1994 Chiba Lotte Marines Menko (JCM 25)

     Back around 2008 or 2009, I decided to seriously pick up the slack in my Hensley Meulens collection, and I started exploring the world of baseball outside North America.  I learned that Meulens had played in Japan for a few years, and upon discovering Robert Fitts' website, learned that he also had several Japanese baseball cards.  I emailed Mr. Fitts and as I had exhausted his supply of different Meulens cards, he suggested I look into purchasing a copy of Gary Engel's Japanese Baseball Card Checklist and Price Guide, 6th edition, so that I could become more familiar with the hobby and get a better idea of what was out there.

      I ordered the 6th edition (about 2 months before the 7th edition was due to drop, but I didn't want to wait that long) and I found that Hensley Meulens had 9 cards from Japan over three years with the Marines and Swallows.  About 6 months after that, while more methodically browsing through the book, I ran across the 10th card of Hensley Meulens from Japan.  This one was right up my alley.  Not only was it a Japanese card, but it was Japanese ODDBALL card!  From my years of chasing cards for my Winfield and Williams collections, I loved finding oddballs.

Bam Bam White Whale Landed!

      We interrupt the regularly scheduled mail day series with breaking news...

OBSCURE JAPANESE HENSLEY MEULENS
WHITE WHALE LANDED!

       My weekly searches on Yahoo! Auctions Japan finally paid off and, with the services of Kuboten.com, I have just won the 1994 Chiba Lotte Marines stadium giveaway menko/karuta set I never thought I'd get. Bam Bam is on the third row, second from the left.  Once it arrives in a few weeks, I'll post a scan of the whole sheet, front and back.