International Baseball Card Keyword Cheat Sheet

      Below are various terms one might find useful when attempting to search for information about baseball cards in languages other than English.  Within some languages there are regional variations, This is especially true of Spanish.  I am no linguist, so these are all very much a layman's guide to these terms as I have encountered them in my web surfing.

Spanish/Español

baseball (the sport) - béisbol

baseball (the ball) - pelota

baseball player - pelotero / beisbolista

card(s) - tarjeta(s) / estampa(s) / estampita(s) / cartita(s) / postalita(s) / barajita(s)

pack - paquete

      While tarjeta is probably the most common term, there has not always been a large distinction between baseball "cards" vs baseball "stamps".  Most often, I find anything intended for pasting or sticking into an album referred to as "estampa" or "estampita".  Though the 1992 set issued by La Liga Mexicana de Beisbol was referred to as "estampas de fotos" and they were definitely baseball cards in the traditional sense, not stickers.  Postalitas seems to be the most common term used for baseball cards in the Dominican Republic, even though it seems to translate literally as "postcard".  Occasionally someone will use the term "carta", but that seems to apply more commonly to credit cards or playing cards than to sports cards.  "Naipe" is another word that seems to translate to card, but it is almost exclusively used with respect to playing cards and almost never with sports cards.

sticker - calcomanía / estampa / estampita / postal

     Calcomanía translates literallly as sticker, whereas estampa translates literally as stamp.  They seem to be used almost interchangeably so your search results may vary.    Postal, or the plural postales, seems to be most commonly used in Cuba.  The sticker/stamp sets that were common in Cuba in the 1940s-50s were usually identified as postales on the albums issued for the sets.  Postales is also sometimes used interchangeably with postalitas or tarjetas.

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Japanese

baseball (the sport) - 野球 (pronounced yă-kyū)

(baseball) player - 選手

card - カード

pack - パック

sticker - ステッカー

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Korean

baseball (the sport or the ball) - 야구 (pronounced yă-gū)

(baseball) player - 선수

card - 카드

pack - 팩

sticker - 스티커

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Chinese

baseball (the sport) - 棒球 (pronounced băng-chyō)

(baseball) player - 球員

card - 卡

pack - 包

sticker - 贴纸

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DUTCH

baseball (the sport) - honkbal

(baseball) player - honkballer / speler

card - kaart

baseball cards - honkbalkaarten / honkbalkaartjes

pack - pakket

sticker - sluitzegel

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FRENCH

baseball (the sport) - baseball

(baseball) player - joueur

card - carte

pack - paquet

sticker - autocollant

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