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.)

As they say, "Those who can't do, teach."

     Well, I don't know if I'd go quite that far in describing Hensley Meulens, as he had a fairly successful career in the minors and in foreign leagues (except for Korea), but he certainly never made an impact on Major League pitching. At the moment, Bam Bam is getting a lot of coverage by baseball media, as San Francisco has handed him the task of making hitters out of the Giants' lineup of wind machines. Perhaps he can reach them with his vast language skills and explain to them that their purpose at the plate is to reach base, and not just create a gentle, cooling breeze for the pitcher.

     Anyway, back in 2003, Meulens put his playing days behind him (partially thanks to an injury during the 2002 Mexican League season) and took up the challenge of imparting some of his 16 years of professional experience on a new generation of young players, and was hired by the Bluefield Orioles of the Appalachian League, Baltimore's rookie ball affiliate. Looking at the roster for 2003, most of the players were signed as undrafted free agents, and the rest were universally late round draftees, the lowest being 4th rounder, Tim Gilhooly (for whom 2003 would be his last of two seasons).

     Typically, rookie ball isn't where your promising young phenoms start out, they typically begin their career at A+ or AA, depending on maturity level, so I guess Bluefield was as good a place as any to start out a rookie hitting coach. Looking at the lackluster roster, almost all of whom would be out of organized baseball within two years (none reaching the Majors), Meulens first year coaching had to have been one of endless frustration with the team batting an anemic .238 and finishing a single game out of last place. However, he probably learned a lot that season. In any case, he is seen here, early in the 2003 season, just happy to be here, on his first baseball card as a coach.

     The set was produced by Grandstand Cards, who started producing sets for minor league teams in 1997. I don't think they're around anymore, as I can't find any information on the company, but they were issuing sets up to at least 2006. At the time, they were the only company aside from Best, producing minor league team sets on a wide scale. In 1998, Multi-Ad would enter the market (as Best was leaving), and Choice Marketing would join them in 1999.