "Part 1" which was released in late 2012) and "Rookie Of The Year Biography" set which featured 40 former Rookie Of The Year award winners.  Ryan of This Card Is Cool did a nice post on the Rookie Of The Year set back in August.  (The card at the top of this post is a promo card from the "History Of Best Nine" set).

The other returning players for 2013 were Sports Graphic Number and Hiroshima Athlete Magazine.  Like their previous issues, Sports Graphic Number (which is also a magazine) did a pack based set featuring a single player - this time it was Kenta Maeda of the Carp.  As you would expect from their name, Hiroshima Athlete Magazine did a box set dedicated to the Carp - "Carp Stars And Legends".   Hiroshima Athlete Magazine had previously done a box set for the Carp in 2012.

One of the new outfits putting out sets in 2013 has a difficult name to figure out.  It could be "ry Stars", it could "14 Stars", it could be "rl Stars" - I have been unable to figure it out.  Whatever their name is, they did box sets entitled "Rookie And Young Stars" for three teams - the Lions, the Buffaloes and the Baystars.  I asked Jason if he could use his amazing search skills to find out more about these sets but all he was able to figure out was that the sets were printed by an outfit called "Frontier International" which he suggested might be a company like Multi-Ad who is simply hired by the team to produce the set.  Ryan did another nice post about the Buffaloes set in October.  (And now, looking at the logo on the cards again, I wonder - is it possible that that's a very stylized "FI" for Frontier International and the logo is really "FI Stars"?)

Frontier International also produced box sets entitled "Season Summary" for three teams - the Baystars, the Buffaloes and the Carp.  As you might expect from the name, all three sets were released after the end of the season - in fact the Buffaloes and Carp sets just barely made it into stores before the end of the year.

There were two additional non-BBM or Calbee sets released last year.  Early in the year, a company called Sakura (I think) put out a box set featuring members of the Meikyukai.  Midway through the season, it appears that the Eagles produced a pack based team set called "Heat!" (which was the team's motto this past season).  Once again, Ryan did a nice post on the set back in August.

2013 In Review - BBM

BBM did a whopping 50 sets in 2013, although in some ways what stands out this past year is what they didn't do for the first time ever.  I believe that this is the most sets BBM has done in one year, but I could be wrong.  The 2013 sets were released over a 14 month period starting in November of 2012 and finishing up early in December of 2013.

22 of the sets BBM released this past year were the 2013 edition of sets that BBM produces each year - the "flagship" sets of 1st and 2nd Version as well as the Genesis high end set, the individual pack based sets for each of the 12 NPB teams, the "Farewell" box set commemorating players who retired at the end of the previous season, the "Rookie Edition" set featuring the players taken in the previous fall's draft, the box set for the Tokyo Big Six collegiate league, the "Rookie Edition Premium" box set featuring high end cards for the year's top rookies, the "Historic Collection" set (this year's theme was "Great Uniform Numbers") and the two pack based sets for the cheer/dance squads for teams - Hana and Mai.  Missing from this year's releases, however, were the annual All Star and Nippon Series box sets that BBM had done each year since 1991, their first year producing cards.  In addition, BBM did not do a box set for the Premium Malts old timer game held in July - they had done so for the three previous games.

BBM issued five box sets that were team-specific.  The Young Fighters, Young Lions and Young Tigers sets all (obviously) highlighted the young players from each of those teams.  The "Yui Carp" set was a simple but small (only 18 base cards) team set.  The Eagles First Crown set was purportedly to celebrate the Eagles winning the Pacific League pennant for the first time but it's really just a straight team set - there are no "highlight" cards or anything that actually show the team clinching.

BBM also issued five "single player" box sets.  Four of these were to celebrate players who retired in 2013 (or in one case, late in 2012) - Hideki Matsui, Shinya Miyamoto, Shinjiro Hiyama and Tomonori Maeda.  (The Miyamoto set is also kinda-sorta a Swallows team box set.)  The other "single player" box set was called "Legend Of Invincibility" and celebrated Masahiro Tanaka's 24-0 season - the set features a card for each of his wins during the season.

Where BBM really took off this past year was in historic (OB) sets.  After only doing three in 2012, BBM did a total of 14 this year (including the aforementioned "Great Numbers" "Historic Collection" set).  They did team based anniversary sets for the Hawks (75th), Baystars (20th as "Baystars") and Fighters (10th year in Hokkaido) as well as a box set for the Hawks celebrating their three Nippon Series championships in the 25 years they have been in Fukuoka.  They also started a new series of team based OB sets called "Legend" - they issued a set for the Giants celebrating the players who had played in Shigeo Nagashima's two terms as manager and a set celebrating the players who played for the Tigers in the 1980's.  They issued two sets featuring only "gaijin" players - "Legendary Foreigners" and "Deep Impact".  They used Yoshio Itoi's abrupt trade to Orix last spring as an excuse to produce a set featuring great trades in history (The Trade Stories) and did a set featuring great moments in All Star games in the 1980's (All Star Memories '80's).  BBM also issued three more box sets in the "Greatest Games" series that they started in 2012 - the games featured the Giants/Tigers game on 10/22/73, the Buffaloes/Blue Wave game from 9/26/2001, and the Tigers/Swallows game from 10/16/1985.

The remaining five sets BBM did are a group of odds and ends.  They did a box set for rookies and young players called "Icons - Hope" that may be the replacement for the "Diamond Age" box set BBM did in 2011 and 2012.  They also did a set called "Our Friends" which features all the mascots for all 12 teams.  Both of these sets may become annual issues.  One set that I'm hoping becomes an annual issue was the Classic set which featured current players on cards using the 1991 BBM design, kind of BBM's version of Topps' Heritage sets.  The final two sets BBM issued this past year were sets that celebrated players from Kyushu and the Osaka area.

2005 BBM 1st Version

2005 BBM 1st Version Set Summary

Size:  559 cards
Cards Per Team:  42 (team card, manager + 40 players)
Team Card Theme: Game Action/Candids
Number Of Leader Cards: 36
Checklists: None
Subsets: Retirement Players (12), Legend Players (7)
Inserts: Best 9, Golden Glove, MVP (Light Packs only)
Memorabilia Cards: Jersey cards for the 2004 League MVPs - Nobuhiko Matsunaka and Kenshin Kawakami, as well as Daisuke Matsuzaka (PL ERA leader) and Shigenobu Shima (CL Batting Leader).  Also combo cards featuring Matsuzaka and Shima and Matsuzaka and Kawakami.
Parallels: 108 cards have silver facsimile autographs.  There is also a gold facsimile autographed version of those 108 cards that is serially numbered to 100. Autographed Versions of Retirement Players and Legend Players subsets (numbered to 50).  Silver Parallel version of the Best 9 inserts.  60 cards have a kira version (Light packs only).
Notable Rookies:  Yu Darvish, Chihiro Kaneko, Yasuyuki Kataoka, Hideaki Wakui, Michael Nakamura, Atsushi Nohmi

For 2005, BBM reversed direction a little bit.  After three years of producing two "flagship" sets a year that were roughly the same size, BBM went back to producing a large (500+ cards) "flagship" set for 1st Version along with a smaller (less than 200 card) 2nd Version set.  The 2005 1st Version set was roughly the size of the pre-2002 regular BBM sets (less the "Late Version" cards).

There were two different flavors of parallel facsimile autographs in this set - silver and gold.  The gold were serially numbered to 100.  I think that each of the 108 cards (9 per each team) that have a silver signature parallel also have the gold.

#351 (regular and silver autograph parallel)

#439 (regular and gold autograph parallel)

The set included the standard two insert sets - the Best 9 and the Golden Glove Award winners from 2004.  The Best 9 set was actually 20 cards this year instead of the standard 19 as Masahiro Araki and Greg Larocca shared the Central League's 2nd baseman award.  The Best 9 inserts also featured a parallel version - Engel lists this as a "silver" parallel but I'm not sure that's accurate.  The parallel issue appears to be a more "glossy" finish on the card rather than any sort of silver.

#BN8 (regular on top, parallel on bottom)

#GG16

Once again, BBM issued cards in four card packs called "Light Packs" that had their own parallels (the now familiar "kira" cards) and their own inserts - the MVP inserts.  The Light Packs did not contain any memorabilia cards, signature parallels, Best 9 or Golden Glove inserts.  I'm not sure if all the base cards in the set were available in the Light Packs or not.

The set only contained two subsets - "Retirement Players" and "Legend Players".  The "Retirement Players" featured 12 players who had retired after the 2004 season - Motoyuki Akahori, Chihiro Hamana, Toshio Haru, Shinichi Katoh, Kenjiro Kawasaki, Ryuji Kimura, Takashi Miwa, Hirofumi Ogawa, Yukihiko Satoh, Hiroyuki Sekine, Tetsuya Shiozaki, and Hiroshi Yagi.  The "Legend Players" commemorated managers and coaches who left their jobs after the 2004 season (and didn't have a new one for 2005).  This included Haruki Ihara and Masataka Nashida, the managers of the Orix Blue Wave and Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes, the teams that merged to become the Orix Buffaloes in the offseason.  The five others included were Hiroo Ishii, Akinobu Mayumi, Koji Noda, Takamasa Suzuki and Takashi Yamaguchi.  The seven are depicted from their playing days rather than their time coaching or managing.  The design of the two subsets are the same except for the "Retirement Player" or "Legend Player" text.

#529

#542

I noticed something odd when looking up the list of the notable rookies in the set - Michael Nakamura is considered a rookie despite having made 31 appearances in MLB between 2003 and 2004.  Nakamura was born in Japan and went to high school in Australia (he is a citizen of both countries).  He signed as an amateur free agent with Minnesota in 1997, made his debut in 2003, went to the Blue Jays in a waiver deal for 2004 and was "granted free agency" (which I suspect is a euphemistic way to say he was released) after the 2004 season.  Since he was a Japanese citizen, he apparently was not allowed to negotiate with every NPB team.  Instead he was forced to enter the draft and was taken in the fourth round by the Fighters.  He does not, however, appear in the 2005 BBM Rookie Edition set.  This is the exact opposite of how BBM treated Mac Suzuki, who entered NPB in 2003 after playing in the US for 11 years.  Suzuki was taken by Orix in the 2003 draft and appeared in that year's Rookie Edition set but his card in the 2003 1st Version set was not labelled "Rookie".  In addition, the back of Suzuki's card included his stats from the US.  Nakamura's does not.  BBM treated GG Satoh (who had signed with the Phillies out of high school in Japan) in a similar fashion to Nakamura in 2004 - he did not appear in the 2004 Rookie Edition set but he was labelled a "Rookie" in the 2004 1st Version set.  In 2008, BBM would include Kazuhito Tadano (who had signed with the Cleveland Indians out of high school) in the Rookie Edition set as well as labeling him a "Rookie" in the 1st Version set.  Like Nakamura, neither Satoh's nor Tadano's "Rookie" cards included his stats from North America.

#118

Other cards and ephemera:

#61

#146

#197

#320

Back of #395 (Tomoaki Kanemoto)

#553

#502

Wrapper

Box

Checklist box insert

Card Of The Week December 29

The Yomiuri Giants have signed former Tampa Bay Ray farmhand Leslie Anderson to a one year deal for the 2014 season.  Anderson is from Cuba originally and defected in 2009.

While 2014 will be his first season in Japan, his first Japanese baseball cards came a few years ago.  Anderson played for the Cuban team in both the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classics.  He had a card in Konami's WBC Heroes set in 2009 (#W09R060):

Masahiro Tanaka

I'm not sure what to make of the Masahiro Tanaka situation.  On the one hand, I fully understand Rakuten's reluctance to let him go for "only" $20 million, especially when they were not unreasonably expecting a posting fee that was at least three times that.  I also agree with the sentiments expressed by Jim Allen among others allowing Tanaka to go to the majors for a capped fee basically solidifies the impression of NPB as a minor league vassal of MLB.  On the other hand, Tanaka really has nothing left to prove in NPB and he'll probably never have a stronger bargaining position than right now.  It sounds like we'll know something one way or the other in a few days.  Or not.  (BTW - Patrick Newman has written a very good write up about the new posting system over at NPB Tracker.)

Normally I wait to do a post on a player coming to the US until they've actually signed a contract with a team.  I've decided to go ahead and do one for Tanaka because I think the interest is probably pretty high right now.  I'm amazed that I have not seen the usual bullsh*t on Ebay yet - no "GTC" "Future Stars" cards or OMR "Top Prospect" cards (showing one NPB player and two amateur players named for high schools).  Everything that I've seen has been legitimate and only a handful incorrectly label whatever card they're selling as a "rookie card".  I expect that that will change when and if Tanaka signs with someone.  (There was one seller selling a couple packs of 2008 Calbee that implied in his description that Tanaka would end up with the Yankees, which I felt was a bit premature.)

Tanaka was drafted by the Eagles in the first round of the 2007 draft (held in the fall of 2006 of course) after a stellar high school career at Komadai.  His first BBM cards are in the Rookie Edition (#40) and 1st Version (#211) sets in 2007.  (I'm not sure which should be considered his BBM "rookie card" - both sets were pack based, nationally available sets.  Rookie Edition came out in February, 1st Version came out in April.)  His first Calbee card was also in 2007 (#158).

Tanaka has been in every 1st and 2nd Version set since 2007.  He's been in every Calbee set since then also although he did not have a "regular" card in the 2012 set - just appearing in the "Title Holder" and "Opening Day Pitcher" subsets.  He made the All Star team every year he's pitched in Japan except 2010 and so appears in each BBM All Star set from 2007 to 2012 except 2010.  (Since he was elected as a starter for the 2013 All Stars, he appears in the 2013 Calbee All Star subset.)  The Eagles made the Nippon Series just once ever and unfortunately it was the year (this year) that BBM decided to stop doing the annual Nippon Series set.  So there is no Nippon Series card for Tanaka.

Tanaka has played for the Japanese National Team three times as a professional - the 2008 Olympics and the 2009 and 2013 World Baseball Classics.  He's got a card in the 2008 BBM Olympic team set, two cards in the sets that Topps did for the 2009 WBC, and he appears in the 2013 Topps Tribute WBC base set.  (And obviously there are a number of parallel and memorabilia cards associated with the WBC sets.)

In addition to his appearances in various sets, there have been three sets that are completely about him - BBM did a "biographical set" for him in 2010, Sports Graphic Number did a set devoted to him in 2012 and BBM put out a set about a month ago to commemorate his undefeated season.

As always, this is not meant to be a comprehensive list.  Check Sports Card Forum's Inventory Manager for a more complete list.  (And keep in mind there was an outfielder for the Tigers who was also named Masahiro Tanaka, so don't be surprised when you see some cards from the 1980's listed.)

Here's some example cards:

2007 BBM Rookie Edition #40

2007 BBM 1st Version #211

2008 BBM Japan National Team #JPN07

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes Black #B09B082

2010 BBM 2nd Version #785 (Twin Gem subset)

2011 BBM All Stars #A17

2012 Calbee #OP-05 (Opening Day Picher subset)

2013 BBM Classic #055

Shunsuke Watanabe Of The Boston Red Sox

Last week the World Champion Boston Red Sox (sorry, I just like the way that sounds :-)) signed former Chiba Lotte Marine pitcher Shunsuke Watanabe.  Watanabe was drafted by the Marines in the fourth round of the 2001 draft (which I will point out wearily again was held in the fall of 2000) from the industrial league team Shin Nittetsu Kimitsu and has been with the Marines ever since.

Watanabe is a submariner who's release point is two inches off the ground (according to Japan Baseball Daily).  You can see a couple videos of his motion here.

Watanabe is rather unique in that I think he's the first Japanese player to come to the US who actually has a "pre-rookie" card in Japan.  He was chosen for the Japanese National Team for the 2000 Olympics while still a member of Shin Nettetsu Kimitsu and ended up having a card in the 2000 Upper Deck Japanese Olympic Team set (which I don't have yet).  His BBM rookie card is #488 in the 2001 set.  He also has a "Star Rookie" card in the 2001 Upper Deck set (#24).  He also appears in a couple other 2001 sets - the Konami Field Of 9 collectible card game set and the Future Bee Marines set (which includes an autograph card).  His first Calbee card was not until 2005 (#022).

2001 BBM #488

2001 Upper Deck #24

Watanabe has appeared in each "flagship" BBM set since 2001 with the exceptions of the 2002 1st Version and 2013 2nd Version sets.  He's a bit less regular in the Calbee sets - after his first card in 2005 he didn't appear again until 2007.  He had a Calbee card each year after that until this year.  He made the All Star team twice so he appears in two of the BBM All Star sets - 2004 and 2005.  The Marines won the Nippon Series twice while Watanabe pitched for them so he appears in two of the BBM Nippon Series sets - 2005 and 2010.  He threw a complete game, four hit shutout against the Tigers in the 2005 Series which earned him an "Outstanding Player" award so he actually has two cards in that Nippon Series set.

In addition to playing for Team Japan in the 2000 Olympics, Watanabe also pitched in the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classics.  He had four different "regular" cards among Upper Deck's 2006 WBC issues and two among Topps' 2009 WBC cards, along with numerous parallel and memorabilia cards both years.  He also appeared in the 2009 Konami WBC set.

Here's some other example cards.  As always, this is not meant to be comprehensive - you can see the full list of his cards over at Sports Card Forum's Inventory Manager.  You'll notice that the fact that he's a submariner was not ignored by the card makers...

2004 BBM All Stars #A51

2006 BBM Marines #M16

2009 Konami WBC #W09R095

2010 BBM 2nd Version #800 (Marines Team Checklist)

2010 BBM Nippon Series #S09

2012 Calbee #034

On a personal note, I was able to see Watanabe pitch last March when I went to a Marines-Lions open-sen game at Seibu Dome.  Here's a picture I took of him: