I was excited a few months ago when I heard that Epoch was going to be releasing a full flagship set in late May.  I figured that even if the set wasn't all that good it would still put pressure on BBM to up their game.  The fact that the set turned out to be very nice just makes it all better.

The base set contains 432 cards which are all "regular" cards - there are no subsets or team cards.   There are 36 cards per team.  I had been a little concerned that Epoch would do a similar thing to what they've been doing with their Rookies & Stars sets - have 90 cards in a set but only have cards of 70-ish players because some players have multiple versions of their cards.  But Epoch didn't do that - all the cards are for individual players (and of course the 12 managers). 

BBM hasn't done a flagship set this large since the 2013 1st Version set but in fairness that set contained a number of subsets.  The actual number of "regular" cards was only 324 (27 per team).  The last time BBM had 432 "regular" cards in their 1st Version set was 2010.  (You can make the argument that 1st and 2nd Version sets should be considered a single set but even in that case the Epoch set still likely contains more individual players than any BBM combined set since 2010.)

It was a bit of a pain to get the set.  There weren't many complete sets that got listed on Yahoo! Japan Auctions so finding one took a while and I got outbid on the first one I tried.  I ended up getting one for 7000 yen via JAUCE and auctions fees and shipping added another 5460 yen so the total cost worked out to around $120.  This is a little higher than I spend on the 1st Version set this year (around 10700 yen which included shipping for two other sets as well).

One thing I found interesting was Epoch's player selection.  I had expected to find that Epoch had cards of all the guys who showed up in BBM's 1st Version set,  Since BBM's 1st Version set had 27 cards per team I figured that there'd be 9 new players for each team for a total of 108 players who were not in 1st Version.  The number's actually a little higher - 129 to be exact.  BBM's 1st Version set has cards of 21 players who aren't in the Epoch set.  What's interesting is that a large number of the players who aren't in Epoch's set but were in 1st Version are foreign players - Mike Bolsinger, Matt Dominguez, Edger Olmos and Tanner Scheppers of the Marines; Onelki Garcia of the Dragons; Leonel Campos of the Hawks; Nick Martinez, Bryan Rodriguez and Michael Tonkin of the Fighters; Fabio Castillo and Neil Wagner of the Lions; Chia-Hao Sung of the Eagles; Jordan Armengot and David Buchanun of the Swallows; Edison Barrios and Neftali Soto of the Baystars and Taylor Jungmann of the Giants.  That's 17 of the 21.

The players that Epoch included that BBM didn't is interesting.  The fact that Epoch's set went to press later than BBM allowed them to include a card of Koji Uehara who didn't sign with the Giants until March 9th.  The set also includes a number of player that frankly I'm surprised weren't in 1st Version (and I'm kind of disappointed with myself for not noticing that they were missing) - Seiya Inoue of the Marines; Kyuji Fujikawa of the Tigers; Xavier Batista of the Carp; Kazuhiro Hatakeyama and Shingo Kawabata of the Swallows and Spencer Patton of the Baystars.  There's also a handful of players who were more in the "fan favorite" category that were included like Shota Dohbayashi of the Carp and Yuki Saitoh (of course) of the Fighters.

The cards themselves look pretty nice.  One of the complaints that I've had about Epoch's sets in the past is that they frequently use an ugly card design and grainy photographs.  They seem to have avoided that with this set.  The design is pretty nice (although I prefer borderless designs) and the photos are pretty clear.  They have a little of the same issue that I beat up BBM on in that a large percentage of the photos are "pitchers pitching and batters batting" shots but there's a decent mix of other types of shot to still be interesting.

Like BBM Epoch included cards for all the non-ikusei 2017 draft picks for each team in the set.  For some reason all the photos on the cards for the Hawks draft picks are posed studio shots.  All the other draft picks have the typical game/practice "action" shot.

OK, enough talk - here's a bunch of cards so you can see what they look like:

#61

#246

#143

#253

#381

#34

#88

#405

#326

Here's what the back of the cards looks like.  They only list the last three years' worth of statistics.  They do not list non-NPB stats so the three years on the back of Uehara's card are 2006-08.  The photo on the back is a crop of the photo on the front of the card.

#312 (Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh)

So I think it's pretty obvious that I like this set.  I don't have any idea of how popular it is in Japan but again I hope that it puts some pressure on BBM to up their game.

As always Jambalaya has all the cards on-line so you can see the whole set including inserts and parallels.  Ryan did a post on the set yesterday

Really odd story last week - Chiba Lotte Marines infielder Shota Ohmine announced he was retiring at age 26 due to financial issues.  He reportedly owes a lot of money - although none of it for doing anything illegal - and wants a "change of pace".  Ohmine was drafted out of high school in Okinawa in the third round of the 2009 draft by the Marines.  His brother Yuta had been drafted by the Marines in the first round of the 2006 high school draft.  Ohmine's registered name in NPB was just "Shota" until 2014 when he changed it to "Shota Ohmine".  He only played on the farm team his first four years but he made his ichi-gun debut in 2014.  He never spent a lot of time with the top team - he only got into 196 games over five seasons and almost half of that was the 91 games he got into last season.  His career batting average is .210.

He's got a somewhat odd collection of baseball cards.  I was surprised to see that he didn't have a card in the 2010 BBM Rookie Edition set.  I first thought I had messed up somewhere and was missing a card but when I looked at his Japanese wikipedia page I saw that he had been arrested for underage drinking about a month after the 2009 draft and his official signing with the Marines ended up being delayed until mid-January which was apparently after the Rookie Edition set went to press.  (This isn't the only time something like this has happened - Lions pitcher Makoto Aiuchi was arrested for speeding and driving without a license shortly after being a second round pick in the 2012 draft and didn't officially sign with Seibu until March so he missed both the Rookie Edition and 1st Version sets in 2013.)  Ohmine's first card was in the 1st Version set in 2010 and he also had a card in the 2nd Version set that year which is kind of strange considering he only played with the farm team that year.  These were the only BBM flagship cards he has had.  I'm pretty sure his only other BBM cards are from their annual Marines team sets.  He's never had a Calbee card but he showed up in Epoch's flagship NPB set this year.

2010 BBM 1st Version #395

2010 BBM 2nd Version #710

2013 BBM Marines #M51

2015 BBM Marines #M53

2016 BBM Marines #M51

2017 BBM Marines #M54

2018 Epoch NPB #205

I swear I'll be doing a post on the new NPB set soon - probably Friday.

I mention from time to time that there's very few opportunities for "pre-rookie" cards in Japan.  This has to do with the way NPB teams structure their rosters and run their farm team.  Think about the way a new player enters into an MLB team's organization.  Typically the player is drafted in June, signs and is assigned to a minor league team.  He may have a baseball card in the team set issued by that minor team, a Bowman set or a minor league set issued by either Topps or Panini.  None of these are necessarily classified as his "rookie" card - that term is reserved for his first card in a "flagship" set once he reaches the major leagues.  The other cards are generally referred to as "pre-rookie" cards.

In Japan however a player typically enters into an NPB team's organization by being drafted in October or November.  They are assigned to the team's 70 man roster which is split between the top team (ichi-gun) and farm team (ni-gun).  At a minimum BBM will issue cards for the player in the Rookie Edition set in February and the 1st Version set in April as well as the "comprehensive" team set for the team.  All of these are considered "rookie" cards for the player.  There are no separate team sets for the team's farm team - it simply doesn't make any sense to do that.

There are some cases where their have been "pre-rookie" cards in Japan.  The 2000 Upper Deck Olympic Baseball team set included a handful of industrial league players who went on to play in NPB - the big names being Shunsuke Watanabe, Toshiya Sugiuchi and Norihiro Akahoshi.  I know of at least one player drafted from the Shikoku Island League who had a card with his team there - Katsuya Kakunaka of the Marines.  Both Upper Deck and Panini have issued memorabilia cards for the Japanese National Collegiate team.   But the biggest example of "pre-rookie" cards in Japan are the eleven collegiate sets that BBM did between 2008 and 2013.

The first of these sets - the 2008 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version set - was issued a little over 10 years ago now and I thought it might be interesting to take a look at where all the players in the set are now.  Of course, that's a bit daunting of a task.  The set contained 60 cards - 54 player cards (9 per team) plus six team cards.  Only eight of those 54 players went into NPB.  I was going to try to figure out if any of the rest of the players had played in the independent or corporate leagues but I realized that I didn't have any way to figure that out.  So I went to the one person I knew who knows a lot about collegiate baseball in Japan - Deanna Rubin - and asked her if she knew of anything like an alumni website for the players but she didn't think there was anything.  She pointed out to me that after 10 years it was unlikely that any of them would still be playing in indy ball or the corporate leagues and that the Tokyo University guys likely didn't keep on playing (there have only been six Tokyo graduates to play in NPB).  So I decided it would be best to concentrate on the eight players who ended up in NPB.

Of these eight players, seven of them went directly to NPB from college.  The other played in the industrial leagues before getting drafted.  Only three of the players are still active in NPB although two others are still playing in the industrial leagues (or at least were as of last year).  Two players are now coaches for NPB teams.  Here's a summary of the players:

Player	College	Year	Drafted	Notes
Kazuhito Futagami	Hosei	3	2009 Tigers 1st	Played for Tigers 2010-16
Takeshi Hosoyamada	Waseda	4	2008 Baystars 4th	Played for Baystars 2009-13, Hawks 2014-15.  Was released by DeNA after 2013 and joined Hawks as ikusei player. Made the Hawks' 70 man roster at the beginning of the 2015 season. Played for Toyota after leaving Hawks
Shinji Iwata	Meiji	4	2008 Dragons 5th	Played for Dragons 2009-16.  Dragons minor league pitching coach starting in 2018
Takeshi Komatsu	Hosei	4	2008 Carp 3rd	Played for Carp 2009-13.  Was on Carp's ikusei squad in 2013 and was "dispatched" to the Tokoshima Indigo Sox of the Shikoku Island League that year.  Minor league coach for the Carp starting in 2018
Keijiro Matsumoto	Waseda	4	2008 Baystars 1st	Played for Baystars 2009-17.  Joined Nippon Steel Sumikin Kazusa Magic in 2018
Kota Suda	Waseda	4	2010 Baystars 1st	Played for JFE East Japan after graduating before being drafted.  Played for Baystars 2011-present
Kenji Tomura	Rikkio	3	2009 Eagles 1st	Played for Eagles 2010-present
Hiroki Uemoto	Waseda	4	2008 Tigers 3rd	Played for Tigers 2009-present

Here's each player's card from the set plus a card of them with their NPB team - I tried to get the most recent card I had for them which isn't necessarily the most recent card they have:

2008 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version #31

2016 BBM Tigers #T30

2008 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version #4

2015 BBM 2nd Version #338

2008 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version #11

2017 BBM Farewell #35

2008 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version #29

2010 BBM 1st Version #154

2008 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version #9

2017 BBM Baystars #DB67

2008 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version #2

2017 BBM 2nd Version #520

2008 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version #39

2017 BBM Eagles #E11

2008 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version #1

2018 Calbee #043

Of the remaining players, 29 of them had the only baseball card of their lives in this set - Suguru Fugita (Hosei), Teppei Futaba (Rikkio), Raito Hino (Waseda), Tetsuya Ijiri (Tokyo), Daisuke Ikushima (Waseda), Tetsuya Imafuku (Keio), Nobuhiro Itoh (Hosei), Yuki Iwami (Tokyo), Takanori Izumi (Waseda), Yorihiro Kawahata (Waseda), Kaoru Kita (Hosei), Yuto Kobayashi (Meiji), Tetsuro Matsumoto (Hosei), Takayuki Matsuo (Keio), Kohei Morimoto (Keio), Taichi Nakano (Meiji), Ikuto Nishimura (Tokyo), Yuhei Ogawa (Rikkio), Yu Okamura (Rikkio), Naohiro Sakamoto (Keio), Daisuke Sasaki (Meiji), Genki Satoh (Hosei), Masahito Satoh (Meiji), Kazunori Tajima (Meiji), Tetsuya Ubushibata (Keio), Hiroki Umeda (Meiji), Kazuki Utsui (Kazuki), Tomoya Watanabe (Rikkio) and Yusuke Yamagata (Waseda)

The other 17 players appeared in other collegiate sets - Kosuke Aizawa (Keio), Hiroshi Aoyama (Keio), Hirata Furugata (Tokyo), Shohei Hamada (Tokyo), Daisuke Ikarashi (Rikkio), Shuhei Ishikawa (Hosei), Daisuke Kajimoto (Keio), Junpei Komichi (Meiji), Takeru Maehara (Tokyo), Nobuaki Nakabayashi (Keio), Reo Nakayama (Rikkio), Masahito Nihira (Rikkio), Kazuki Nishijima (Meiji), Takahiro Ohtsubo (Tokyo), Yuichi Suzuki (Tokyo), Takeyasu Takahashi (Tokyo) and Shota Waizumi (Hosei).

By the way, you might remember that I tried something like this five years ago.  I only did it for the 2008 collegiate sets and I didn't like the results very well so I didn't continue it.  I figure I've got all my cards in a database now which makes it easier to track who's got cards in other sets.  And it's easier to look back from ten years than from five years.  My plan is to continue this with BBM's other collegiate sets as they reach the 10 year old mark - so there's at least one post I'll be doing in 2023!

Inter-league play wrapped up last week and the Swallows were the surprise inter-league "Champions".  It was the first time a Central League team had the best record during inter-league since the Giants did it in 2014.  Oddly enough, however, the Swallows did not have the Inter-league MVP.  That honor went the Masataka Yoshida of the Orix Buffaloes, who finished just a half game behind the Swallows in the inter-league standings.  Yoshida batted .397 during inter-league with 3 home runs and 10 RBIs.  He reached base in every one of the 18 games against the Central League teams.  Here's his card from the new Epoch NPB set from this year (#134):


I got the Epoch NPB set last week and I'll be writing about it soon.

NPB on Reddit (@NPB_Reddit) sent out a really interesting tweet this morning - in the 14 years since interleague play began seven Pacific League pitchers have hit home runs during the interleague games while no Central League pitchers have homered.  He included the list of the pitchers and I thought I'd do a post showing a card of each of them.  I had intended to show a flagship card of each player from the same year as when they homered but the latest one - Kenta Uehara who did it yesterday - doesn't have a card in a flagship set this year - at least not so far.

May 11, 2005 Jeremy Powell (OB) vs YG

2005 BBM 2nd Version #624

May 21, 2005 Tsutomu Iwamoto (NH) vs YG

2005 BBM 1st Version #89

Jun 9, 2006 Daisuke Matsuzaka (SL) vs HT

2006 BBM 2nd Version #555

May 28, 2008 Rick Guttormson (SH) vs YB

2008 BBM 1st Version #299

May 29, 2008 Kenji Otonari (SH) vs YB

2008 BBM 2nd Version #658

Jun 15, 2011 Alfredo Figaro (OB) vs YB

2011 BBM 2nd Version #532

Jun 18, 2018 Kenta Uehara (NH) vs HC

2017 BBM Fighters #F10

Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles manager Masataka Nashida announced a couple days ago that he's stepping down due to the team's poor performance this season.  The team announced that head coach Yosuke Hiraishi would become interim manager for the remainder of the season.

Hiraishi was the Eagles' seventh round pick in the fall 2004 draft, their first one ever.  Prior to being drafted he had attended PL Gakuen High School and Doshisha University before playing for Toyota in the corporate leagues.  He spent seven years in the Eagles organization, getting into only 122 games with the ichi-gun team before retiring after the 2011 season.  He's been a coach for the team ever since.

Here's Hiraishi's rookie card from the 2005 BBM 1st Version set (#246):

There's a bunch of sets that have been announced recently so let's get to it...

- The final three of BBM's annual "comprehensive" team sets have been announced.  The Hawks set will be out in late June (Jambalaya says June 30th) while the Eagles and Dragons sets will be released in mid-July.  Each set has a base set of 81 cards which has been the standard size for BBM's team sets for the last few years.  The Hawks base set contains 69 cards for the players (and manager), three "Highlight Reel" cards (which includes a card for Seiichi Uchikawa's 2000th hit) and nine "Hawks History" cards that appear to be a continuation of the subset with the same name in BBM's Hawks 80th Anniversary set from a few months ago - I'm guessing they cover the team's history since 1968.  The Hawks set also has 30 insert cards split between four sets - Steel Curtain (6 cards), The Hunt (3 cards), Undisputed (9 cards) and Phantom (12 cards) - and the usual bevy of possible autograph cards.  The Eagles base set has 70 cards for the manager and players, three "Record Breaker" cards, three "Fans' Favorite" and five "main player(?)" cards.  There are also 27 insert cards split between six sets although only one of them (the 9 card "Phantom" set) is named on their web page.  The set also has various autograph cards available.  The Dragons base set also has 70 cards for the manager and players plus a three subsets:  "Winners Never Quit" (3 cards), "Cosmic Attack" (5 cards) and "Lights On" (3 cards).  There are four insert sets - "Up Next" (6 cards), "Tough Enough" (3 cards), "Raise High" (9 cards) and "Phantom" (12 cards) and many autograph cards.

- BBM is releasing a "Premium" box set for the Fighters called "Ambitious".  This is the second Premium box set BBM has done this year - the first was for the Carp and called "Invincible".  Like that set this one contains 29 cards - the complete 27 card base set plus 1 serially numbered "UNLIMITED" insert card and 1 autographed card (odd that a limited edition insert card would be called "UNLIMITED").  The set will be released in early July.  And thanks to the title of the set I have this song running through my head:



- The first of BBM's two annual cheerleader/dance squad sets has been announced.  "Dancing Heroine - Hana" will be out in early July.  It's a pack base set featuring a 99 card base set that has members of the squads from nine different teams - the Hawks (Honeys), the Lions (bluelegends), the Eagles (Tohoku Golden Angels), Fighters Girl (Fighters), M * Splash !! (Marines), Tigers Girls (Tigers), Venus (Giants), Chia Dragons 2018 (Dragons) and Passion (Swallows).  There are no members included from the Baystars (Diana) or Buffaloes (Bs Girls) but it looks like that's been the case for the last couple years (and the Carp don't have cheerleaders).  There are nine insert cards (I'd guess one member per team) and various cheki and autograph inserts.

- BBM's annual second flagship set - "2nd Version"- will be released in mid-August.  This edition pretty much looks the same as the last few editions.  There's 216 "regular" player cards (18 per team), 36 "1st Version Update" cards (3 per team), 36 "Cross Universe" cards (3 per team) that complete the subset started in 1st Version and 12 checklist cards (which I'd be willing to bet feature each team's mascot but I'd be happy to be wrong).  There are also the usual unspecified number of "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards featuring various Japanese celebrities - I'd expect somewhere around 12 or 13 of them.  The player cards have the usual various different facsimile autograph parallel versions plus 12 cards have photo variants called "secret" versions.  I think there are also parallel versions of the First Pitch cards and "Cross Universe" cards.  There's two 12 card insert sets - one is unspecified and the other is the ubiquitous "Phantom" set - and assorted autograph and memorabilia cards.

- Speaking of second flagship sets, Calbee's Series Two will officially be arriving in stores on July 2nd although Jambalaya says it'll be out on June 27th.  There will be 88 cards in the base set - 72 player cards (six per team), 12 manager cards and four checklist cards.  There will also be the usual 24 "Star" insert cards (two per team) and a 12 card "Team Highest Win" special box set available as a redemption for "lucky" cards.  The checklist for the set is available on-line as usual.  Series Two coming out at roughly the usual time is a hopeful sign that last year's potato famine issues are a thing of the past and Calbee will do their standard three Series this year.

- Epoch has announced a new ultra high end set in conjunction with the OB Club entitled "Career Achievement".  Each box has an MSRP of 16,200 yen (~$146) and contains two packs of three cards each - not sure of how many autographs that includes.  The base set has 40 cards but the main attraction of this set is the large variety of autograph cards available in it - there are six different types including autographed baseballs.  I think there are also parallel versions of the autograph cards but I'm not positive.  The set will be released on July 7th.

- Hits is releasing another single player "Mini Color Paper" set - this time it's for Yokohama DeNA Baystars outfielder Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh in honor of his 150th home run.  The set will contain a total of 16 "cards" for him - 8 "normal" and 8 "gilded print signed" and will be out sometime in July.

In my post about Bobby Rose I mentioned that he had 153 RBIs in 1999 and that was the second best total for a season in NPB history.  Do you know who had the most RBIs in a season in NPB history?  It's not any of the obvious candidates like Sadaharu Oh, Katsuya Nomura, Hiromitsu Ochiai, Koji Yamamoto or Hiromitsu Kadota.  It's Makoto Kozuru who had  161 RBIs with the Shochiku Robins in 1950. 

1950 is an important year in Japanese baseball history as it was the first year of Nippon Professional Baseball.  The eight team Japanese Baseball League reorganized themselves following the 1949 season into a 15 team organization spread across two leagues - the Central and Pacific Leagues.  Kozuru had a near Triple Crown season that year as he also had 51 home runs to lead the league (the single season record until Katsuya Nomura hit 52 in 1963*) and his .355 batting average was just six points behind Fumio Fujimura's league leading .362. 

*Nomura would only hold the single season record for one year as Sadaharu Oh hit 55 in 1964.  Oh's record stood until Wladimir Balentien hit 60 in 2013 although it was tied by Tuffy Rhodes in 2001 and Alex Cabrera in 2002.

The Robins themselves had an amazing season that year, finishing with a record of 98-35-4 and winning the Central League pennant by nine games over the Chunichi Dragons and an astounding 59 game above the last place Hiroshima Carp (who went 41-96-1 in their inaugural season).  The Robins however were defeated by the Mainichi Orions in the first Nippon Series that year.  The team was unable to continue this success in the following seasons, dropping to last place in 1952 and merging with the Taiyo Whales in 1953.

Here's a menko card of Kozuru from 1950:


This card is from a set that Engel refers to as JCM 117 - the "Animal Back" menko set.  This is so named as the back of each card shows an animal.  This particular card is not in Engel's checklist for the set.  Here's the back of this card which shows a lizard (tokage):

Last season Justin mentioned to me that former Yokohama Baystars star Bobby Rose was the batting coach for the Down East Wood Ducks of the Carolina League.  As I've mentioned before I'm not a big autograph guy but occasionally I'll take advantage of an opportunity to get an autograph and with the Blue Rocks of Wilmington, Delaware not far from my home (and a place I used to go all the time) I figured it would be easy to get Rose's autograph.  Unfortunately the only time "Down East" (who play in Kinston, NC) was in Wilmington last season was the last week of August which was when I was having back surgery.  So I couldn't do it last season.  This season Rose is the batting coach for the Delmarva Shorebirds of the South Atlantic League who play in Salisbury, Maryland about two hours from my house.

So two weeks ago my wife and I headed down to Salisbury, stopped off at a great brew pub on the way and caught a game between the Shorebirds (an Orioles affliate) and the Lakewood Blue Claws (a Phillies affiliate).  We got there early and I planted myself by the tunnel where the Shorebirds players and coaches entered the field.  I didn't have to wait too long - he was the first member of the coaching staff to come out.  He was very patient and gracious as I dealt first with a sharpie that had dried up (had to borrow one from another fan) and then when I fumbled with my phone trying to take a picture.  But I got a great autograph on a card from one of my favorite sets so it's all good:


Here's the picture I got of him:


I thought I'd do a brief post on Rose since I got the autograph.  Rose joined the Baystars in 1993 after eight years in the Angels organization.  He got into 73 MLB games with the Angels between 1989-1992.  He immediately became a star for the Baystars, hitting .325 and leading the Central League in RBIs with 94.  He ended up spending eight years with the Baystars, hitting over .300 every season except 1994 and helping the team to a Nippon Series championship in 1998.  His best season was 1999 when he hit .369 with 37 home runs and 153 RBIs (2nd best season total in NPB history).  Over his eight year career he was named to the All Star team four times (1995, 1997, 1999, 2000), elected to the Best 9 team six times (1993, 1995, 1997-2000) and won a Golden Glove in 1998.  He was MVP of the second All Star game in 1999.  He lead the league in batting in 1999, RBIs in 1994 and 1999, OBP in 1997 and hits in 1999 and 2000.

His relationship with the Baystars soured after the 2000 season though as he and the team could not agree on a salary.  As an odd side effect of this, he ended up not having cards in the Leader subset and Best Nine insert set for the 2001 BBM set.  It is not unusual for a player to have cards in these subsets despite not having a card in the rest of the set.  To use the 2001 BBM set as an example, Ichiro has two Leader subset cards and cards in both the Best 9 and Golden Glove insert sets despite not appearing in the rest of the set as he was in his first season in Seattle that year.  I don't know why he didn't have cards - if it was his decision or BBM's.  I would have loved to have asked him about it at Delmarva but it didn't seem like an appropriate setting.

Rose attempted a comeback with the Chiba Lotte Marines in 2003 but he ended up retiring in the middle of spring training.  There are no cards of him with the Marines that I'm aware of.

Here's some cards of him from during his time in Japan:

1993 Tomy #408

1994 Takara Baystars #23

1996 BBM #346

1998 BBM Nippon Series #S19

1999 Calbee #221 (Gold Signature Parallel)

2000 Upper Deck Ovation #73

Despite whatever happened in 2000 he's made peace at least with BBM enough to be included in a handful of OB sets.  He's in the 2008 Yokohama 30th Anniversary set, the 2010 BBM 20th Anniversary set, the 2012 Baystars 20th Anniversary set, the 2013 Legendary Foreigners and Deep Impact gaijin sets and the 2014 All Star Game Memories 90's set.  Here's the 2014 All Star Game Memories 90's set card:

2014 BBM All Star Game Memories 90's #80

I was wondering if anyone with Delmarva was really aware of Rose's Japanese career but then I took a look at the cover of their scorecard and realized that they did:


Inside the scorecard there was an article on him: