This is post 800. Wow. I can't believe I've written enough garbage to keep you entertained for 800 posts! This means that sometime next year I should hit 1000. A thousand posts.
I've had to rethink my writing since moving to Japan, because I no longer have easy inexpensive access to cards (card shows here are nothing like in America) and when I do get new stuff it's usually sent to my address in the States. Showing lots of Japanese cards has still brought readers to my site, and hopefully my American view on Japanese baseball has proven entertaining.
There is still so much I want to do on the blog. I'm getting much better at posting about new Japanese releases, and I'm thinking of creative ways of filling in the gaps when I don't have new cards to show. Thanks, as always, to all my readers out there - regular and sporadic - who find the time to comment on my posts and bear with me on long, drawn-out trade deals. Know that while it's much harder for me to comment now, I'm still reading posts through my iPhone while on the way too and from work, and at lunch!
I thought I'd show you a few cards that show the wonderful connection between Japan and America.
First, CardGen. I love CardGen, even though I haven't tried to put a set together (wouldn't that be awesome?). Here is a foil card of Brian McCann. CardGen is a Japanese card set of MLB players, made by Topps. It's designed to work with an arcade game but the cards stand out on their own. And that background CardGen logo is pretty cool in the scan.
Here's the back. Foil cards are very limited releases. There are 60 cards in the foil set, so getting any particular player isn't easy!
Here are a few Yu Darvish cards. These are from another gaming set called Baseball Heroes. Ichiro, Matsui, Nomo, and Darvish are national treasures in Japan - icons that show Japanese ball players can compete at the top league in the world.
Japanese fans love the foreign players who come to Japan as well, though there are issues (see: Sadaharu Oh's single-season home run record). It seems that with greater success in the MLB, Japanese baseball accepts foreigners breaking records better (see: Matt Murton and the single-season hit record). With Balentin at 53 home runs (as of Tuesday morning in Japan) we'll see what happens as the last month of the season progresses.
Thanks again for reading, until next time...
wait a minute..... there are Braves? On Japanese cards???????
ReplyDeleteSweet mama jama... where's my wantlists?
Happy 800th!
ReplyDeleteCaptain Canuck: Yup! I guess I need to create a post detailing those cases eventually. I'll be glad to work on a trade with you next month (my free time is almost non-existent for the next few weeks).
ReplyDeletemr. owl, thank you!
Congrats on getting to 800! I have to say, since you've returned to posting, you have put out some excellent posts, both here and on Chaos and Kanji. Between you and NPBCardGuy, hopefully my shame at not posting much at all lately will result in some action over at my blog. In the mean time, it has been great seeing all the new sets and hearing about the inserts and parallels.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on 800 man :). PS, putting together a SCG set is a pain. I know from expirience.
ReplyDeleteI'll second what Jason said: awesome posts over the last couple of months.
ReplyDeleteCongrats, Ryan
Congratulations! I'm glad you're back to posting regularly too. It's great to see the new stuff when it first comes out.
ReplyDeleteWell, I tried to leave comments through my iPhone while I was in Hokkaido but the Safari browser can't seem to handle blogger comment submissions. I just updated to iOS 7. We'll see how that works next time.
ReplyDeleteBut thanks Jason, Kenny, Greg, and NPB Card Guy, and everyone else, for reading and your comments. I feel guilty making a bunch of "easy" posts at the same time (or right after) all these kind words, and now not posting in the past week or so. I'll be back on track by the weekend!