I've been wracking my brain, trying to come up with a clever way to come out and say something, but I think I'm just going to have to go ahead and say it.

2024 was the last year that I'll be buying baseball cards.

Actually, that's not COMPLETELY true - I'm still hoping to knock off the remaining cards in my want list.  And I'm expecting Topps to release a Topps Now team set for the Premier 12 Samurai Japan set.  But I don't intend to buy any other baseball cards - NPB, KBO, ABL or MLB - from this point on.

I've made this decision for a simple reason - it's time for my wife and I to start seriously thinking about downsizing.  My parents had lived in their house for almost 40 years when my mother passed away in the summer of 2023 at age 89.  It was a major undertaking - mostly done by my sisters and their husbands - to get the house cleared out and ready to go onto the market and move my 89 year old father into an independent living facility.  It really brought home to me that I don't want to put my kids through something like that.  I have something like 85,000 baseball cards and I'd like to have some control over where they end up.  

I should mention that I have no plans to sell anything just yet and I'd prefer not to dispose of my collection piecemeal.  So, please, I don't want to hear from anyone asking to buy my Ohtani cards and nothing else.

I do intend to continue writing the blog for now.  I'll probably write a little less frequently than I have been lately - I was on a kick to set a personal record for most posts in a year in 2024 and I made it - just barely.  I'll try to still track what new sets are being announced - I just won't be writing about them when they come out.  Frankly, with the fact that there aren't many changes in BBM's main sets from year to year lately, I was running out of new things to say about them.  And I was quite happy when I realized that this post was the last time I had to try to explain the Fusion set!

I used to collect minor league cards and paid close attention to who all the prospects in the MLB farm systems were.  When I switched to collecting Japanese cards, I stopped following the minors very closely.  I worry some that I may do the same with NPB now that I won't be collecting the cards but we'll see what happens.

It's going to be strange not getting any more cards.  I started collecting baseball cards in 1975 when I was ten years old and, with the exception of the years I was in college, I've collected ever since.  So 2024 was pretty much my 50th year collecting which makes it a nice round number to stop at.

I did a post the other day wondering if the card below featured a photo taken in Arizona:

2024 BBM Professional Baseball 90th Anniversary #130

Ohtani items continue to sell briskly on Ebay.  Besides the myriad of BBM, Epoch, Calbee and Topps issues, I've seen a couple home brew cards that people are attempting to claim are legitimate issues.  I thought I'd highlight a couple of the more egragious items I've seen along with an outright fraudulent listing.  I've reported all of these to Ebay but they don't seem to be interested in doing anything about them.

I had mentioned a few weeks back that I had been talking with a YouTuber named @FreddyFind who was asking me some questions about BBM's jersey cards as well as Ohtani rookie cards.  He's put together a pretty good video about the subject that's worth checking out:

I just wanted to mention that I deactivated my Twitter account this morning. I'm available on Bluesky as @npbcardguy.bsky.social and Spoutible as @npbcardguy. There don't seem to be a lot of NPB accounts at either place yet but I'm hoping that will change.

2021 JABA Player Cards # 21JP082

I mentioned in my post last week about the 2024 JABA Player Cards that it looked like there was a directly relationship between the set's checklist and the players listed in the "Prospect Player List" pdf that's available on the webpage that's referenced by a QR code on the wrapper.  I've done some further investigation (mostly by checking items for sale on Mecari) and I've confirmed that the players in that pdf are the players in the checklist and they appear in the checklist in the same order that they appear in the list.  I've generated a full checklist for the set.

What I realized then was that the previous JABA sets that I had opened packs for - 2021 and 2022 - had also had QR codes that referenced this same page.  However, there were different "Prospect Player List" pdfs for those years which was no longer available on the website.  They were, however, findable via the Wayback Machine and I was able to use them (along with the cards I had and the ones for sale on Mercari) to generate checklists for both of those sets as well.  Here's all three checklists:

2022 JABA Player Card #22JP014

The 2024 Intercity Baseball Tournament, which is one of two major tournaments for corporate league baseball in Japan, was held a couple of weeks ago.  Mitsubishi Heavy Industries East was the winner.  My friend Deanna was still in Japan while it was going on and she attended some games.  She discovered that they were selling packs of the 2024 JABA Player cards at the games and she picked up a few packs for me.  She and her boyfriend Noel subsequently returned to the States and made an East Coast swing recently that brought them into the mid-Atlantic area.  The two of them stopped by my hometown in Maryland this past week to meet up with me for lunch and she passed the cards along to me.

She had four packs total for me although one of them is going to Ryan.  Each pack contains five cards and retailed for 660 yen.  The packs for the 2021 and 2022 sets were available on the online store at JABA's (Japan Amateur Baseball Association) website but the store doesn't appear to be there anymore.  I would say that the cards are only available at JABA events but I went to a corporate league game while I was in Japan back in May and they didn't have any cards for sale.

It's been a little frustrating trying to find information about these sets.  I've never seen a checklist for any of the sets and the cards are pretty rare on the on-line stores that it's difficult to generate one.  There's a QR code on the back of the wrapper that I hoped would lead to something useful but the link takes you to a webpage with a "Prospect Player List" which is not a checklist.  However, I believe that it IS the list of players in the set AND I think the order they appear in the list corresponds to the order the players appear in the checklist.

The thing that's a little odd about this iteration of the set is that while I believe the set has 90 cards total, it only has cards for 45 players.  Each player has two cards in the set with the higher numbered cards (46-90) having a "foil" finish.  The foil cards aren't parallels of the non-foil cards and aren't necessarily more rare - of the three packs I opened, I got eight "foil" cards and seven non-foil cards (one of which was a double).  This was not how the 2021 and 2022 sets looked - as far as I've seen, there's only one card per player in those sets.  I don't know about the 2023 set since I don't have any of those cards.

Here's the 14 cards I got from the three packs I opened (I got doubles on the Fujimura card):

You'll notice that I have two cards of Kazuki Kondoh and their numbers are 45 cards apart (the non-foil card number is 24JP016 while the foil card's is 24JP061).  This is what made me assume that there were 90 cards total but only 45 players in the set.  If you compare the card numbers to the order that the player's appear in the "Prospect Player List", you'll see that they match up.  For example, the card I have of Kishi Iwamoto is numbered 24JP048.  If we "normalize" it (which basically means subtract 45 from it so we have a number between 1 and 45) we get 3.  In the "Prospect Player List", Iwamoto is the third player listed.  Similarly, Fujimura is the eighth player listed and Akiyama is the eleventh which correspond to their card numbers.  

I was sitting on the couch Monday night, browsing Twitter, when I came across a tweet that stopped me in my tracks:

"Wow," I thought to myself, "I didn't realize he was going to play in that league.  I should check Frederick's schedule and see when Trenton's coming to town."  I live in north east Maryland (not to be confused with North East, Maryland).  Frederick, Maryland, home of the MLB Draft League's Frederick Keys, is about 70 miles away so it's not an outrageous trip for me to get out there.  In fact, I did it last summer to see Yoh Daikan play against the other Frederick minor league team - the Spire City Ghost Hounds of the independent Atlantic League.  

I went to the Keys' web page, looked at the schedule and was surprised to discover that Trenton was in town THIS week.  In fact, Sasaki's US debut was going to be in Frederick!

I was back and forth for a little bit about whether I wanted to go out there on a Tuesday.  Traffic was going to suck and it was going to be a late night getting home.  My wife, however, encouraged me to go, basically saying while I might see Sasaki some other time this summer, this was the only opportunity I was going to have to see his US debut.  I was a little surprised at how good a seat I was able to get on the Keys' website.  I was able to get a front row seat above Frederick's dugout despite it being their home opener.  The real attraction of the seat was that I'd be close to Sasaki at first base and probably get some good photos of him in the field.  What I didn't realize is that I'd have a pretty good view of him at the plate as well.

I got to the ballpark around 6:30, a half hour before game time.  The drive had taken me around an hour and a half which was about what I had figured in rush hour traffic.  After entering the park, I headed to the third base side.  The clubhouses in Frederick are on the concourse of the ballpark so all the players have to walk through the stands to get to the field.  As you expect, this is where the autograph hounds congregate.  

Sasaki hadn't come out yet when I got there.  There were only two other people standing around waiting for him.  One guy had printed out some photos of Sasaki and was hoping to get them signed while the other guy was just awaiting with his camera.  There was another guy standing around, talking to the two guys who I assumed was a club official.

Sasaki eventually came out and shook his head at the guy who wanted the autograph.  He quickly made his way down to the field and started his warm ups.  There was a small number of members of the press down by the field that he had to pass as well.

The guy I had assumed was a club official stepped over and started talking to me.  It turned out he was a reporter for the Frederick New-Post.  He had originally been assigned to cover the Keys' Home Opener but with the Sasaki story breaking the day before, he was covering that aspect of it as well.  He wanted to know why I had come out to see Sasaki and what my interest in Japanese baseball was.  We talked probably for about five minutes or so with me probably telling him more than he ever wanted to know about Japanese baseball and Japanese baseball cards.  He ended up quoting me in his article, filtering my babble down to probably the most pertinent comment I made.  

I grabbed something to eat and made it to my seat in time for the national anthem - it helped that the Opening Night "festivities" (which were basically the team's owner thanking everyone in the front office) delayed the start of the game by about ten minutes.

Sasaki was batting fourth but since Trenton went three up, three down in the top of the first, his first activity on the field was at first base in the bottom of the inning.  As I planned, I had a pretty good view of him - other than the foul ball screen running to the end of the dugout:

He led off the top of the second.  Here's the result of his first at bat in the US:

A routine ground out to first on the second pitch of the at bat.

His next at bat came the following inning.  The score was tied 1-1 at that point and there was a runner on with two outs.  This one had a somewhat different outcome (NOTE - I tried to upload my video directly to this post but Blogger is not loading it for some reason so I'm going to go with the video I tweeted out at the time):

Second at bat - two run home run! pic.twitter.com/pP37nghDPH

— NPB Card Guy (@npbcardguy) June 11, 2024

I was too busy watching the ball fly to follow it with the camera.  It went over the wall in right field for a two run home run.  According to the game log, it went 352 feet, leaving the bat at 99.7 mph with a launch angle of 41 degrees.

The other batters in Trenton's lineup were having a pretty good night as well and Sasaki found himself at the plate again the next inning, his third at bat in four innings.  This time he flew out to shallow center.

His next at bat in the sixth inning came with two outs and two men on.  He came through again, hitting an RBI single to right field, making the score 5-1.  He would come around to score two batters later on Ryland Zaborowski's double.  Trenton would score five runs in that inning and lead 9-1.

He struck out swinging to lead off the eighth and I assumed his night at the plate was over at that point, especially after Trenton went down in order that inning.  But Trenton rallied in the top of the ninth, although the inning looked over when Landon Frei, the batter just before Sasaki in the batting order, hit what looked like an easy fly ball to right field.  Somehow, however, right fielder Tervell Johnson dropped the ball for an error, bringing Sasaki to the plate with runners on second and third.  Sasaki walked to load the bases but the next batter struck out to end Trenton's offensive night.  Frederick got a couple batters on in the bottom of the ninth but was unable to bring either of them in so the game ended with an 11-1 Trenton victory.

Sasaki would end the evening having gone 2-5 with a single, a home run, two runs scored and three knocked in, along with a walk and a strikeout.  Not a bad debut for a nineteen year old.

I'm no scout so I can't tell you anything about how Sasaki appeared at the plate.  I will say that he seemed very comfortable and confident on the field for a teenager playing his first actual game a long way from home.  I didn't get a good photo of it, but he appeared to be joking around with the first base umpire a lot of the game:

It was a fun night and I'm glad I decided to make the trek out to Frederick, despite getting home late.  It's going to be interesting to see how Sasaki does in future games.

Been really busy the last couple of days but I have time for a quick post about a card I got in the mail yesterday - it's the latest NPB card from Gio of "When Topps Had Balls".  It shows Katsuya Nomura on a 1979 Topps style card:

Bonus points to Gio for finding only the second photo I've ever seen of Nomura with Lotte - the first being on a 1978 Yamakatsu card.  Nomura was only with the Orions for the 1978 season.

I had mentioned a few weeks back that one of the things I was going to be on the lookout for in Japan were the "mini colored paper" or "mini shikishi" sets issued by a company known variously as "Hits", "TIC" or "216 Co., Ltd.  These are team sets of oversized (5 1/2 inches wide by 4 3/4 inches high), blank-backed cards.  Ryan and I actually found some on my first full day in Japan - the Lions were selling packs of them in their store out at their ballpark.  We each picked up two packs which at 700 yen a piece was probably more than either of us really wanted to spend on them.  Ryan was generous enough to give me the Takeya Nakamura that he pulled.  Here's the Nakamura and the two cards I got:

I was surprised a few months back to discover that there was a baseball card featuring Japanese Baseball Hall Of Famer Wally Yonamine as a member of the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League.  Yonamine was an American of Japanese descent who was born in Hawaii in 1925.  He was drafted into the Army just before World War II ended and spent most of his time in the service playing sports.  He briefly played football with the San Francisco 49ers after getting out of the Army but was released after getting injured playing baseball.  He was signed by San Francisco Seals manager Lefty O'Doul in 1950 but didn't play for them - they farmed him out to Salt Lake City in the Pioneer League.  After hitting .335 with the Bees he was expected to join the Seals for 1951 but instead was convinced by O'Doul to go to Japan.  The Yomiuri Giants owner wanted to bring American players back into professional baseball in Japan (there had been a handful of Americans playing in Japan before the war) and Yonamine became the first American to play in Japan after the war.  The rest is history.  (If you're interested in reading more about Yonamine, I highly recommend Rob Fitts' book "Wally Yonamine - The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball".)

I frequently say that I don't collect MLB cards but that actually not completely true.  I've put together a small collection of certified autographed MLB cards of Japanese players.  Now, as I've also frequently mentioned, I'm cheap so I'm not going after Shohei Ohtani, Ichiro, Hideki Matsui or even Daisuke Matsuzaka.  Instead I've been concentrating on guys who had stellar NPB careers both before and after their perhaps less-than-stellar MLB stints.  It's probably just easier to show you what I mean:

2004 Bowman Chrome Shingo Takatsu

2005 Skybox Autographics Akinori Otsuka /100

2012 Topps Chrome Tsuyoshi Wada /499

2013 Topps Chrome Kyuji Fujikawa

2020 Topps Chrome Shun Yamaguchi

2021 Topps Kohei Arihara

2021 Topps Heritage Kenta Maeda

2021 Topps Stadium Club Shogo Akiyama

2022 Topps Baseball Japan Edition Hirokazu Sawamura

A couple comments:

• I paid less than $10 for most of these cards.  I think the Maeda might have been $20
• I had avoided Sawamura's cards because I thought his autograph was pretty weak.  I must not have been alone in that thought as someone threw this card in for free with some cards I bought on Ebay
• Don't remember what I paid for the Takatsu but it was pretty cheap considering he's in the Japanese Baseball Hall Of Fame
• I had picked up the Otsuka back in 2012 with the thought of taking it with me to Japan to trade at a store.  I may still do that.

2016 Topps Chrome Park Byung-ho

2016 Topps Chrome Lee Dae-ho