2018 SCC KBO Premium Memorabilia Cards

I'm not a huge fan of memorabilia cards. 

Well, actually, that's not quite true.  I'm not a huge fan of the expense of memorabilia cards.  I've tried to not spend a lot of money on any one particular card so I don't have many memorabilia cards (or autographed cards for that matter).

But I recently came across a couple reasonably priced jersey cards from the 2018 SCC KBO Premium set on Ebay and I decided to pull the trigger.  The cards showed up at my house earlier this week:

The Kim card was $9 and the Lee was $10.  The seller actually had several other jersey cards for other players for as low as $5 but I don't know the KBO very well and I wanted to get players I knew so I stopped with these two.

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version Set - Where Are They Now?

BBM published their sixth set for the Tokyo Big Six League and their seven overall collegiate set in September of 2010.  The set was the Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version set.  Like the two previous Autumn Versions, this was a box set with a 36 card base set.  There were 30 player cards (five per team) plus six team cards.  The boxes also contained one of ten possible insert cards featuring either the Best 9 players from spring 2010 season or the ERA leader from the spring (Kazuki Mishima).

Ten of the 30 players in the set would go on to play in NPB.  Nine of these players had been in previous Tokyo Big Six sets - the only newcomer was Koji Fukutani of Keio.  Seven of the ten players are still active.  Here's the list:

Player	College	Year	Drafted	Notes
Araki, Fumiya	Meiji	4	2010 Tigers 5th	Played for Tigers 2011-present
Fukui, Yuya	Waseda	4	2010 Carp 1st	Played for Carp 2011-2018, Eagles 2019-present.
Fukutani, Koji	Keio	2	2012 Dragons 1st	Played for Dragons 2013-present.  All Star in 2014
Habu, Shohei	Waesda	3	2011 Carp 4th	Played for Carp 2012-18.
Itoh, Hayata	Keio	3	2011 Tigers 1st	Played for Tigers 2011-present
Kagami, Kisho	Hosei	4	2010 Baystars 2nd	Played for Baystars 2011-15.  Played for JR West after leaving Baystars
Mishima, Kazuki	Hosei	2	2012 Baystars 2nd	Played for Baystars 2013-present.  All Star in 2013
Nomura, Yusuke	Meiji	3	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
Ohishi, Tatsuya	Waseda	4	2010 Lions 1st	Played for Lions 2011-2019
Saitoh, Yuki	Waseda	4	2010 Fighters 1st	Played for Fighters 2011-present.  All Star in 2011-12

Here's each of their cards from the set along with a card of them from their time in NPB.  I've tried to pick a card I haven't already shown but I have more cards of Kagami as a collegiate player than I do of him as a Baystar so his card will be a repeat.

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #15

2017 BBM Tigers #T56

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #09

2019 BBM 2nd Version #353

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #02

2016 BBM Dragons Dash #10

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #11

2016 BBM Carp #C64

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #05

2017 Epoch Tigers #34 (Variant 1)

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #25

2015 BBM Baystars #DB34

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #26

2020 BBM 1st Version #193

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #14

2020 BBM Carp History #79

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #07

2020 BBM Farewell #26

2010 BBM Tokyo Big Six Autumn Version #08

2020 Epoch NPB #146

Of the other 20 players in the set, two of them - Shuhei Imasaki (Tokyo) and Kento Yajima (Meiji) - never appeared on any cards other than this set.  The other 18 players - Junichi Katori (Tokyo), Kanji Kawai (Hosei), Yoshihiro Maeda (Tokyo), Koichiro Matsumoto (Rikkio), Masahiro Nagasaki (Keio), Masataka Nakamura (Meiji), Kazuki Nishijima (Meiji), Kenya Okabe (Rikkio), Keisuke Okazaki (Rikkio), Hayato Saitoh (Rikkio), Yo Sasaki (Hosei), Yohei Tachi (Tokyo), Daisuke Takeuchi (Keio), Hiroshi Taki (Hosei), Soichiro Tanaka (Rikkio), Shita Utsumi (Tokyo), Yuya Watanabe (Waseda) and Tatsushi Yumoto (Keio) - all appeared in at least one other BBM Tokyo Big Six set.

This was Yuki Saitoh's final appearance in a BBM collegiate set before being drafted by the Fighters in the fall of 2010.  I remember being concerned at the time that it would be the last Tokyo Big Six card set since I was (and still am) convinced that BBM only did the sets to cash in on Saitoh's popularity after the 2006 Koshien tournament.  I was pleasantly surprised when they continued issuing the sets - there would be four more after this one - Spring and Autumn Versions in 2011 followed by single issues in 2012 and 2013.

Card Of The Week September 13

The Orix Buffaloes did not have a good week last week.

That's actually not all that unusual this year.  At 23-45-5, Orix has the worst record in NPB.   They're 18 1/2 games out of first place in the Pacific League which doesn't sound terrible except that they're 9 games out of FIFTH place as well.  OK, to be fair, they're actually 9 games out of fourth place since Seibu and Nippon-Ham are tied for fourth with identical records.

Orix went 1-4 between Tuesday and Sunday.  Their record might have been worse but their game yesterday was rained out.  What made this past week particularly bad for them is that twice an opposing pitcher took a no-hitter late into the game against them.

On Tuesday, Kona Takahashi of the Lions had no-hit the Buffaloes through eight innings before pinch hitter Masahiro Nishino singled to start off the ninth inning.  Takahashi stayed in the game and got the last three outs, recording a complete game shutout 2-0 victory.  Here's the highlights:



This was second consecutive start for Takahashi where he took a no-hitter past the sixth.  On September 1st he held the Marines hitless into the seventh before giving up a hit to Hisanori Yasuda.

On Friday, Orix sent Taisuke Yamaoka while the Chiba Lotte Marines countered with Toshiya Nakamura.  Neither pitcher gave up a hit until Lotte's Shohei Katoh singled in the bottom of the sixth.  The Marines got their only hits of the game in that inning, converting three hits and walk into two runs.  Nakamura kept Orix hitless until Ryoichi Adachi led off the top of the eighth with a double.  After the hit Nakamura gave way to newly acquired Hirokazu Sawamura who kept Orix off the board before Naoya Masuda came in for his 23rd save in the ninth.  Here are the highlights:



I tuned into each game just in time to see each pitcher give up their first hit.  Obviously somehow my starting to watch from 7000 miles away caused both of them to lose the no-hitter (but didn't effect Yasuhiro Ogawa a few weeks back).  To make it up to them I thought I'd share cards of them (although I'm sure both of them would have preferred the no-hitter):

2017 Epoch Lions #10

2019 BBM Marines #M26

Hideki Matsui BBM Flagship Cards

I got several comments on the attractiveness of Hideki Matsui's 1994 BBM card in the post I did about most Hall Of Fame players in a BBM set last week.  I replied to a couple of them that I thought that it was probably the most attractive photo of all his BBM flagship cards.  I thought I'd do a quick post to test that, so here's all of Matsui's BBM flagship cards - at least all the "regular" player cards - I'm not looking at his subset or insert set cards - from his rookie season of 1993 to 2002, his last year in NPB:

1993 BBM #423

1994 BBM #321

1995 BBM #286

1996 BBM #327

1997 BBM #300

1998 BBM #343

1999 BBM #326 (Gold Signature Parallel)

2000 BBM #425

2001 BBM #281

2002 BBM 1st Version #54

2002 BBM 2nd Version #498

After looking at them all, I stand by my original assessment - the 1994 card is the best photo, although I also like the 1997 and 2002 1st Version ones.  BBM doesn't seem to have used much of a variety of poses for him, unlike the selection Ichiro had over most of the same sets.

Super Game Cards From Dan

Got a package in the mail today from Dan of Korean Cardboard.  In it were five more cards from the 2000 Teleca "'99 Korea Japan Super Games" insert set:

#KJ06

#KJ17

#KJ29

#KJ30

#KJ32

I'm almost positive that's Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes catcher Tetsuya Matoyama on Kim Han Soo's card.

Between these five cards and the four I got from Steve a few weeks back, I'm down to only needing 15 more cards to complete this set.  There's 46 cards in all so I'm just over the two thirds mark.  Pretty good considering I started out working on this insert set about four years ago with only one card.

Thanks for the cards, Dan!

Card Of The Week September 6

Shohei Ohtani and Shintaro Fujinami were both high school pitchers taken in the first round of the 2012 draft.  Both players experienced similar levels of success over their first couple seasons, enough that BBM did a box set called "Go Higher" celebrating the two players in 2016.  That was the season, however, where their career path began to diverge.

I had really realized until I started writing this how well Fujinami had done in his first couple seasons.  He went 10-6 with a 2.75 ERA as a 19 year old in 2013 and followed that up with an 11-8, 3.53 ERA season in 2014.  He had an outstanding season in 2015, going 14-7 with a 2.40 ERA.  He led the Central League in strikeouts with 221 and threw seven complete games including four shutouts - both of which also led the league.  He slumped a bit to 7-11 in 2016 which probably has more to do with the Tigers than his pitching as his ERA was still a decent 3.25.  He made one appearance for Japan in the 2017 World Baseball Classic but started having injury issues that season that has limited his time with the top team over the past four seasons (including this year).  In fact last year he only made one appearance with the ichi-gun squad.  He looked promising during spring training in February and March of this year but not only was training camp shutdown due to the pandemic, he actually contracted COVID-19 himself.  He recovered from the virus by the time camps reopened in June and pitched well on the farm team.  He was promoted to the top team a few weeks ago and had been pitching decently until yesterday's game against the Yomiuri Giants.  The only positive thing about the outing is that he struck out six Giants in 4 2/3 innings.  The rest of his line was 9 hits, 6 walks and 11 runs (7 earned).  Those 11 runs were the most ever given up in one game by a Hashin pitcher.  (I want to mention Jim Allen's analysis that Fujinami's career "basically slid into the tank" when Tomoaki Kanemoto became the Tigers manager in 2016.  Kanemoto once left Fujinami in to throw over 160 pitches in a game.  I think it was ridiculous that Fujinami was left in to take the beating as long as he was yesterday but at least it was only 125 pitches.)

In contrast, Shohei Ohtani was the Pacific League MVP in 2016, helping his Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters win the Nippon Series.  After his own injury plagued 2017 season, he moved to MLB and has put up a couple solid seasons with the bat as well as pitching well in 10 starts in 2018 before running into arm issues.  His 2020 season has been less than spectacular (2 very poor starts before being shut down and he's currently hitting under .200) but he did have his first sayonara hit in Friday night's game against Houston.

That BBM box set from 2016 had 18 cards in its base set - seven cards for each player and four cards showing both players.  Here's all four of the cards with both players.  The first one shows them at their team's respective "rookie class introductory" press conferences, the second one shows their matchup on May 26th, 2013 (Ohtani was not pitching that game - I think he doubled twice off Fujinami but Fujinami got the win in the game), the third one celebrates their first playoff appearances in 2014 and the last one shows the two of them together at some event for Gaora Sports during the 2015-16 offseason:

2016 BBM Go Higher #1

2016 BBM Go Higher #5

2016 BBM Go Higher #11

2016 BBM Go Higher #16

Most Hall Of Fame Players In A BBM Set

I did a post a while back where I looked into which BBM flagship set had the most Hall Of Famers in it.  The answer was the 1991 set which featured 22 Hall Of Famers.  The more I've thought about it since doing that post the less satisfied I am with that answer.  It's not that the numbers are wrong - there are 22 current Hall Of Famers in the 1991 BBM set and that's the most in any BBM flagship set - but there's an aspect that I felt I should take into consideration - managers.

It is much more likely for a star player in NPB to become a manager than it is in MLB.  Let's use the 500 home run club for an example of this.  There are 27 MLB players with more than 500 home runs.  Only four ever managed an MLB team - Mel Ott, Ted Williams, Eddie Mathews and Frank Robinson.  There have only been eight NPB players with more than 500 home runs* and half of them have managed NPB teams - Katsuya Nomura, Sadaharu Oh, Koji Yamamoto and Hiromitsu Ochiai.

*I'm not including Hideki Matsui in this list as his 500 career home runs are split between NPB and MLB

So why does this matter?  There are nine Hall Of Fame managers in the 1991 BBM set.  That means three quarters of the NPB teams were managed by a Hall Of Famer that year!  And 1991 is not alone - there were also nine Hall Of Fame managers in 1998, 1999 and 2001.  So given that there are so many managers in the Hall Of Fame, I thought it'd be interesting to see which BBM sets had the most Hall Of Fame players in them.

Somewhat surprisingly, the answer is the 1994 set with 14.  The 1991, 1992 and 1993 sets each have 13 and the 1995 set has 12.  The numbers drop steadily after that with the 1996-98 sets each having 11, the 1999 set has 9, the 2000 and 2001 sets have 8 each, and so on until 2012 which is the last BBM set to feature a Hall Of Fame player (Tomoaki Kanemoto).

Here's the 14 Hall Of Famers from the 1994 set:

1994 BBM #463

1994 BBM #16

1994 BBM #84

1994 BBM #164

1994 BBM #363

1994 BBM #132

1994 BBM #151

1994 BBM #321

1994 BBM #216

1994 BBM #316

1994 BBM #131

1994 BBM #67

1994 BBM #112

1994 BBM #296