Winter Releases

I want to do a quick post here to catch up on some recently announced sets that will be coming out over the next couple months.

- Epoch usually does a set in conjunction with the Japan Baseball Promotion Association (JBPA) - aka the OB Club - every December but for whatever reason the 2021 set got delayed until January.  The "Holographica" set still has a "cover date" of 2021 on it even though it will be released on January 29th.  This is one of Epoch's "ultra-high end" sets where a box containing six cards retails for 15,000 yen (16,500 with tax) which is in the neighborhood of $131 ($145 with tax).  The set details are a little confusing - there's 41 cards in the "regular" set but another 33 "regular: variation" cards.  I don't know if that means the base set has 74 cards or if the 33 "regular: variation" cards are short prints.  There are three different serially numbered parallel cards for each of the 74 cards and then the usual boatload of autographed cards - 10 different types that are all serially numbered.  Some of the players included in the set are Shigeo Nagashima, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Tatsunori Hara, Hiroki Kuroda and Michihiro Ogasawara.

- BBM's annual set for retiring players will be out in late February.  As was the case last year, this year's edition will not only include baseball players but retiring athletes in other sports including sumo, volleyball, swimming, rugby and judo among others.  The set is sold as a 38 card box set.  Each box will include the entire 36 card base set, one of 15 possible "Farewell" insert cards (with parallel versions available) and one autographed card.  Baseball players in the set include Daisuke Matsuzaka, Daisuke Yamai, Takeshi Toritani, Yuki Saitoh and Yoshiyuki Kamei.

- Jumping now to the other end of the career spectrum, the 2022 edition of Rookie Edition, BBM's set for the newly drafted players, will be released in early March.  The base set for this pack based set will contain 141 cards - 128 cards for the 2021 draftees (aka the 2022 rookie class), one "list of draft nominated players" (aka the card to make the number of cards in the set divisible by 3) and 12 "New Face" cards (one young active player from each team).  There are a variety of facsimile signature parallels for the 77 non-ikusei draftees and "secret" versions (short printed photo variations) of the cards of the 12 first round picks.  There's three insert sets - "Rookie Of The Year" (2 cards featuring the 2021 Rookies Of The Year),  "Close Relationship" (six cards showing draftees from the same school I think) and "Starting Point" (12 cards showing an active player from each team when they were a draft pick).  There are parallel versions of the "Close Relationship" and "Starting Point" inserts.  There's also a bunch of autographed cards available - some that can be pulled from packs and some that are available via redemption cards that are pulled from the packs.

- I'm never sure what this company is - previously they were "Hits" or "TIC" but this set is listed as "216 Co., Ltd." - but whatever their name is, they've announced their first "mini shikishi" card set for 2022.  It's for the Hawks and will be released on March 25th.  The set has 20 oversized cards in the base set and apparently also has autographed ones available also.  

RIP Shinji Mizushima

Baseball manga artist Shinji Mizushima passed away last week at the age of 82.  Mizushima had written a number of baseball manga over the years, most notably Abu-san and Dokaben.  His stories followed his characters from high school to professional baseball and often interacted with real life players.  

I've never read any of his manga or see any of the anime or live-action adaptations but I've come across a couple baseball cards featuring his work.  The 1999 BBM Lions 20th Anniversary set included a card of Dokaben protagonist Taro Yamada as a Lion (#SL29):

The 1998 BBM Hawks set included a card of Yasutake Kaguera (#FD74), the main character from Abu-san:

Kaguera's uniform number 90 has been "retired" for the Hawks although they did allow Robert Suarez to wear it during his time with the team.  I was kind of amused when I was at a Hawks game in Fukuoka back on my trip in 2019 to see someone in the stands wearing a jersey for Kageura:

H/T NPB on Reddit for the article.

2021 Topps NPB set

I wasn't sure I was going to buy the Topps NPB set when it came out in early December but I was able to track a set down for $35-ish so I picked it up.  It's just the base set - no inserts and no parallels.  The base set contains 216 cards split up evenly among the 12 teams (18 cards per team).  There are no subsets or checklist cards.

I had mixed feelings about this set before I got it and now that I have it in hand...I still have mixed feelings.  As I've mentioned before, the cards use a similar design to Topps' MLB cards this year, a design I personally think was pretty ugly.  And to paraphrase Night Owl Cards' comments about the MLB card design from almost a year ago - WHY THE HELL IS THE PLAYER'S NAME SO G*D D*MN SMALL!  I also like the photos on my baseball cards un-retouched and most of these appear to have had some sort of processing done to them.  And the less said about the card backs, the better.

But I have to say, the photo selection is excellent.  There's a much wider variety of poses than just the standard "batters batting, pitchers pitching and catchers catching" ones - a lot of "fielders fielding" and "base runners running" as well.  And there's a lot of more interesting versions of the "batters batting, pitchers pitching and catchers catching" poses as well.  Topps also had many more horizontally oriented cards than BBM, Epoch or Calbee did.  If the card design had borderless photos and the photos were left untouched, I could really fall in love with this set.  Even with the player's names being almost unreadable.

The player selection is a little odd.  With only 18 players per team, you'd think that Topps would have concentrated on picking most of the main players for each team and maybe a top rookie (i.e. 2020 draft pick) or two.  But no, Topps went the same direction as BBM's and Epoch's flagship sets and included ALL the 2020 draft picks for over half the teams (Marines, Dragons, Tigers, Carp, Buffaloes, Lions and Swallows).  There were 74 players taken in the 2020 draft (non-ikusei portion) and 60 of them appear in this set.  That's about 28% of the whole set.  I've made fun of BBM for including all the draft picks in their 1st Version sets but since those sets are larger, it's not quite as big of a deal.  Those 74 rookies this year accounted for about 23% of the 324 1st Version player cards (or really 24% of the non-manager cards) and about 17% of the 432 cards in Epoch's NPB set (or 18% of the non-manager cards).  

With all those rookies, there's a number of players who you might have expected to find in this set but don't.  Probably the biggest names are Kenta Imamiya, Ukyo Shuto, Shintaro Fujinami, Robert Suarez, Yuma Mune and Shuta Tonosaki.  Surprisingly there are 12 players who Topps included who are not in BBM's flagship sets this year - probably the biggest names are Wladimir Balentien and Chihiro Kaneko.

OK, enough talk - here's a card from each team:

#123

#76

#25

#143

#33

#165

#11

#71

#82

#121

#62

#191

As always, you can see all the cards over at Jambalaya.

One thing that I'm very curious about at this point is will there be any other NPB sets from Topps this year.  They are supposedly issuing a Chrome version of this set but it's been delayed since December and there's currently no release date available.  And what's really odd is that Topps' Japanese web site is no longer listing their NPB products.  The web pages for both this set and the Chrome set have been taken off line - if you try to access them you get a 404 "page not found" error.  Looking back at the original press release from the beginning of October where Topps announced that they had gotten a license to produce NPB cards, it hard to miss that it specifically mentions a "2021 licensing agreement" and that Topps would be issuing "several products in 2021" (emphasis mine in both quotes).  It sounds like the license was ONLY for 2021 and now that Fanatics has acquired Topps, it's probably an open question about whether or not Topps will attempt to acquire a new license.  This may end up being just an interesting one-off.

Card Of The Week January 16th

I regularly read a Japanese blog about Calbee cards called "Calbee Card Institute" (or at least that's what Google translate calls it).  A couple weeks back it had a post about a 1999 Star insert of Tsuyoshi Shinjyo.  The interesting thing about this card was that it features a picture of Shinjyo pitching!  Apparently Katsuya Nomura had toyed with the idea of making Shinjyo a pitcher when he took over as manager of the Tigers during the 1998-99 offseason.  It didn't last too long - it looks like Shinjyo only made two appearances on the mound during spring training in 1999 before hurting his knee - but long enough for it to be commemorated on a baseball card.

Actually, it was commemorated on at least two baseball cards.  I went looking for the Calbee card on Yahoo! Japan Auctions but it was more expensive than what I wanted to pay.  During the search, though, I came across a BBM card showing him pitching that was much cheaper.  It's a promo card for the 1999 BBM Tigers set.  I don't know if his regular card in the set shows him as a pitcher or not.  Here's the front and back of it (my scanner cut off the top border on the front for some reason):

2022 Hall Of Fame Class

The Japanese Hall Of Fame inductees for 2022 were announced today.  There were two players elected on the Players Division ballot, Shingo Takatsu and Masahiro Yamamoto.  They were the first players elected on that ballot in three years.  For the second straight year no one was elected on the Experts Division ballot and the Special Committee elected Shigeyoshi Matsumae, the founder of Tokai University.

Here's cards of Takatsu and Yamamoto:

Shingo Takatsu

1991 BBM #387

2002 Calbee #EX-3

2007 BBM 2nd Version #626

Masashiro Yamamoto

1990 Calbee #64

2006 Dragons #34

2015 Epoch Dragons X Mizuno #13

I updated the spread sheet I have listing all the Hall Of Famers in BBM's flagship sets over the years (the one I used to identify the sets with the most Hall Of Famers and the sets with the most Hall Of Fame players).  It didn't make a difference in the standings since Takatsu appeared in the sets from 1991 to 2007 with the exception of 2004 & 2005 when he played in MLB and Yamamoto appeared in the sets from 1991 to 2015.  The set with the most Hall Of Fame players is still 1994 which now has 16 and the set with the most Hall Of Famers (players and managers) is still 1991 which now has 24.  The most recent year to feature a Hall Of Fame player is now 2015.  Since Takatsu has been the manager of the Swallows since 2020, the sets from the last two years now feature three Hall Of Famers (Takatsu, Kimiyasu Kudoh and Tatsunori Hara).  This year's set will also feature three Hall Of Famers - Takatsu, Hara and Kazuyoshi Tatsunami.

Yoshiyuki Kamei

Another player who announced his retirement at the end of the season was Yoshiyuki Kamei of the Giants.  Kamei been the Giants fourth round pick in the 2004 draft out of Chuo University where he had won three Best 9 awards and one Tohto League MVP award.  I've always felt that Kamei's had somewhat of an odd career.  It seems like he was always on the brink of being a solid starting outfielder or third baseman for the Giants but was constantly undermined by an ill-timed injury or slump.  His best season was probably 2009 when he hit .290 with 25 home runs and won a Golden Glove award.  Those 25 home runs were just short of a quarter of his career total.  Besides 2009 the only two years that he really was a starter for most of the season were 2018 and 2019.  He became the first player ever to have a pinch hit walk off home run on Opening Day this past March.  

He never made an All Star team but he played in six Nippon Series with Yomiuri and won awards in three of them ("Outstanding Player" in 2009, "Japan Series Special Award BASEBALL HEROES" in 2013 and "Fighting Spirit" in 2019).  He was dispatched by the Giants to play winter ball overseas twice during his career and was impressive both times - hitting .300 in 31 games with the Honolulu Sharks of the Hawaiian Winter League in 2006 and then dominating the Australian Baseball League in the first half of the 2010-11 season with a .438 batting average, a .500 on base percentage and a .859 slugging percentage in 16 games with the Melbourne Aces (he left the team after the first half of the season and so didn't qualify for the batting title although his 7 home runs was tied for fifth in the league and his 25 RBIs was tied for seventh).  He was on Japan's team for the 2009 World Baseball Classic, getting into three games as a late inning defensive replacement and pinch runner.

Kamei's first BBM cards are #53 in the 2005 Rookie Edition set and #369 in the 2005 1st Version set.  Oddly enough, he's listed as an outfielder on the Rookie Edition card and an infielder on the 1st Version card - in reality he didn't play in the infield (at least with the ichi-gun team) until 2009.  His first Calbee card was #182 in the 2006 Series Two set.  Here's some of his cards:

2005 BBM Rookie Edition #53

2005 BBM 1st Version #369

2007 BBM 1st Version #348

2008 BBM Nippon Series #S55

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC #W09R111

2011 BBM Tohto 80th Memorial #59

2013 Calbee #159

2014 BBM Giants #G055

2015 BBM 1st Version #182

2017 Epoch Giants #33

2020 BBM Giants "The Tokyo Culture" #GP9

2021 Epoch One #030

Shunsuke

Another retirement post for a mononymous player - this time it's Hanshin Tigers outfielder Shunsuke.  Born Shunsuke Fujikawa, he was a star at Kinki University, winning five Best 9 awards and an MVP award.  He had an agreement in place to play for Toho Gas in the corporate leagues after graduation if he was not taken in one of the first three rounds of the 2009 draft and all 12 NPB teams were supposedly made aware of this.  However, the Hanshin Tigers took him in the fifth round and after much consternation, he decided to sign with Hanshin instead of playing for Toho Gas.

He changed his registered name to "Shunsuke" after the 2010 season to avoid confusion with Tigers reliever Kyuji Fujikawa and kept the name even when Fujikawa left for MLB for a couple seasons and retired after the 2020 season.

I think bigger things were expected of him but he seems to have quickly fallen into a backup outfielder and pinch hitter role.  He never seemed to hit very well as his career batting average was only .249.  His best season was probably 2013 when he hit .292 in 119 games (although only 216 at bats).  His playing time with the top team tailed off considerably after Koji Chikamoto joined Hanshin in 2019 - he only appeared in 15 total ichi-gun games in 2019 and 2020 and spent all of 2021 with the farm team.  He'll be a coach for the Red Star Baseball Club, a youth club run by former Tigers outfielder Norihiro Akahoshi, and also work in the Tigers front office.

His BBM rookie cards are #030 in the 2010 Rookie Edition set and #143 in the 2010 1st Version set.  His first Calbee card was #217 in the 2010 Series Three set.  Here's some of his cards:

2010 BBM Rookie Edition #030

2010 BBM 1st Version #143

2011 BBM 2nd Version #597

2014 BBM 1st Version #210

2015 Tigers Original Player Card #23

2018 Epoch NPB #282

2021 BBM Tigers #T69