For no good reason, I've decided to show a card of him with the Giants:
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| 2000 BBM Giants #G99 |
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Card Of The Week June 8
One thing I left out of my post on Haruki Ihara was who the Lions replaced him with this week - batting coach Norio Tanabe is taking over on an interim basis. Tanabe played for the Lions from 1985 to 1999 and was the regular shortstop for the team from 1989 to 1995 (he may have moved to third for the 1995 season). He finished his career in 2000 with the Giants.
For no good reason, I've decided to show a card of him with the Giants:
For no good reason, I've decided to show a card of him with the Giants:
The Curious Managerial Career Of Haruki Ihara
Haruki Ihara resigned as manager of the Lions last week. This came as a bit of a shock because although the Lions were playing poorly (20-33 record and last in the Pacific League), Ihara had just taken the job a little over six months ago when Hisanobu Watanabe resigned (doesn't anyone want the Lions job?). I started thinking a little about his managerial career and it occurred to me that it's kind of odd.
Ihara's first manager job was with the Lions (a team he had played for in the 70's and coached for in the 80's and 90's) in 2002 when he was hired to replace Osamu Higashio. Under Ihara, the Lions took the Pacific League easily, finishing with a 90-49-1 record (a .647 winning percentage) and a 16 1/2 game lead over the Hawks and Buffaloes. They were swept, however, in the Nippon Series by the Giants.
The Lions failed to repeat in 2003 but they did finish in second with a 77-61-2 record, 5 1/2 games behind the first place Hawks (remember that playoffs in the Pacific League didn't start until 2004). Despite doing this well, Ihara stepped down after the season. Apparently the Lions' plan the whole time was that Ihara was given the job so that he would mentor Tsutomu Itoh to become the new manager in 2004 and regardless of how well the Ihara did as manager, they were sticking to the plan. The plan worked well for the Lions as Itoh lead them to a Nippon Series title (over the Dragons) in 2004.
Ihara landed on his feet, however, taking over the Orix Blue Wave. He quickly discovered that their was major difference between the quality of players he had with Orix and he finished the season in last with a record of 49-72-2. Following the season, Orix and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes "merged" (in reality, Orix absorbed the Buffaloes) and Ihara was let go. Orix wanted to bring back Akira Ohgi as manager as he had managed both teams.
And that was it as far as managerial jobs went for him for nine years. He coached for the Giants for a couple of years and did some broadcasting work but he did not have a managerial job until he took over the Lions last October.
I suspect that this was probably his last managerial job. He's 65 years old and I would think most teams would be looking for a younger guy. And you've got to wonder if other teams would wonder if he would up and quit on them if the team was doing poorly.
Ihara's first manager job was with the Lions (a team he had played for in the 70's and coached for in the 80's and 90's) in 2002 when he was hired to replace Osamu Higashio. Under Ihara, the Lions took the Pacific League easily, finishing with a 90-49-1 record (a .647 winning percentage) and a 16 1/2 game lead over the Hawks and Buffaloes. They were swept, however, in the Nippon Series by the Giants.
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| 2002 BBM Nippon Series #S25 |
The Lions failed to repeat in 2003 but they did finish in second with a 77-61-2 record, 5 1/2 games behind the first place Hawks (remember that playoffs in the Pacific League didn't start until 2004). Despite doing this well, Ihara stepped down after the season. Apparently the Lions' plan the whole time was that Ihara was given the job so that he would mentor Tsutomu Itoh to become the new manager in 2004 and regardless of how well the Ihara did as manager, they were sticking to the plan. The plan worked well for the Lions as Itoh lead them to a Nippon Series title (over the Dragons) in 2004.
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| 2004 BBM 1st Version #156 |
And that was it as far as managerial jobs went for him for nine years. He coached for the Giants for a couple of years and did some broadcasting work but he did not have a managerial job until he took over the Lions last October.
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| 2014 BBM 1st Version #028 |
Friday, June 6, 2014
More On The New KBO Set
Jason let me know today that someone on Ebay was selling boxes of the new KBO set. The seller had some additional information about the set in English:
As I mentioned the other day, each pack contains seven cards. What the new information reveals is that one of those seven cards is either an "item" or "redemption" card. The "item" cards unlock something in the on-line game the cards go with (this appears to be a collectible card game) while the "redemption" cards can be exchanged for autographed cards. The other six cards in the pack are regular cards. As previously mentioned, there are 126 cards in the set (14 per team). Those 126 cards are split between 9 "Superstar" cards (gold foil autograph), 18 "Big Star" cards (hologram on player's name, number and team name), 27 "All Stars" (holographic fronts) and 72 "normal" cards. It looks like all the cards except the "All Stars" have identical backs (like the old Konami Field Of 9 cards).
Jason pointed me to some discussions he had on the MyKBO.net Facebook page about the set. It appears that the three "subsets" are short printed. There's one poster who said he'd opened 10 boxes (20 packs of six cards each) and still did not have a complete set.
The boxes are cheap enough ($22) that I ordered two boxes so I'll see for myself in two to three weeks. Maybe I can do some trading to complete the set.
Jason pointed me to some discussions he had on the MyKBO.net Facebook page about the set. It appears that the three "subsets" are short printed. There's one poster who said he'd opened 10 boxes (20 packs of six cards each) and still did not have a complete set.
The boxes are cheap enough ($22) that I ordered two boxes so I'll see for myself in two to three weeks. Maybe I can do some trading to complete the set.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Yulieski Gourriel
Cuban star Yulieski Gourriel will make his NPB debut tomorrow with the Yokohama DeNA Baystars. Gourriel is the second Cuban player allowed by his government to play in Japan this year after Frederich Cepeda of the Giants.
Like Cepeda, Gourriel played in all three World Baseball Classics and has cards in several of the WBC sets. In 2006, he had cards in the "Counterparts", "Future Watch", "Inaugural Images" (2 in that set), "All World Team" and "WBC Moments" sets. In 2009, he showed up in the WBC Box Set as well as the WBC insert sets associated with the Bowman, Topps 2, and Topps Chrome releases. He was also on one of the WBC box toppers from the Allen & Ginters set (along with Cepeda). He was also included in the 2009 Konami WBC Heroes set. He makes an appearance in the base set for the 2013 Topps Tribute World Baseball Classic set. He also has a variety of parallel and memorabilia cards in the releases for each of the three WBCs.
Here's some of his cards:
It will be interesting to see what Japanese cards get made of Gourriel this year. He arrived in Japan last weekend which is probably just a little too late for him to get a card in BBM's 2nd Version set as the deadline for that set is usually late May. The Baystars team set has already been released so it's way too late for that. He might make it into Genesis, although it may depend on how well he plays as usually there are only nine players per team in that set. Other possibilities would be a Baystars team box set (if BBM decided to do one) or an SCM promo card. I think the best chance for a card for him will be the Calbee Series Three set which is expected to be released in September. The other scenario that would seem likely to me is if Front Runner did another "Season Summary" box set for DeNA after the season ends.
Like Cepeda, Gourriel played in all three World Baseball Classics and has cards in several of the WBC sets. In 2006, he had cards in the "Counterparts", "Future Watch", "Inaugural Images" (2 in that set), "All World Team" and "WBC Moments" sets. In 2009, he showed up in the WBC Box Set as well as the WBC insert sets associated with the Bowman, Topps 2, and Topps Chrome releases. He was also on one of the WBC box toppers from the Allen & Ginters set (along with Cepeda). He was also included in the 2009 Konami WBC Heroes set. He makes an appearance in the base set for the 2013 Topps Tribute World Baseball Classic set. He also has a variety of parallel and memorabilia cards in the releases for each of the three WBCs.
Here's some of his cards:
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| 2006 Future Watch #WBC-32 |
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| 2006 WBC Moments #CM-9 |
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| 2006 Inaugural Images #II-21 |
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| 2009 Topps WBC Box Set #6 |
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| 2009 Topps 2 WBC Insert #BCS3 |
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| 2009 Konami WBC Heroes #054 |
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| 2013 Topps Tribute WBC #15 |
It will be interesting to see what Japanese cards get made of Gourriel this year. He arrived in Japan last weekend which is probably just a little too late for him to get a card in BBM's 2nd Version set as the deadline for that set is usually late May. The Baystars team set has already been released so it's way too late for that. He might make it into Genesis, although it may depend on how well he plays as usually there are only nine players per team in that set. Other possibilities would be a Baystars team box set (if BBM decided to do one) or an SCM promo card. I think the best chance for a card for him will be the Calbee Series Three set which is expected to be released in September. The other scenario that would seem likely to me is if Front Runner did another "Season Summary" box set for DeNA after the season ends.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
RIP Don Zimmer
Don Zimmer passed away today at age 83. One little known fact of Zim's playing career is that he spent the 1966 season with the Toei Flyers, hitting .183 with 9 home runs in 87 games. He hung up his spikes after that season, starting his managerial career in 1967 in the Reds minor league system.
As Zimmer's single season in Japan falls into the "dead zone" between the end of menko (1964) and the beginning of Calbee (1973), there are no known contemporary Japanese baseball cards of him. There also have not been any OB cards of him since then either. I've been hoping that BBM will do a third foreign player set and include guys like him and Rich Gossage who have never had a Japanese card but so far it hasn't happened. In the meantime, we'll have to settle for this image:
I swiped this from Wayne Graczyk's 1989 Japan Pro Baseball Fan Handbook & Media Guide. Graczyk puts this out every year. The 1989 edition is the only one I have. It contains a list of all foreigners to play in Japan post-1950 along with pictures of most of them.
As Zimmer's single season in Japan falls into the "dead zone" between the end of menko (1964) and the beginning of Calbee (1973), there are no known contemporary Japanese baseball cards of him. There also have not been any OB cards of him since then either. I've been hoping that BBM will do a third foreign player set and include guys like him and Rich Gossage who have never had a Japanese card but so far it hasn't happened. In the meantime, we'll have to settle for this image:
Old And New Korean Baseball Cards
Jason did a post early this week showing pictures of a number of Korean cards that neither he or I had previously seen. A couple show major league players including one item that is a pretty blatant rip-off of the 1980 Topps set.
Jason also let me know that he's found a bunch of information about a new KBO set for this season. It's called Super Star Baseball Card and is a 126 card, pack based set. There are 14 cards per team (there are currently nine teams in the KBO). Jason added the checklist for the set to the Inventory Manager at Sports Card Forum - the set does not include any of the foreign players currently playing in Korea. Besides the official webpage, the manufacturer also has a Facebook page. It looks like the cards are being sold in packs of seven. Jason found a couple other web pages with more pictures and information. No idea how one would go about getting these. Ryan spent a week in Korea back at the beginning of May looking for stuff like this so I'm guessing that these were released after his trip.
Jason also let me know that he's found a bunch of information about a new KBO set for this season. It's called Super Star Baseball Card and is a 126 card, pack based set. There are 14 cards per team (there are currently nine teams in the KBO). Jason added the checklist for the set to the Inventory Manager at Sports Card Forum - the set does not include any of the foreign players currently playing in Korea. Besides the official webpage, the manufacturer also has a Facebook page. It looks like the cards are being sold in packs of seven. Jason found a couple other web pages with more pictures and information. No idea how one would go about getting these. Ryan spent a week in Korea back at the beginning of May looking for stuff like this so I'm guessing that these were released after his trip.
More New Stuff Announced
Four new sets have been announced in the past few days, three from BBM and one from Epoch.
- The big announcement was this year's 2nd Version set from BBM. This set is looking pretty much like most of the recent 2nd Version sets. There's 216 player cards (18 per team) plus 36 "1st Version Update" cards (3 per team) featuring players who for whatever reason didn't appear in the 1st Version set - the sample card shown on the web page is Frederich Cepeta [sic] who didn't join the Giants until early May. There are two 12 cards subsets - "Birth Of Hero" which looks like it features either a rookie or young player from each team (similar to the "Limitless Hope" subset from this year's 1st Version) and "Power Team" which (I think) will feature a foreign power hitter from each team. There will also be 12 team checklist cards (don't know the theme yet) and an as yet unknown number of celebrity first pitch ceremony cards. There's an insert set but I'm not sure what it is - I think there's only six cards in it so I'm guessing it shows two players so that all 12 teams are covered. It could be related to inter-league but that's really just a wild guess on my part. There will be some memorabilia cards available as well but it's not clear to me what they are either. The set will be out in early August.
- BBM is releasing another active player/OB team box set (following the recently released Pitchers Spirit Of Carp or "Totomashi" Carp set). This one is called "Impact Of Lions Blue" and features the Seibu Lions (obviously). It's a 28 cards box set featuring (say it with me now) 27 base cards plus one "special" card. I think the base cards will break down as 9 active players and 18 OB players but I'm not quite sure. The website lists 9 active players but only 14 OB players which may mean a couple players have more than one card. Or it may mean BBM is still finalizing some contracts. The OB players appear to all be from the 1980's (when the Lions wore all blue uniforms). The "special" cards appear to all be autographs - either facsimile or real. It may be the case that all the real autographs are OB players but (as usual) I'm not sure. The set will be out in early July.
- The first of BBM's two now annual cheerleader/dance team sets was also announced. The "Dancing Heroine - Hana" set is a pack based set that contains 96 cards in its base set (split unevenly between 10 different teams - the Tigers and Carp are not included in the set). There is a "hologram" parallel of the base cards, some form of insert that is not described and also autographed cards available. The set will be out at the end of June.
- The last new set is the latest from Epoch and the Japan Baseball Promotion Association (JPBA) aka the OB Club. This box set celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the JBPA. I'm not complete sure how many cards are in the set - it looks like there are 39 base cards and either two or three "special" cards which include either "insert" cards or autographed cards. I had been wondering after Epoch released the new Carp First Victory 40th Anniversary set independent of the OB Club if they were no longer working together - this answers that question. The set will be released on July 26.
- The big announcement was this year's 2nd Version set from BBM. This set is looking pretty much like most of the recent 2nd Version sets. There's 216 player cards (18 per team) plus 36 "1st Version Update" cards (3 per team) featuring players who for whatever reason didn't appear in the 1st Version set - the sample card shown on the web page is Frederich Cepeta [sic] who didn't join the Giants until early May. There are two 12 cards subsets - "Birth Of Hero" which looks like it features either a rookie or young player from each team (similar to the "Limitless Hope" subset from this year's 1st Version) and "Power Team" which (I think) will feature a foreign power hitter from each team. There will also be 12 team checklist cards (don't know the theme yet) and an as yet unknown number of celebrity first pitch ceremony cards. There's an insert set but I'm not sure what it is - I think there's only six cards in it so I'm guessing it shows two players so that all 12 teams are covered. It could be related to inter-league but that's really just a wild guess on my part. There will be some memorabilia cards available as well but it's not clear to me what they are either. The set will be out in early August.
- BBM is releasing another active player/OB team box set (following the recently released Pitchers Spirit Of Carp or "Totomashi" Carp set). This one is called "Impact Of Lions Blue" and features the Seibu Lions (obviously). It's a 28 cards box set featuring (say it with me now) 27 base cards plus one "special" card. I think the base cards will break down as 9 active players and 18 OB players but I'm not quite sure. The website lists 9 active players but only 14 OB players which may mean a couple players have more than one card. Or it may mean BBM is still finalizing some contracts. The OB players appear to all be from the 1980's (when the Lions wore all blue uniforms). The "special" cards appear to all be autographs - either facsimile or real. It may be the case that all the real autographs are OB players but (as usual) I'm not sure. The set will be out in early July.
- The first of BBM's two now annual cheerleader/dance team sets was also announced. The "Dancing Heroine - Hana" set is a pack based set that contains 96 cards in its base set (split unevenly between 10 different teams - the Tigers and Carp are not included in the set). There is a "hologram" parallel of the base cards, some form of insert that is not described and also autographed cards available. The set will be out at the end of June.
- The last new set is the latest from Epoch and the Japan Baseball Promotion Association (JPBA) aka the OB Club. This box set celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the JBPA. I'm not complete sure how many cards are in the set - it looks like there are 39 base cards and either two or three "special" cards which include either "insert" cards or autographed cards. I had been wondering after Epoch released the new Carp First Victory 40th Anniversary set independent of the OB Club if they were no longer working together - this answers that question. The set will be released on July 26.
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