Yesterday's MJ card was for a US player collection, but I can't neglect my player collection for the NPB! With no cards being released these days (it is the offseason, after all) I'm starting to look for older cards that I've been missing. And I found this card recently:
The Yomiuri Giants have had special Players Day events in the past which included the distribution of trading cards. These cards came in special folders; above, you can see the front and inside front of the folder for Alex Ramirez. These folders are about 5x7", big enough to hold the actual card inside.
And here is the card. It's shinier than it looks, with a nice finish. The back of the card tells us the date this particular card was distributed: June 8, 2009.
The Giants issued cards for Players Day events in 2008 and 2009 in this manner, and other promotional items in other years, such as small towels and caps.
I didn't know this card exists until I happened to see it searching through some listings. Unfortunately, there are probably at least a dozen cards for Rami-chan I don't know about. But that does make things interesting when card hunting!
Cool card. I like the idea of receiving a card within a folder as a promotion. Just curious...is he popular among collectors in Japan? Do Japanese collectors collect his 90's cards from his days with the Indians?
ReplyDeleteHe has a really good looking autograph. Definitely a neat card.
ReplyDeleteFuji: Rami-chan is fairly well-loved here, or at least was. He was very energetic and put on a good little show on the field. He has a great attitude and personality. He's learned Japanese, signs his name in katakana, and is a naturalized citizen. He'll probably slowly be forgotten like many other players, perhaps mostly because he's played with multiple teams and thus doesn't have a strong devoted fan base (fans here get attached to teams more than players). That said, yes, people do collect MLB cards of NPB players, so most likely many of his 1990s cards have ended up over here.
ReplyDeleteSumo: Agreed. It's very clean but stylized, and I love the little Rami-chan notation he always adds.