1997 BBM Set

1997 BBM Set Summary

Size:  573 cards
Cards Per Team:  42 (team card, manager + 40 players)
Team Card Theme:  Team Logos
Number Of Leader Cards: 32
Checklists: 1 
Subsets: Nicknames(5 cards),  Hot Prospects (12), Nostalgic Stars (10), KK Cards (9)
Inserts:  Best 9, Rivals
Parallels:  Green bordered leader cards
Notable Rookies: Yoshitomo Tani, Michihiro Ogasawara, Kazuhiro Wada, Tadahito Iguchi, Nobuhiko Matsunaka, Hiroki Kuroda, Akinori Iwamura, Makoto Imaoka, Shinji Mori, Akinori Ohtsuka, Kats Maeda, Yusaka Iriki, Masahiko Morino
Late Series:  None

Notes:

The parallel issue was kind of odd - leader cards with a green tint to the border.  Here's Akira Ohgi's regular and parallel cards (#31) (for winning the Shoriki award in 1996):

The "Hot Prospect" subset featured just that - a hot prospect from each of the 12 teams.  They were Eiji Maruo (Orix), Hiroshi Numata (Nippon Ham), Hisaki Tomiaki (Seibu), Kenji Kawaguchi (Kintetsu), Toshiyuki Gotoh (Lotte), Mitsuru Honma (Daiei), Hideki Okajima (Yomiuri), Hiroshi Hirata (Chunichi), Masanori Tokumoto (Hiroshima), Hajime Miki (Yakult), Kazushi Hosomi (Yokohama) and Takao Inoue (Hanshin).  I'm not positive, but I think that none of these players have a "regular" card in the set.

#543

There was a small subset featuring nicknames for a couple players.  These cards showed a cartoon of the player as their nickname - for example, Hideki Matsui's card depicted him as Godzilla.  The other players in the subset were Kazuhiro Sasaki, Hirofumi Kohno, Atsuya Furuta and Shigeki Sano.  Here's Sasaski's card (#560):

For the first time since 1994, BBM included a "Nostalgic Stars" subset in the set.  This short printed subset featured stars from the 1970's and 80's - Koji Yamamoto, Kenichi Yazawa, Takashi Yamaguchi, Yasushi Tao, Kiyishi Nakahata, Masayuki Kakefu, Suguru Egawa, Shigeru Kobayashi, Yoshihiko Takahashi and Osamu Higashio.  Here's the Nakahata card (#553):

Following the 1996 season, Kazuhiro Kiyohara of the Lions became a free agent and signed with the team that was his favorite growing up - the Yomiuri Giants.  This enabled him to be reunited with his high school teammate Masumi Kuwata.  BBM commemorated this reunion with a nine card short printed subset called "KK cards".  Four of the cards featured Kuwata and four of them featured Kiyohara.  The final card (#572) featured the two of them facing off in an intersquad game:

For the first time, BBM issued an insert set for the previous year's Best 9 award winners.  This would be a standard insert set for BBM for 12 of the next 13 years (skipping only 1998 where the Best 9 award winners would be a subset in the regular set).

#B18

BBM did their first die-cut insert set this year.  Called "Rivals", the set featured 24 cards (2 for each team).  Each pair of cards for a team featured half the background picture (of their home stadium) and the cards were die cut as mirror images of each other.  The odd numbered cards were the left side of the background picture and the even numbered cards were the right side.  The cards could then be matched together to show the full picture.  I'd show this, but I don't have two cards from any team.  Instead, I'll just show Akira Etoh's card (#R16) (which should be matched up with Tomonori Maeda's):

I know I mentioned this last year when I did a box break on this set, but I'm still convinced that this set has the biggest selection of significant rookies in BBM's history.  Maybe I'll change my mind after doing a couple more of these posts, but so far only 1993 rivals it and that's just a couple HUGE guys.

#478

#454

Some other cards:

#192

#316

#229

Back of Makoto Sasaki's card (#332)

Buffaloes Checklist (#528)

Ad included in packs

Wrapper

Box

UPDATE: Like the 1994 set, boxes of the 1997 cards included two pieces of paper - a poster and an information sheet (again including a checklist).  The poster is wider than the 1994 one was but still too long for my scanner.  Here's the information sheet:

I took a picture of the poster:

Card Of The Week June 10

On Friday night, Kazuhiro Wada ended the Dragons-Eagles game with a walk off two run homer in the bottom of the ninth, giving Chunichi a 3-2 victory.  According to Nikkan Sports (via YakyuBaka), Wada is the oldest player CL player (39 years, 11 months) to ever hit a walk-off home run with his team trailing, passing Osaka Tiger great Fumio Fujimura (39 years, 10 months).  The oldest NBP player is Hiromitsu Kadota at 42 years, six months.

I tuned into the game just after it ended on Friday morning my time (well, I guess that would actually be the post-game I was watching).  I saw Wada standing out in the field waving to the fans, looking a lot like he does on this 2007 Calbee card (#011), although obviously wearing a different uniform:

2012 BBM 1st Version

BBM's 1st Version set came out in mid-April and I got mine about a month ago, but I'm just now getting around to writing about it.  At 442 total cards this year's set is a little larger than last year's, but I'm still pretty disappointed in it.

Like last year, there are 27 "regular" cards for the manager and players for each of the 12 teams.  This can lead to some people that you might expect to have cards not having them (like, say, Masahiro Yamamoto).  This year's card design is very similar to last year's - a white border on the bottom of an otherwise borderless photo.  While attractive enough on their own merits, after a couple of years of similar designs, I'm kind of getting a real "meh" feeling towards the designs.  Good thing BBM puts the year on the front of the card or it'd start getting hard to really figure out which set a particular card is from.  And while the photography remains outstanding, I'm surprised by the repetition in some of the photographs.  For example, Keiichi Hirano of the Tigers is depicted making a headfirst slide into a base, just like last year.  Last year, that was a really cool shot.  This year, my reaction is more of "Really?  You used that idea again?"  Here's some example cards:

#258

#210

#155

#297

#080

#176

The annual Leaders subset features 33 cards of 24 people (including Hawks manager Koji Akiyama, winner of the Shoriki award) and the Nippon Series Champion Hawks.  Obviously, several players have multiple cards in the subset - Masahiro Tanaka has the most at 4.  (Notably missing in the subset is a card for 2011 PL Strikeout leader Yu Darvish.) Here's a sample card showing one of the most unflattering pictures I've ever seen on a baseball card:

#331

BBM again included subsets for last season's Best 9 and Golden Glove award winners - until last season, these traditionally insert sets.  The Best 9 cards feature two photos of the player on the front - the Golden Glove cards feature action shots of the player fielding.

#376

#391

For the first time in what seems like forever, the team checklist cards do not feature the team mascots.  Instead they feature candid shots involving the team (although several do show the mascot).  A couple are simple action shots.  I like this one for the Baystars - Alex Ramirez has been featured a number of times goofing around with his team's mascot.  I don't think the Baystars currently have a mascot, so he's goofing around with the next best thing - manager Kiyoshi Nakahata:

#406

The final subset for the set is part of a cross-set subset called "Cross Blaze".  This is similar to what BBM did in 2010 where they had a 180 card set called "Cross Stream" that featured 15 cards per team - 3 cards for each team (36 total) in each of the 1st and 2nd Version and the Touch The Game sets and 6 cards in each team's team set.  What I think is happening this year is that the "Cross Blaze" set will be 108 cards in all - 9 cards per team - with again 3 cards for each team in each of the 1st and 2nd Version and the Touch The Game sets, but not have any cards in the team sets.  (Although I think there's some sort of "Cross Blaze" related memorabilia cards that are appearing in the team sets.)  The "Cross Blaze" cards are not numbered as part of the 1st Version set but as a separate set.

Like the "Cross Stream" cards in 2010, the "Cross Blaze" cards feature an image of the player superimposed on a background - for "Cross Stream" it was water; for "Cross Blaze" it's fire.  The back of the card shows the original picture that the image on the front was taken from.  Here's the front and back of Shinnoske Abe's card (#CB074):

You can see all the cards (including the "Cross Blaze" cards and some of the parallel and inserts) here.

The 1st Version set is not a bad set - it's just frustrating looking at it and knowing that it could have been better.  Like this year's Calbee 1st Series, there's an inconsistency in how the Dragons and Baystars (the two teams with new uniforms) are pictured - the Dragons are mostly shown in their 2011 uniforms while ALL the Baystars are in their 2012 uniforms.  So obviously, BBM could have had all the Dragons in their 2012 uniforms as well - they just decided not to.  They could have had a design that didn't look like the design for the last two years, but they decided not to.  They could have shown a little more imagination in picking photos, but they didn't.  BBM doesn't have to really make any effort in their sets since they are really the only manufacturer in Japan making a comprehensive set of baseball cards (Calbee, Konami and Owner's League don't feature as many players) - if you want a set of everyone who's playing in Japan, you'll either buy BBM or you'll go without.  It reminds me of how lazy Topps got in the late 1970's when they had virtually no competition at all.  It'd be interesting to see if someone else could step in (like Fleer and Donruss in 1981) and stir things up a little bit.

(I know it's probably unfair that I'm beating up BBM for unorginal card designs while NOT beating up Calbee for having pretty much the exact same card front for the last 12 years or so, but I expect more from BBM.)

Card Of The Week June 3

Johan Santana was not the only one to throw a nohitter last week - on Wednesday, Toshiya Sugiuchi of the Giants no-hit the Eagles 2-0.  Sugiuchi actually had a perfect game until two outs in the ninth when he walked Toshiya Nakashima.  He then struck out Ryo Hijirisawa to complete the nohitter.

Here's Sugiuchi's 2012 BBM 1st Version card (#221), his first BBM card with the Giants:

Q Card

BBM was not the only card manufacturer to debut in 1991.  A company called Q Card put out a set of 120 plastic cards with rounded corners (10 cards per team).  The cards were issued two to a pack, with a little window in the front of the pack to show you the team logo of the top card:

At 2 1/8 inches by 3 3/8 inches, the cards themselves were a little smaller than standard sized cards.  They are unnumbered (except for the uniform number), but there's this odd little seven digit number in the upper left corner of the card fronts - it reminds me of the serial numbers on menko cards that never really made any sense either.  Here's a couple example cards:

The card backs featured the statistical record of the player plus a small white rectangle that resembles the signature strip on the back of a credit card - I guess the intent was to have some place that a player could autograph the card.  Here's a sample back of Kenji Miyamoto of the Swallows:

Fighters Collection has a page devoted to the Fighters cards from the set.

I think these cards are pretty rare - I don't see them up on eBay very often.  In addition to the 120 card set, Q Card also issued a 62 card set for the 1991 All Star teams - exactly the same size as the BBM set and featuring the manager and coaches as well as the players.  These are the only two sets the company ever produced.

Card Of The Week May 27

Heard a great piece of trivia from Jim Allen on the Japan Baseball Weekly podcast a couple of weeks ago - who are the only two Japanese players with over 2000 hits and at least one pitching victory?  One is Tetsuharu Kawakami, who went 11-9 as an occasional pitcher for the Giants from 1938 to 1941.  The other is actually still active - Takuro Ishii of the Carp.  Ishii was signed by the Yokohama Taiyo Whales as a pitcher in 1988 and went 1-4 in 28 appearances with them from 1989 to 1991.  He switched to hitting fulltime in 1992 and the rest is history.

He is actually the only player in the Meikyukai with this distinction as Kawakami is ineligible for membership due to his being born before the Showa Era began in 1926.

Ishii's real first name is Tadanori and it's what he went by when he was pitching.  As far as I know, there are only two cards that depict him as Tadanori - the 1990 Takara Whales set and this card from the 2006 BBM Draft Story set (#122):

I have to credit Deanna with much of the backstory for this - she pointed out this card several years ago.

2012 Calbee Series One

I have been noticing lately that I don't have a lot of post-2003 Calbee and I've resolved to do something about that.  I traded with Deanna for some 2010 cards last year and I also bought an unopened box of chips.  A couple of months ago, I picked up a several lots of 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010 cards off of kuboTen.  So I figured it would be a good idea to pick up the complete set for this year if I could get it, starting (obviously) with Series One.

Series One contains 112 cards - 73 "regular" player cards, 22 Title Holder cards, 13 "Memorial" cards and four checklist cards.  (There are also 24 "Star" cards which are considered premium insert cards and were not included in the set I got).

The 73 "regular" player cards are really 72 "regular" player cards plus a card of Swallows manager Junji Ogawa which I will discuss more in a minute.  The 72 player cards break down to 6 players per team.  It's hard to complain about player selection in the set since there will be two later Series that will include other players (I actually considered waiting until all three Series were out before reviewing the set).  So it's silly to complain that Matt Murton (for example) isn't in this set when he'll probably be in one of the other Series.  I did find it interesting the difference between the way the two teams that significantly changed their uniforms (the Dragons and Baystars) were treated in the set.  For the Dragons, all the cards show the player's in last year's uniform except the card of Takeshi Yamasaki, who was an Eagle last year.  For the Baystars, however, everyone is shown in the new uniform.  I suspect this is because the Baystars changed ownership and name as well as uniform.

The photography is, as always, outstanding.  Here's a couple examples:

#016

#026

#034

#071

Calbee is celebrating their 40th Anniversary this year with a "Memorial" card subset.  This subset features reproductions of cards through out their history.  Unlike 2002, when they did something similar to celebrate their 30th Anniversary, they've blown up and recropped the image if the original card being reproduced was smaller in size than the current cards.  For Series One, the cards being reproduced are for Shigeo Nagashima, Sadaharu Oh and all the current team managers EXCEPT Junji Ogawa of the Swallows.  I don't know why Ogawa was not included in the Memorial subset - I guess it's possible that there was never a Calbee card for him as a player.  His "regular" player card actually shows a picture of him from his playing days.  Here's the Nagashima card from the Memorial subset (#M-01) - this is a reproduction of card #1 from the 1973 set - the first card from the first Calbee set ever:

The "Title Holder" subset is essentially Calbee's version of BBM's "Leader" subset.  Instead of issuing a card per statistical category like BBM does, Calbee issues a card per player who leads in at least one category.  For example, in this year's BBM 1st Version set, Seiichi Uchikawa has two Leader cards - one for the PL MVP award and one for the PL batting crown.  He only has one card in the Calbee subset (#T-01):

In case you're wondering, the only guys who have cards in BBM's Leader subset who are not in Calbee's Title Holder subset are Koji Akiyama (Shoriki Award) and Takahiro Shiomi (Rookie Special Award).  BBM's Leader subset card for DJ Houlton shows him as member of the Hawks (his 2011 team) while Calbee's Title Holder subset card has him as a Giant (his 2012 team).

The four checklist cards for Series One show scenes from either the 2011 post season or late in the 2011 season - the Hawks celebrating their Nippon Series championship, the Dragons celebrating winning the Central League and the Swallows celebrating advancing in the playoffs and something (not sure what) with the Fighters and Atsunori Inaba from mid-September.  Here's the Dragons' celebration card (card #C-2):

You can see all the cards here (along with the "Star" cards here).

UPDATE - did a little research on YakyuBaka - the Fighters game from the checklist was last September 13 against Lotte.  Inaba hit two home runs in the game, leading Nippon Ham to a 4-0 victory.