Last Minute Items

It's almost December and there's still a couple 2023 sets that have been announced.  And so far there hasn't been any news about any 2024 sets yet.

- What I'm expecting to be BBM's last release for the year is "Crown", their annual* ultra high end multi-sport set.   Six card boxes of this will go on sale at the end of December for 24,200 yen (around $160).  I think each box is guaranteed to include at least one autographed card.   The base set will contain 48 cards, 25 of which will feature baseball players.  The players are a mix of OB (Shigeo Nagashima, Sadaharu Oh, Koji Yamamoto, Hideki Matsui, Lee Seung-Yeop, Bobby Rose, Boomer Wells, Koji Uehara, etc) and active (Yu Darvish, Munetaka Murakami, Sosuke Genda, Roki Sasaski, Yuki Yanagita, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, etc).  Other sports represented in the set include sumo, pro wrestling, track & field, soccer, basketball, rugby, swimming, tennis and marathon running.  There's four "High Grade Insert Card" sets associated with the set - "Velvet" (48 cards), "Jet" (48 cards), "Foil Autographed Card" (24 cards) and "Sparkling (3D)" (12 cards).  I guess from the numbers that the "Velvet" and "Jet" cards are essentially parallels.  Looks like the "Velvet" cards are actually made of velvet and the "Jet" cards use "jet black special paper".  I assume everyone in the base set has an autographed card.

* Hey, last year and this year makes it annual, right?

- I saw this tweet from Topps Japan this morning regarding Topps Now cards for the Asian Professional Baseball Championship Samurai Japan team and two thoughts ran through my mind.  The first, of course, was:

Take My Money Fry GIFfrom Take My Money GIFs

The second was "Wait a minute - if Topps has the current Samurai Japan license, how did BBM include Samurai Japan cards in the Infinity set back in October?"  I can't answer that but I can talk about the cards that are up for sale on Topps' Japanese website.  There are sixteen cards featuring 14 players along with manager Hirokazu Ibata.  There are four cards for each game the team played in the tournament.  There are two cards of MVP Makoto Kadowaki and one card each for Yuji Akahoshi, Haruka Nemoto, Shota Morishita, Chusei Mannami, Kaito Kozono, Chihiro Sumida, Teruaki Sato, Takahisa Hayakawa, Kyota Fujiwara, Yuki Nomura, Kojiro Yoshimura, Shugo Maki and Yuto Koga.  As with last year's Samurai Japan Topps Now cards, Topps Japan will send these cards overseas but they are not cheap.  For overseas customers, each card is 1130 yen (~$7.63) while those in Japan will have to pay tax on them so their price is 1243 yen (~$8.39).  Of course, I believe that shipping in Japan is free while shipping overseas is definitely not.  Unlike last year when it appeared to be a flat rate of 3900 yen regardless of how many cards you bought, it looks like the rate scales depending on how many cards you buy.  I put one card in my shopping cart and it indicated that the shipping rate would be 2000 yen.  I ended up buying all 16 cards and the shipping was 5170 yen ($35).  My total was 23,250 which worked out to around $155 which was expensive but a little cheaper than what 16 MLB Topps Now cards would have cost in the US.  The cards will be on sale on 7 PM JST on December 22 (which would be 5 AM EST that day).  I do not know if they will do a full team set like they did last year.  I won't be surprised if they do Topps Now cards for the two games Samurai Japan will play against a European All Star team next March in Osaka.

Card Of The Week November 26

The big NPB free agent news this past week was that pitcher Sachiya Yamasaki had left the Orix Buffaloes to join the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.  Yamasaki's father Akihiro had also been a baseball player.  He was drafted in the second round of the 1979 draft by the Yomiuri Giants and spent ten seasons with them before joining the Fighters (who were sharing Korakuen Stadium and the Tokyo Dome with the Giants in Tokyo during this time) for the 1990 and 1991 seasons.  The elder Yamasaki then coached for the Fighters for much of the next 13 years before moving on to other coaching gigs - mostly with independent teams but also for the Dragons and Giants.  Sachiya was born in 1992 so he's now joining the team that his father coached during much of his childhood.

Here's a card showing both father and son (2015 BBM Rookie Edition #107):

The back of the card is interesting - the column on the right side lists what I think were all the father-son combinations in NPB history, at least until 2015:

The first pair is Kazuhiro and Hiroki Kuroda, followed by Katsuya and Katsunori Nomura and Shigeo and Kazushige Nagashima.  Next is the Donoue clan - father Terashi and brothers Takehiro and Naomichi.  The Yamasaki's are the final entry.

Hmmm

I got an email from a reader after my post the other day about some recent Ebay pickups that included a BBM "Printing Plate" Masataka Yoshida.  In the email, the reader asked me if there was anything on the back of the plate and/or did the seller have any backstory about it.  (The answer to both questions is "no".)  He went on to explain that there had been an influx of apparently counterfeit "Printing Plates" from an Ebay seller a few months back and he wondered if mine was possibly fake.

Reading his email and doing a little research online made me really start wondering too.  There's several reasons now why I'm pretty much convinced the Yoshida "Printing Plate" is fake.

1. It looks terrible.  Compare the front of the Yoshida one to the 2022 Bowman NPB Hayato Ishita "Printing Plate":

The Ishita image is just as sharp as the actual card but the Yoshida image looks like he's batting in a snowstorm.  

2. There's no sticker on the back of the plate.  The Ishita one has a sticker explaining what it is.  Again, let's compare them:

It's hard to tell from the scans but the Ishita one has some marks on it - the kind of thing you might expect if it was used in the printing process.  The Yoshida one doesn't.

3. I've never seen a BBM "Printing Plate" before.  That includes seeing any references to them in BBM's websites, Sports Card Magazine, auctions sites or card shops.

4. The Ebay seller didn't have any other BBM items.  The seller I bought the Ishita card from was selling a lot of other Japanese cards including singles from the 2022 Bowman NPB set.  So it was completely believable that he could have pulled the "Printing Plate" from a pack.  On the other hand, the seller I got the "Yoshida" one from didn't have any other Japanese items.  He had a lot of other "Printing Plates" along with a bunch of what looked like AI generated celebrity art cards.

I didn't spend a whole lot on it - less than $20 - and it's probably more effort than it's worth to return it.  But it is very disappointing.

Recent Ebay Pickups

I wanted to do a quick post about some cards I picked up off Ebay in the last few weeks.  The first is my second "Printing Plate".  This one is from BBM and is for Masataka Yoshida's card in the 2021 Masterpiece set.  I though it was interesting that it was a reverse image.  It also appears to be a bit of a mess - I don't know if that's normal of if there's actually something messed up with it (UPDATE - It's probably a fake):

Like the other time I got a "Printing Plate" card, I thought I should get the card it went with so I ended up buying it from the same guy I had bought my first "Printing Plate" from (along with a bunch of other fun stuff).  That card showed up in the mail today:

2021 BBM Masterpiece #060

That wasn't the only thing I bought from that particular seller.  I had noticed recently that Alen Hanson of the Fighters didn't have any cards this year other than a couple of Epoch One cards and an autographed card in BBM's 2nd Version set.  The seller had the autographed card at a pretty good price so I picked that up as well:

2023 BBM 2nd Version 

But wait, there's more!  The seller included a couple other cards - none of which I already had!  Here are the cards:

2022 BBM Infinity #27

2019 Epoch Fighters Rookies & Stars #57

2022 BBM Infinity "Inspire" #IN08

I had thought about picking up the Okoshi card last year when the Infinity set came out since the I find the inclusion of non-NPB baseball players in their multi-sport sets very appealing.  Okoshi had played baseball at Tokyo University but never went pro.  He instead became a journalist, mostly covering politics for NHK.  He also appeared in the 2011 BBM Legend Of Tokyo big Six set.

The last item was another item that arrived in the mail today, although from a different seller.  The Bowamn NPB set came out a few weeks ago.  After briefly considering it, I decided against buying a complete set and instead I'll just pick up a handful of singles when I get an opportunity.  One of the insert sets for the Bowman set reuses the 1989 Bowman design - albeit with a shiny "chrome' finish.  Ryan has already picked up the Takeya Nakamura card from this insert set for me but I couldn't resist grabbing the Munetaka Murakami one also:

2023 Bowman NPB #89B-14

The backs show the same level of effort that we've come to expect from Topps with their NPB products:

2003 Asian Baseball Championship Japanese National Team

Twenty years ago this month, Japan unveiled its first National Baseball Team made up entirely of professional players.  The event the team was playing in was the 2003 Asian Baseball Championship which that year served as the Asian qualifier for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

Japan had not medaled in baseball at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the first Olympics to allow professional players.  It was the first time in the five Olympics that had featured baseball (two as a "demonstration" sport and three as an "official" sport) that they had not won at least the bronze medal.  Despite being allowed to use professionals, Japan's roster that year was a hybrid affair containing only eight professional players (one from each Pacific League team along with the Central League teams) along with five college players (including Shinnosuke Abe and Masanori Ishikawa) and eleven industrial league players (including Norihiro Akahoshi, Toshiya Sugiuchi and Shunsuke Watanabe).  Japan went 4-3 in pool play to finish a disappointing fourth and then lost both their semi-final game to Cuba and the bronze medal game to Korea.  Head coach Kozo Otagaki from Toshiba took the brunt of the blame for the team's poor performance as it was alleged that he hadn't worked with the professional players very well.  As the 2004 game drew near, the All Japan Baseball Conference was determined to not repeat the mistakes of 2000 and decided to field an all-professional team coached by a staff used to dealing with professional players.  Putting a team together to play in a tournament being held during the NPB regular season would be a challenge but before they could worry about that, Japan needed to qualify for the games,

The 2003 Asian Baseball Championship was scheduled from October 31st to November 7th in Sapporo, Hokkaido.  All the games were to be played in the Sapporo Dome.  The tournament consisted of two parts - a qualifying round and a final round.  The qualifying round was a round robin tournament between China, Pakistan, Indonesai and the Philippines.  The winner of the qualifying round would then play in another round robin tournament for the final round along with Japan, Korea and Taiwan (aka Chinese Taipei).  The top two teams of the final round would qualify for the 2004 Olympics.

Because of the structure of the tournament, Japan was not scheduled to play their first game until November 5th which would be more than a week since the ending of the 2003 Nippon Series.  Since the tournament would not overlap with the NPB season, teams were a little more willing to allow their players to participate and the organizers were able to put together a team that was stacked.

Japan would only play three games in the tournament and their three starters would be Daisuke Matsuzaka, Koji Uehara and Tsuyoshi Wada.  Hitoki Iwase, Masahide Kobayashi and Hiroki Kuroda would be available in the bullpen.  The position players included Kazuo Matsui, Kenji Johjima, Michihiro Ogasawara, Kosuke Fukudome, Kazuhiro Wada, Yoshinobu Takahashi, Yoshitomo Tani and Shinya Miyamoto.  The roster was actually short one player as Norihiro Akahoshi had gotten injured and was unable to play.  He was not replaced.  As it turned out, he wasn't missed.

The team would be managed by baseball legend Shigeo Nagashima, who had stepped down as Giants manager two years previously.  His coaching staff would consist of Kiyoshi Nakahata who had played for Nagashima with the Giants, Yutaka Ohno who had a Hall Of Fame pitching career with the Carp and former Yokohama Whale and Nippon-Ham Fighter Yutaka Takagi.

When the tournament got under way it was China that dominated the qualifying round.  They beat the Philippines 7-1 in their first game and then demolished Indonesia and Pakistan 15-0 and 19-0 respectively with both games ending after seven innings due to the mercy rule.  They outscored their opponents 41-1.

2003 BBM Japan National Team #30

Reality set in during the final round as China's first opponent was Japan.  Koji Uehara started for Nagashima's team and he went seven innings, striking out 11 while walking two and giving up only one run on a solo home run.  Meanwhile Japan's offense got rolling and they scored over a dozen runs to win the game 13-1.

2003 BBM Japan National Team #31

Japan's next opponent was Taiwan.  Daisuke Matsuzaka got the start in this game and got into a little bit of trouble early as Taiwan had runners on 1st and 2nd with two down in the second but Tani made a nice play on a hard hit ball to end the inning.  Matsuzaka would go on to throw seven shutout innings while striking out 12.  Japan's offense again pounded their opponents, scoring nine runs on 16 hits.  With the 9-0 victory, Japan assured themselves of being one of the top two teams in the tournament and had clinched a spot in the Athens games.

2003 BBM Japan National Team #32

Tsuyoshi Wada took the mound the next day for Japan's final game against Korea.  This was a much tighter affair, with Japan only scoring two runs.  Wada held the Koreans scoreless through 5 1/3 innings while striking out nine before giving way to the bullpen.  Hiroki Kuroda, Hitoki Iwase and Masahide Kobayashi kept Korea off the board the remaining 3 2/3 innings and Japan won their final game 2-0.  Japan went 3-0 in the tournment, outscoring their opponents 24-1.  They and Taiwan (who had beaten both China and Korea) ended the tournament as the top two teams. 

2003 BBM Japan National Team #26

2003 BBM Japan National Team #27

2003 BBM Japan National Team #28

2003 BBM Japan National Team #29

Japan swept the post-tournament awards as well.  Shinya Miyamoto, who had hit .500, scored three runs and knocked in five, was named MVP.  Yoshinobu Takahashi was the leading hitter with a .583 average.  Kosuke Fukudome matched Miyamoto's .500 average and five RBIs but had to settle for the "Most Runs Batted In" award.  Matsuzaka won the "Best Pitcher" award.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Japan's tournament dominance is that they did it without hitting a home run.  They also got very little offense out of Kenji Johjima (.143), Kazuo Matsui (.273), Michihiro Ogasawara (.167) and Kazuhiro Wada (.200).  It would be Matsui's final game in Japan until 2011 - he would sign that winter with the New York Mets and spend the next seven seasons in MLB.  Two players on the Japanese roster - Takuya Kimura and Hiroshi Kisanuki - didn't play in any of the three games.  Motonobu Tanishige only had a single at bat in one of the games.

BBM issued a 36 card box set to commemorate the team (the box front can be seen at the top of this post).  The base set contained 21 cards for the players, four cards for Nagashima and the coaches, four cards for the award winners and one card for each of the three games the team played.  The remaining four cards were either a memorabilia card for Matsuzaka, Nagashima, Uehara or Tsuyoshi Wada or a non-memorabilia version of the card.  (I don't know for sure but my guess is that you either got a memorabilia card and three non-memorabilia cards or four non-memorabilia cards which was the more likely outcome.)  In addition, BBM had a 22 card "Asian Championship 2003" insert set with the 2004 1st Version set that included Nagashima along with all 21 of the players.  Here are the cards of all the coaches and players from both the box set and the 1st version insert set:

2003 BBM Japan National Team #01

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ1

2003 BBM Japan National Team #04

2003 BBM Japan National Team #03

2003 BBM Japan National Team #02

2003 BBM Japan National Team #08

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ7

2003 BBM Japan National Team #21

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ22

2003 BBM Japan National Team #20

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ15

2003 BBM Japan National Team #13

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ6

2003 BBM Japan National Team #06

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ3

2003 BBM Japan National Team #15

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ12

2003 BBM Japan National Team #24

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ18

2003 BBM Japan National Team #05

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ8

2003 BBM Japan National Team #12

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ2

2003 BBM Japan National Team #07

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ4

2003 BBM Japan National Team #18

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ16

2003 BBM Japan National Team #09

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ9

2003 BBM Japan National Team #17

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ13

2003 BBM Japan National Team #19

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ17

2003 BBM Japan National Team #16

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ14

2003 BBM Japan National Team #25

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ21

2003 BBM Japan National Team #23

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ20

2003 BBM Japan National Team #14

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ11

2003 BBM Japan National Team #10

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ5

2003 BBM Japan National Team #22

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ19

2003 BBM Japan National Team #11

2004 BBM 1st Version "Asian Championship 2003" #AJ10

And just to be complete, here are the four non-memorabilia cards I got with my set:

2003 BBM Japan National Team #MJ

2003 BBM Japan National Team #NJ

2003 BBM Japan National Team #UJ

2003 BBM Japan National Team #WJ