Happy New Year! 2021 in Review

 Why, hello there! Another six months go by, and then I make another post.

2021 was a pretty unique year for me. I started the year in Matsumoto, where I was supposed to stay for just one month. But thanks to Japan's tight border control during the pandemic, that turned into almost one year - the longest I've ever spent at one school since leaving my home school.

Matsumoto is a fantastic city. It's compact and still holds a lot of its traditional style. The downtown area is very walkable with the historic shopping street a few minutes from the station and an original castle just a few minutes further. It lies in a high valley surrounded by several hiker-friendly mountains and several old post towns, so I kept busy on the weekends doing a lot of sightseeing and hiking. And I've returned to Pokemon Go, giving me an excuse to get more walking in after work - nighttime strolls from the school to my apartment down a long detour took me down that shopping street and past the castle.

Now I'm not far from Matsumoto, from about mid-November. This time, my school is in the middle of Japanese suburbia, with very little appealing to me around my apartment. I've been in a place called Suwa for almost two months now, but between other commitments and the holidays, I haven't had many weekends to get to know the place.

Nagano Prefecture has an indy-league (BCL) baseball team called the Shinano Grandserows. BCL teams have home areas, instead of home stadiums, so they occasionally play in Matsumoto and Suwa. I caught one game early in the season in Matsumoto, and if I'm in Suwa long enough I plan to see another this year.

I've had a few vacations during the year. Spring break, known as Golden Week, took me to two prefectures I've never visited: Tottori and Shimane. In early summer, I went to the Kansai region, visiting some historic baseball sites and catching an Orix Buffaloes game. My August summer vacation saw me staying in Tokyo, but I did get out around the city for some sightseeing and shopping.

In November, I knocked two more new prefectures off my list (Kagoshima and Miyazaki) as I visited every prefecture in Kyushu. This past week's vacation involved no sightseeing, but I've been able to hang out with friends and I've gotten a few things done around my home apartment.

Nagano has no card shops, so I've been doing most of my card shopping online. This is fairly usual for me now anyway, because I can find new stuff easier and cheaper through Mercari and Yahoo! Japan Auctions than I can at most of the shops in Tokyo. It seems that Wrappers, my go-to shop in Tokyo, might no longer be open as a brick-and-mortar location, which means I've had to rely on a couple other "backup" card shops for singles.

I've made it to a lot of shops this year, though. I believe I visited every Mint location from the Tokyo area all the way south to Kyushu at least once this year - including the franchises. Plus a lot of the independent shops that I know of. There have been a few shows that I've been able to attend, too. And in addition to Mercari and YJA here, I've picked a lot up through COMC, Sportlots, and eBay in the US.

I haven't posted much. My last post was a mid-year review of my goals for 2021. I just haven't felt too inspired to write lately. But I've definitely been collecting! My next post will be a look at my 2021 goals, since this is getting pretty long already. Until then...

Half-Year in Review

Howdy, folks! It's been a few weeks. I don't know how I've been keeping busy, but here we are. I've been busy. I haven't neglected collecting, and I do have some scans that I hopefully will be sharing sooner or later (perhaps some in this post?)... but until then, 2021 is already halfway through, and I thought it would be nice to take a quick look at my goals for the year.

If you're interested in the original post where I introduced my goals, just go back to this January 1st post.

1. Finish certain player collections. Two of the four US collections are done, and the others are moving along as much as possible. I haven't made much progress on my NPB collections, either. But I did get the card above - the 1990 Calbee "Big" card for Motonobu Tanishige. I've also added a few new players to my collection, but I haven't actually begun to collect them.

2. Complete certain collections. Nothing completed, but I did find a few singles here and there to get me closer. Nothing to write home about! 

3. BBM and Calbee sets. I've met my goal, as I've finished a couple Calbee sets and I finally finished 1996 BBM last month. This is the only goal that's actually completed, halfway through the year!

4. Reduce my US want list size. I have finished a few sets, and if I ignore this year's additions, I'm making some good progress. But overall, the list is just as big as before, thanks to new releases and beginning a few new vintage sets.

5. Knock a bunch of inserts off my type collection want list. I haven't started on this goal. It's possible I could tackle it late in the year, or even on an idle Sunday. But I've always figured this was a stretch goal.

6. I wanted to create some custom card sets, but I haven't done anything with this. Another goal that I need some free time for! I have figured out one aspect of creating the cards: I can print photos quite easily from local convenience stores or at electronics stores (I'm not sure which is cheaper, since I haven't priced them yet).

7. I also wanted to properly label my type collections and card scans. I've finished the bulk of the non-set scans (I'm not sure I'll ever do the set scans, but it's possible). But I've been working away from home all year, and it looks like I might be here for the remainder of the year. As new sets have come out, I've been properly labeling my cards, but the older sets need to be done. Because I'm not at home, I doubt this will get completed this year. Labels don't write themselves.

Beyond my annual goals, it's been really hard to get complete sets, but I've started on 2021 Donruss and 2021 Diamond Kings. I  haven't had any luck on Stadium Club yet, and Ginter hits shelves in a few weeks. This might be the year of unfinished base sets. (Ugh.)

Until next time...

Discovery: 2011 Pro Yakyu Data File Weekly Baseball Reprint and Rookies Card Set

BBM doesn't just make cards. Their name is "Baseball Card Magazine" after all. They are responsible for the now-defunct SCM, several magazine specials a year, and Weekly Baseball (週刊ベースボール, Shuukan Baseball).

The first issue of Weekly Baseball had a cover date of April 16, 1958, though it was released in March. It actually was a rebranding of Baseball Magazine (ベースボールマガジン), which was first released in April 1946. The company Baseball Magazine gets its name from this periodical. Weekly Baseball passed the 3000-issue milestone back in 2010.

Bonus fact: in 2015, BBM bought the naming rights to a baseball stadium in Niigata Prefecture for 1 million yen per year (about $10,000/year). 

In August of 2011, BBM reprinted the first issue of Weekly Baseball. The magazine was included in this box:

The top says "Pro Yakyu (Baseball) Data File". Pro Yakyu Data File is another magazine published by BBM. If I understand correctly, this box was a gift for subscribing to Pro Yakyu Data File.

Here's the cover, featuring Shigeo Nagashima and Tatsuro Hirooka.

For the most part, the magazine was replicated exactly like the original, down to the photos and ads. Phone numbers and addresses have been removed, but prices remain intact.

There's a lot of focus on Giants players, but there are some articles on the other teams.

A large portion of the artwork is hand-drawn. Vintage Japanese publications have a lot of hand-drawn design elements. It was fun to flip through and enjoy the vintage, black and white pages, even if I can't really read it.

The inside of the box also held a set of special baseball cards split into two subsets.

The first subset is 2011 Big Hope Rookies, featuring the top rookies of, well, 2011. Yuki Saitoh was probably the biggest name then, but Yudai Ohno also makes an appearance in this series.

The second subset is titled Legend Super Rookies and features retired players who had outstanding rookie seasons. Naturally, Shigeo Nagashima is included.

 I didn't know about the existence of this set until NPB Card Guy came across it and asked me to find one for him. I was able to get another for myself soon after! I've had this for a few months, but I'm just now getting around to posting it.

As always, I must wonder how many other sets are out there which remain uncatalogued. 

Until next time...