Clyde's Stale News - 2022 TCDB edition

Just wanted to let everyone know that I have worked out a system that will allow for adding Japanese checklists to Trading Card Databse (https://www.tcdb.com), much more rapidly.  This weekend I managed to add:

2022 BBM 1st Version inserts & parallels

2022 BBM 2nd Version base, inserts and parallels

2022 BBM Chiba Lotte Marines base, inserts and parallels

2022 BBM Chunichi Dragons base, inserts and parallels

2022 BBM Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks base, inserts and parallels

2022 BBM Hawks History 1938-2022 base, inserts and parallels

2022 BBM Genesis base, inserts and parallels

2022 BBM Hanshin Tigers base

2022 BBM Roki Sasaki Perfect Game inserts

2022 Epoch NPB base, inserts and parallels

-- October 4 update

2022 BBM Hanshin Tigers inserts completed

2022 BBM Orix Buffaloes base, inserts and parallels

2022 BBM Hiroshima Toyo Carp inserts completed

2022 BBM Saitama Seibu Lions, base, inserts and parallels

2021 Epoch Hanshin Tigers Stars & Legends base, inserts and parallels

---October 5 update

2022 BBM Rookie Edition inserts completed

2022 BBM Tokyo Yakult Swallows inserts completed

2022 BBM Hanshin Tigers Premier Edition base, some inserts

---October 6 update

2022 BBM Yokohama DeNA BayStars base, inserts and parallels

2022 BBM Yomiuri Giants inserts and parallels

2022 BBM Tokyo Yakult Swallows History 1950-2022 base, inserts and parallels

---October 7 update

2019 BBM Rookie Edition missing inserts and parallels

---October 8 update

Rather than continue to detail sets here, you can see what all I've added recently at TCDB:

https://www.tcdb.com/RecentlyAdded.cfm?MODE=Checklist&sCategory=&Member=DaClyde

There may be a few cards missing here and there as those BBM checklist PDFs can sometimes be a challenge to decipher.  Once I clear the 2022 backlog I will start working backwards.  If anyone has any requests they would like to see jump the line, please let me know and I'll get to them sooner.

So for any set where I can find a checklist in Japanese, I can get them translated and entered in a few minutes instead of the hours of tedious looking up name-by-name it used to take.  Amazing what a spreadsheet and a VLOOKUP can accomplish!

2013 BBM 最強外国人伝説2 DEEP IMPACT (Legendary Foreigners 2 Deep Impact) Box Break [image heavy]

     I finally broke down and picked up a box of BBM's 2013 Strongest Foreign Legends 2 Deep Impact set, or given the checkist, it could have simply been titled 2013 BBM Even More Foreigners, since very few of them were very successful, much less "strong legends".  This is the first set to include a certified autograph card of Sir Hensley "Bam-Bam" Meulens.  He signed only 48 cards, and so far two have sold for well over $100 on Yahoo! Auctions Japan.  The only one I can find for sale presently is listed for ¥25,000 at Mint Mall's website (which currently translates to around $212US).  I find that to be entirely ridiculous.  The highest selling autos from this set have been Meulens, Bill Madlock, Seung-Yuop Lee and Randy Bass.  Bass makes sense, as he was truly a legend is Japan.  Madlock has had autos in multiple products, so I don't understand the prices for his cards.  Lee has lots of autos in Japan, but almost any Korean player tends to sell well in Japanese products, star players especially so.
 
     It has been quite some time since I did one of these, mainly because I just don't like to buy boxes of cards.  In the last few years, I've stopped buying unopened product at all unless the set contains a player I collect, and is afforable.  "Affordable" to me is somewhat out of touch with the mainstream of the hobby (as is just about everything about my collecting habits and blog) as I can't let go of the days when boxes of the latest cards rarely exceeded $30, and you got well over 500 cards for your trouble.  These days, so many collectors don't blink at dropping $80+ on boxes that net them less than 100 cards; and that is on the low end of the spectrum.   So the only reason I decided to pick up this box (and might buy a second one if I can snag it for a low enough price) is that someone gave me a Visa gift card for Christmas (so, free money) and I was able to siphon some of that into my KuboTEN account.  The result was this:



     This set was released with the MSRP of ¥8400, but faded quickly.  I didn't quite understand what I was reading when I saw this auction, so I didn't get quite the deal I initially thought.  At first, I thought it was an auction for two boxes, with a starting bid of ¥3000.  Turns out the seller just had two boxes for sale, either BIN for ¥3000 each, or a starting bid of ¥3000 per box.  Had I realized it had a BIN, I would have had this about a week sooner.  After fees and shipping, I ended up dropping ¥5696 on this box, or just under $50, which is still more than I would like to have paid, but if it landed me the Meulens card (or at least one of the facsimile autograph cards of him), I think I could probably unload the rest and come out fairly even.  It's definitely better than dropping over $200 for the card all by itself.  I'd rather drop the $200 on a stack of boxes and take my chances.

    In any case, the fact that boxes are now selling for a mere 35% of their initial price is very telling as to how unpopular this set is in Japan.  The main issue is that the first series had autos of 52 different players seeded throughout the product.  This series only has 37 possible autographs, and in general, despite many of them being the first certified autos for some of these players, there are several repeats from the first series and the rest are a fairly weak bunch.

     I was actually intending to do this break as a video and post it to my channel on YouTube, where all those 1989 Topps/LJN Baseball Talk cards live, but as it turns out, I absolutely detest the sound of my own voice and, after a few quick video tests, couldn't stomach the thought of editing the video after the fact.  In fact, I apologize to anyone who has ever had to have a conversation with me over the phone or in person.  It was moderately more tolerable if I affected an accent or put on a character, but that just seemed like way too much effort.  I did record the break, though, but I did it without audio.  Originally I thought I would dub in some audio, but finally just decided I would simply grab screen captures from the video and post it all here.  So instead of a video, you get a photo story.

The scene:

     The weather had been really damp and drizzly here, so the box arrived a bit damp.  As it turned out, that was a benefit because it made opening the box from the bottom a lot easier than trying to cut through all the labeling on top.  Packing consideration made possible by the Yomiuri Shimbun:

     Gentleman...BEHOLD!   One box, 20 packs, 5 cards per pack.  What was I saying earlier about overpaying for a box of 100 cards?

     Something you never see with American product, this actually has a full checklist on the back of the box.  It even includes the details for the parallels and inserts, BBM doesn't actually list how many autographs are possible.

     Something else that is unique to BBM boxes is the inclusion of product placeholders for hangars.  I suppose since space is always at such a premium in Japan, it makes more sense for packs to hang on racks, rather than trying to make shelf or counter top space for open display boxes.   As a result most Japanese card packs are hanger packs.

On to the packs, and be quick about it!

Pack 1

Chan-Ho Park

Trey Moore

Willie Upshaw Off Shot

Mike Diaz

Shane Mack

Pack 2

Boomer Wells

Seung-Yuop Lee

Dave Hilton

Derrick May

Tuffy Rhodes


      Had I not already received a copy of the Tuffy Rhodes card from RyanG, I might have been more excited about this pack.  As it is, OFF TO COMC WITH YOU!

Pack 3

Cecil Fielder

Chang-Yong Lim

Roy White Autograph #/100

Joe Pepitone

Don Money


     Well, three packs in, and I already hit the one possible auto in the box.  Unfortunately for all my hopes and dreams about this box, it was not Hensley Meulens, but in fact was Roy White, a career Yankee from 1965-1979, who took his services to the Yomiuri Giants when he could no longer hit major league pitching.  He had a pretty good first year in Japan, and tailed off a bit the following two seasons before retiring.  White was a two time All-Star during one of the Yankees worst periods.  He and Joe Pepitone were both on the 1969 Yankees.  While White held his own in the Giants lineup, Pepitone could only manage a .163 batting average in 14 games for the Yakult Atoms in 1973.

     After watching a few other breaks of this product, it seems the autographs were usually within the first 3-4 packs in the front section of the box, the box being divided into three sections to hold the packs in place.  It is sort of an anti-climax to find the "hit" so soon in the box.

Pack 4

Hiram Bocachica

Randy Bass

Dong Yul Sun

Robert Rose

Mike Easler



     Randy Bass, the pride of Lawton, OK and two time Triple Crown winner with the Hanshin Tigers.  Probably the most popular player in this set by a fairly significant margin.

Pack 5

Derrick May (double)

Tuffy Rhodes (double)

Reggie Smith Off Shot

Bobby Thigpen

Rick Lancelotti



     Bobby Thigpen was one of those pitchers that had a few average seasons, then had an OMG! type 1990 where he obliterated Dave Righetti's then single season record of 46 saves (which he held for all of 4 seasons) by notching a then staggering 57 saves in 65 save opportunities, while posting a 1.83 ERA.  Thigpen's record would stand for 18 years.  He followed that stellar 1990 with another very average 1991, and then proceeded to tank for the next two years.  He seemed to find his form in Japan for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks, with two seasons of sub 2.00 ERA, though nowhere near the save opportunities (largely due to the nature of the Japanese approach to starting pitchers throwing longer when in trouble, where as MLB managers seem to throw a closer out there in every possible save situation, whether it's necessary or not).  That success in Japan did not translate to a successful return to the US, as Thigpen had apparently forgotten how to pitch to big league hitters.

Pack 6

Matt Stairs

Matt Winters Off Shot

Lee Stevens

Jeff Manto

Boomer Wells Title Holder insert



     The first appearance of a Title Holder insert.  There are four versions of this set.  All feature the mirror-like foil background, but the others have different colored trim and are serial numbered.  Pink #/100, Green #/50 and Blue #/30.  The gold version is the most common and is not serial numbered.  The set recognizes various foreigners who led the league in some statistical category.

Pack 7

Marc Kroon

R.J. Reynolds

Roy White / Gary Thomasson Off Shot

Reggie Smith

Frank Ootenzio

Pack 8

Jose Fernandez

Frank Howard

Rob Deer

Glenn Braggs

Gary Thomasson



     I suspect there was some sort of secret society of pitchers who somehow influenced the signing of players like Rob Deer, Pete Incaviglia and Jack Cust purely to pad their strikeout statistics.  Rob Deer distinguished himself by managing to lead the league in strikeouts four times in his first eight seasons in his MLB playing days, two of those seasons coming in second.  In Deer's case, his major league "talents" translated perfectly to Japan where he also managed to generate a cooling breeze for the pitchers' benefit, while failing to reach the Mendoza line.

Pack 9

Marty Brown

Bill Madlock Off Shot

Davey Johnson

Kip Gross

Terry Bross Title Holder insert



     Better known by most for his managing career, Davey Johnson was another of those players with that one insane season that made little sense in the context of his overall playing career.  In 1973, despite never having hit more than 19 home runs in a season his entire professional career to that point, he managed to rack up 43 home runs for the Braves.  Despite finishing 5th that year, the Braves fans got to see lots of fireworks as that 1973 team had three players all hit 40+ home runs that season; Johnson, Darrell Evans and Hank Aaron.  It wasn't even a situation where he was seeing better pitches because of Evans and Aaron, as Johnson was usually in the #6 or #7 slot in the lineup.  It was his first season in the NL, though, so maybe the opposing pitchers just had terrible scouting reports on him and just kept throwing big, fat pitches right into his wheelhouse.

Pack 10

Benny Agbayani

Roy White

Ralphy Bryant Off Shot

Hiram Bocachica (double)

Willie Upshaw

Pack 11

Brian Traxler

Jeremy Powell

Bill Madlock Off Shot (double)

Davey Johnson (double)

Jim Traber

Pack 12

Leon Lee

Marc Kroon (double)

Jeremy Powell Silver Signature parallel #/100

Reggie Smith (double)

Rich Schu




     Twelve packs and the first facsimile signature parallel shows up.  According to the box, there are 27 of these, but I have not been able to find a complete checklist, so I'm slowly compiling it for later addition to SCF and TCDB.  Silver are numbered to 100, gold numbered to 50 and red numbered to 30.

Pack 13

Orestes Destrade

Aaron Guiel

Matt Stairs

Mike Greenwell

Lloyd Moseby



     Orestes Destrade was a Cuban born player, originally signed by the Yankees, who seemed to just give up on him despite some good numbers in the minors.  The Yankees dealt him to the Pirates, where he did poorly, and so he took his bag to Japan and signed with the Seibu Lions.  Over the next four seasons with the Lions, Destrade averaged 38 home runs.  After Cecil Fielder's much ballyhoo'd success with Detroit, after a season with Hanshin, The expansion Florida Marlins, a Miami-based team, thought the couldn't lose by signing a Cuban slugger who has tearing it up in Japan, so they made him their cleanup hitter for their inaugural 1993 season.  While Destrade did not have a Cecil Fielder level of success, he did manage to lead the Marlins in HR (20) and RBI (87).  But overall, it was a disappointing performance, given such lofty expectations, and after starting off a truly miserable 1994 (not reaching .200 in the first 13 games, and only 5 home runs through 39 games) he was released...or rather as the transaction line puts it "Granted Free Agency" in May.

Pack 14

Leon Lee (double)

Bobby Valentine

Matt Winters

Trey Hillman

Rich Schu (double)




     Bobby Valentine's quick success and huge popularity in Japan perhaps gave the other teams there a somewhat inflated notion of what more former MLB managers might accomplish in NPB.  Despite his success, which instantly led to exaggerated expectations by team management, Bobby was basically run out of Chiba by the teams ownership because he was apparently making ownership look bad by being American and making the team so much money.  Sad to say, but after his return to the US, and terrible year in Boston, I would be surprised to see Valentine manage again in MLB.   With the inclusion of Trey Hillman, this pack contains both of the American managers who won championships for NPB teams as Valentine won in 2005 with the Marines and Hillman in 2006 with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.

Pack 15

Mike Greenwell (double)

Lloyd Moseby (double)

Matt Winters Off Shot (double)

Rex Hudler

Lee Stevens

Pack 16

Dave Hilton (double)

Reggie Smith Off Shot (double)

Bobby Thigpen (double)

Jesse Barfield

Ralph Bryant Title Holder insert




     Jesse Barfield was often considered to have the strongest arm in the game during his days with the Blue Jays and Yankees, leading the league in outfield assists five times between 1982-1990, coming in second twice.  He showed plenty of power in his one season with Yomiuri, hitting 27 home runs in 104 games, but his hitting was not up to Giants standards, managing only a meager .215 average.

Pack 17

Jose Fernandez (double)

Bill Madlock

Frank Ortenzio Off Shot

Melbin Bunch

Terry Bross




     Bill Madlock was the rare Hall of Fame caliber player who spent a final active season in Japan.  While he did show the same power that occasionally surfaced in his MLB career, he no longer hit for the average he was known for.  Had he been just a bit more durable (never playing more than 154 games in a season, and only averaging 120 per season across his career), it would have garnered much more consideration for the Hall, after all he did win four National League batting titles and end his 15 year career with a lifetime .305 batting average.

Pack 18

Carlos Ponce

Alex Ochoa

Rob Ducey

Dan Gladden

Ralph Bryant Off Shot (double)

Pack 19

Shane Mack (double)

Frank Ortenzio

Luis Sanchez

Nigel Wilson

Willie Fraser

Pack 20

Ralph Bryant

Fernando Seguignol

Marty Brown (double)

Brian Traxler (double)

Jeremy Powell (double)





     And that's the box.   If not for the Roy White auto (and from my perspective, even with it), this seems to have been a fairly disappointing box.  20 packs, 100 total cards.  That breaks down as:

95 base cards
71 unique (of 81 possible)
24 doubles

5 inserts
3 Title Holder inserts
1 Silver Signature parallel
1 autograph

     I hope to take another stab at landing that Meulens auto, but it will have to be for a good $10 less than this one cost.

Quirks of the modern "certified" autograph

     Autographs are a funny thing in the modern hobby.  There are various schools of thought regarding them, how to collect them, how to buy and sell them.  Some fans are all about the chase, picking up as many "In-Person" (IP) and "Through-The-Mail" (TTM) autos as they can get, while not really caring too much about actually buying an autograph second-hand.  Then there are those who won't touch an autograph unless it came in a pack as part of an official product issued by a fully (or partially) licensed card company.

    These different perspectives make for some interesting dynamics in the pricing of autographs of the non-prospect and less than Hall of Fame caliber players.  Many collectors consider an auto of John Tudor or Paul Assenmacher to be filler, and complain loudly when pulling one of these instead of a Derek Jeter or Albert Pujols or [insert overpriced, hot prospect of the week].  Other collectors get excited about those infrequent autographs of Bill Madlock or Carlos Baerga in something like Topps' Fan Favorites sets.  But in the U.S. market, rarely does that more obscure player's signature command much, if any, premium even when they do turn up.  There are numerous Bill Madlock autos, both certified and not, that failed to clear the $5 mark recently on eBay, and that is including shipping and handling.

    Throw in the Japanese market, and suddenly the whole market is turned on its head.  In 2013, BBM issued two sets dedicated to foreign (basically any non-Japanese) players to appear in Japan over the past 35 years or so.  In some cases, these resulted in the only pack-issued, certified autographed cards for some of these players.  Many of these players were so completely off the radar of the U.S. card manufactures that they would likely never even get an honorable mention to be included in a Fan Favorites type set.  These are players whose non-certified (IP or TTM) autographs regularly fail to get even a minimum bid on eBay.

    Yet have that player sign a limited quantity of cards in a set in Japan, and in some cases, you get what you see at the top of the page.  That is a screen capture from a completed Yahoo! Auction from Japan of Hensley Meulens' only certified auto.  The card was limited to only 48 copies.  That card sold for 10,500 yen, which at the time of the auction was about $100 U.S. dollars.  A cool Benjamin.  For an autograph of Sir Hensley "Bam-Bam" Meulens.

     A month earlier, the Bill Madlock from the same set, limited to 39 copies, sold for 12,650 yen or about $120 U.S.  Those two mark the high end of the spectrum, but other players hit similarly surprising numbers; Roy White ($30), Ralph Bryant ($52), Benny Agbayani ($30), Gene Bacque ($85), Darryl Spencer ($40), Don Buford ($25), Jim Paciorek ($50).  Even the likes of Mike Easler, Juan Eichelberger, Lee Stevens and Willie Fraser clear $10-$15.  Even Tuffy Rhodes autos still clear $25-$40 in Japan and he's got dozens of certified issues there.

    My apologies to anyone who has read this far expecting a payoff.  There's not really a moral to this story, so much as a pile of frustration for someone who collects lesser known players who happened to spend time in Japan.  Out of a print run of 48 cards from a set issued in another country, of which there are still plenty of unopened boxes on the market, it is unlikely I will ever be able to track down that Meulens card at anything like a price I'd actually be willing to pay.  I love this hobby, but sometimes it drives me crazy!

Tiny, Tuffy and Taiwanese Cards: Part II

        Thanks to the greatness that is the Internet, NPB Card Guy went on vacation to Japan and I got souvenirs!  He'd asked me before he left if there was any thing special (aside from the elusive 1994 Chiba Lotte Marines menko set) he could look track down for me, so I just said anything from my Tuffy Rhodes want list.  Well, somewhere in the dozen or so card shops he hit while in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area, he and Ryan (from This Card is Cool and Chaos and Kanji) tracked down 13 hits from my list!  Thanks guys!

WANTED: Tuff(y) Stuff or My Tuffy Rhodes Want List

タフィ・ローズ

     I've begun updating this list to include images of as many cards as I can find in hopes that it might help out anyone with access to the Japanese cards, but perhaps not an encyclopedic knowledge of what they all look like.  Many thanks to those that have helped make this list smaller (or longer as the case may be).

Japanese baseball card box break videos

     While I am probably one of the last people to delve into the online video box break scene, now that I've finally started watching some of these, I realized there was the usual gap in the hobby's awareness due to the language barrier.  To help with that a bit, I'd first like to direct you to the YouTube channel for user TakaTanakaGiants.  He's an American teacher, baseball fan and card collector currently living in Japan.  As such, he has access to the wonderful world of Japanese trading cards, and has been posting videos of his finds for the past several months.

Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Minor League Baseball Card Checklists (Online)

(click here to skip the wandering preamble and get straight to the important stuff)

     A few years ago, when I seriously got back into collecting baseball cards, I decided to pick up where I left off on my Hensley Meulens collection.  I had mostly stopped collecting and following baseball after the strike in 1994.  Then came school, marriage, the beginnings of a career, and for awhile there, I was more concerned with just keeping the lights on, the rent paid, gas in the car and food on the table, so I had almost no idea what had happened in the intervening 8-9 years I was away from the hobby.  When I got back into it, I found that Dave Winfield had been elected into the Hall of Fame, Matt Williams was named in the Mitchell Report and Meulens had spent three years in Japan (later making a couple of unsuccessful returns to the Majors).

   As I started to jump back into things, I discovered the joys (and pains) of eBay, online trading sites (SportsCardForum and The Bench Trading being the main two I've settled into, later expanding to Freedom Cardboard, mostly for the conversation), the expansive sites based around statistics (Baseball Almanac, Baseball Reference and The Baseball Cube being my most frequented) and all manner of collector's blogs and hobby news sites.  But that only showed me that there were some glaring gaps in my collection and knowledge from outside the mainstream of the North American hobby.

     As I caught up with lots of the Meulens cards I'd missed, I had to find resources for the Japanese cards about which, up to this point, I knew absolutely nothing.  As I hunted for information on them, I encountered great sites like JapaneseBaseball.com, The Japanese Baseball Card Blog, Rob's Japanese Cards and Prestige Collectibles.  Through Rob Fitts' site, I was able to pick up most of Meulens' BBM and Takara cards, but came up short on the Calbee cards.  I only knew those cards existed because Beckett happened to include a few years of Japanese cards in their online price guide.  However, I knew there had to be more, and just in learning about the BBM and Takara sets, I knew Beckett was far from complete or accurate in their listings.  Everyone I encountered or asked for help suggested I pick up a copy of Gary Engel's Japanese Baseball Card Checklist & Price Guide.  So I picked up the 6th edition.  And learned that there was an enormous world of baseball cards in Japan.  And Hensley Meulens had a few more cards that I needed to find. (A 7th edition was released in early 2010 and is available from Prestige Collectibles.)

Yahoo! Auction Japan/KuboTEN Tuffy Rhodes mailday

Despite the lack of activity on the KuboTEN website, Craig is apparently still in operation.  I took a stab at a couple of auctions and brought in a lot of three more boxes of 2000 Epoch Pro-Baseball stickers (90 packs, 900 more stickers) plus sticker album, as well as a couple of lots of Tuffy Rhodes cards from joecool0314. 

Among the three boxes of stickers, the first box gave me pretty much every base set sticker I was missing from my previous box, including the elusive:

And apparently Ichiro and Hideki Matsui were collated into the same packs. I got them both in two packs.  The remaining two boxes were spent chasing the Tuffy Rhodes Leading Star insert sticker (and failing miserably).  Looks like that might be another Bernie Brito Diamond Star adventure.

From joecool0314, I picked up a lot of Calbee signature parallels, including these two I needed:

And also 7 new Tuffy cards in one of his lots of 18:


1999 BBM All-Star
 
2004 BBM Yomiuri Giants Shinnosuke Abe/Tuffy Rhodes

2004 Konami Prime Nine VS Edition

2004 BBM Yomiuri Giants 70th Anniversary Edition

2008 Calbee 2007 Team Stats

2008 BBM Orix Buffaloes Heart of the Order

2009 BBM Orix 20th Anniversary

2003 BBM Sluggers Tuffy Rhodes acquired!

Thanks to NPBCardGuy over at the Japanese Baseball Card Blog, I've been able to fill one more hole in Ye Olde Tuffy Collection, his 2003 BBM Sluggers card:

There is also a sepia tone parallel of this card that I've yet to see anywhere online.

I was finally able to put one of those cards I bought from Mr. Angeles to work and traded this 2001 BBM Century Best 9 insert of the legendary Hiromitsu Ochiai:

Surprisingly, that's the first trade I've made with another blogger. Most of my trades take place on TheBench. Hopefully this will be the start of a trend resulting in another dozen or so people with excess Tuffy Rhodes cards starting blogs about Japanese baseball cards!

Fame is fleeting....

...but Ee-Yah!! is forever.