COMC order #9 - Another variety pack [FIN]

To stretch things out, one final post for the COMC cards I had gotten in-hand last December - where I've conscripted odds and ends to my collections.

2025 Topps Finest Drake Baldwin RC #21 - my interest in keeping up with aspects of Major League Baseball has probably waned through the past decade, where I might plead ignorance as far as knowing the top prospects coming up.

Entering the 2025 season, maybe Baldwin was a bit of an unknown commodity anyway - I wasn't paying any particular attention as he played well enough to displace Sean Murphy as the Atlanta Braves' starting catcher and won the 2025 National League Rookie of the Year.

As it goes, I probably needed any Baldwin card to fill a spot in my award winners collection - which ends up kind of being in mothballs, where the only time I might worry about the project is when I can add more cards of the year-to-year award winners [MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year].

2002 Donruss Originals On the Record /800 Jimmie Foxx #OR-2 - I thought up a random insert set to search for back in 2023 and this one came up in my memory banks, where it's something that came out 25 years ago and counting.

The card is jazzed up with a serial number on the back and looks almost inspired of a USA Today newspaper like design - Babe Ruth makes a cameo, so it ends up being a star on star card.

1975 NST Mr. Baseball Stamps Shigeo Nagashima #204 and 2001 BBM Shigeo Nagashima #530 - to broaden my collecting interests, I might have been looking to build up a micro-mini collection of his cards a couple of years ago.

It might not actually be a traditional card, but I like the candid street clothes moment captured - where Nagashima is signing autographs for a couple of boys.

2022 BBM Fusion Roki Sasaki #16 - maybe I wished I would have grabbed some Japanese era Sasaki cards while in Japan last November, but was worried I was overpaying for single cards that were not rookies anyway.

2022 BBM Roki Sasaki Perfect Game Roki Sasaki #11 - I think I made up for a little bit of regret, picking out a couple of Sasaki cards, where they at least showed some unique, cutesy images, even if they were no better than the other Japanese era Sasaki cards.

2022 Bowman NPB Nippon Professional Baseball Yoshinobu Yamamoto #9 - maybe I wanted to squirrel away a Japan era card of the Japanese import after his rookie year back in 2024, even if the card I ended up with here was a pretty basic card.

2023 Topps Now Off-Season Yoshinobu Yamamoto #/34,496 #OS-25 - this wasn't worth much at all, but maybe his earliest MLB era card, even if it's a oddball Topps Now thing as opposed to a card that would be inserted in packs.

1974-75 Calbee Bobby Marcano #836 - to fill out my purchase before having things shipped, I grabbed this old-school Japanese card of a Gaijin player who was from Venezuela and flourished in Japan as a second baseman.

COMC order #5 - Ichiro

I passively end up making keepers out base cards / inserts and parallels of prominent players to reflect the fabric of a decade / era - this may not mean I actively collect everyone as if they were all my personal favorites, where being obligated to mindlessly hoard 'numbers' seems overwhelming.

On the other hand, besides my regional favorites, I've settled on a short list of 5-10 guys from a decade / era I've chosen to really focus on - from the 2000s through 2010s, Ichiro was an all-around national star to gravitate to, where there is lingering sentiment to this day.

Admittedly, Ichiro had gluts of MLB cards issued where I am content to leave most alone unless they fall into my lap - however, it becomes a mission to look for cards that end up a little different, notably his 1990s pre-MLB issues from Japan.

In my COMC order, I tried to build up a micro-mini run of random ones that caught my eye a couple of years ago - maybe there was a little bit of FOMO, where the cards would have been listed at higher prices once he got elected to the Hall of Fame and any one card would be harder to consider as impulse pick ups.

I tried to pick out some unique ones, even if they more basic cards - where it wasn't the just the usual hitting, fielding or standing around during a baseball game images.

Navigating through a Japanese repack

I was fortunate to be able to travel for a couple of weeks to Japan the past year - mostly taking photo ops at various sighteeing sites.

When I could, I tried to look for cards and seek out places where they were sold - this blog was instrumental in helping find a few card shops, where I sought a few places out to get a look at the Japanese baseball card scene.

In my second trip to Yellow Submarine Akihabara, where it's part of a multi-floor 'department store,' made up of different shops for various hobbies / interests I might be too old for [or not] - there was a dedicated section for sports cards and other trading cards with bulk bins to rummage through, packs for sale, supplies and single cards displayed behind glass.

There might have been a display table with repacks and after browsing around for miscellanous 'non-sport singles' featured behind glass - I grabbed a couple of bulk baseball card repacks in plastic for 200 yen or around $1.30.

I saw another person grabbing and stacking 5-10 repacks together and while it wasn't all that serious - I wondered if I should stake my claim before they all disappeared for the day.

I do not know about Japanese baseball cards at all, so maybe the nuances about collecting specific ones didn't matter as much as getting a bunch of cards to take home with me - I ended up thumbing through the contents and while these might not be valued cards, I tried to separate them where I had keepers for my collection.

Cards of Atsuya Furata and Shigeo Nagashima - I didn't know who Furata was and his card ends up an odd duck for me, but looking him up online, he ends up being a legendary catcher and Japanese baseball Hall of Famer.

Nagashima ends up a legend I may have heard of in passing where an American collector on YouTube collects him - go figure, I ended up buying a copy of the card from the bulk bins of the card shop, where I didn't go through the repack until I was back home.

Some retro cards of Japanese baseball legends - adds some historicity in my pack, even if the cards are actually fairly recent.

Japanese cards of guys who played in the big leagues - just like the Nagashima, I may or may not have picked up a copy of the Masahiro Tanaka card I found in the repack

A couple of cards of a pair of Japanese players expected to sign with big league teams - the cards may only be regular cards, but it's a novelty where I only really have the chance to collect MLB cards.

Cards of a couple of gaijin players who played in Japan - after a dominant season pitching in Korea, Cody Ponce signed a three year contract with the Toronto Blue Jays to see whether he can build on his overseas performance.

Some odds and ends - a couple of the same cards found of Shinnosuke Ogasawara, a Japanese pitcher who played for the Washington Nationals in 2025 and a trio of gaijin players.

These may not be the best example, but for guys who have had their share of mainstream American cards - it's always interesting to see examples of their Japanese cards.

Parallels / inserts - these might not be high brow cards of better players, but anything different besides regular cards ends up as a teaser.

Standouts - even if only regular cards, I went ahead and used Baseball Reference to check up on players and see whether they were 'good or not.'

I wanted to separate the bulk repack cards of guys who might be better than the rank-and-file players at best - where maybe if young enough, have the chance to eventually big leaguers, if that is a path they decide to choose.

Maybe I will look to get a beat on keeping up with the Japanese baseball season in 2026 - where it might be fun keeping up with certain guys whose cards I've pulled and made keepers of.

More standouts - maybe I can make a themed curated set out of this repack, where it ends up being a scrapbook, rather than trying to squirrel the cards in different places.

There were a couple of instances were I was bipped with the same player - I wasn't sure who Sachiya Yamasaki was, but he pitched for the Nippon Ham Fighters the past three seasons and has generally been a solid veteran.

Cards of old dudes - there might be a more cards of older players set aside in my standouts portion, but these end up as notable 'super veterans.'

I found a card of Takumi Kuriyama, a 41-year old who hung on to play his 22nd season with one team, the Seibu Lions - where everyone gets old, it's pretty neat to see a pro baseball player still active in his 40s.

I also found a card of Masanori Ishikawa, who is even older at 45 and was still pitching through 2025, all with the Yakult Swallows - he has a losing career record of 198-203, but it looks like he chasing 200 wins, so he might be back next season.

Card show trip - picking through binned singles - Ichiros

These were more pick ups from the last show I went to over the summer - this should be the last roundup, where I have dragged things out.

At one seller table, I found myself thumbing through what I think were Japanese Menko cards, but wasn't familiar with them at all - so maybe I was a little unsure if I was going to find some probable [impulse] buys.

I think the seller said "hello again" as if he remembered me from somewhere and explained there were different kinds of Menko cards - depending on whether I was interest in sports / non-sports / etc.

It took me a moment to realize I bought a couple of cards [$10-$15 each] from the seller at another show back in 2024 - I ended up going through the binned singles with Japanese MLB players and figured I was going to pick up at least one more Japanese era Ichiro card [just like in 2024].

For years, maybe Ichiro's Japanese cards were out of sight, out of mind - but I saw one that piqued my interest at a seller table at a local card show.

I passed on that random card, but started seeing posts on the Dime Boxes blog about picking them up every so often - so maybe I was 'inspired' to be on the look out pre-MLB Ichiro releases.

Ichiro may have been that Japanese import, the past 25 years that became an all-around star to look up to or collect - with Shohei Ohtani being that 'here and now' guy from Japan, perhaps the interest in Ichiro has been muted.

In my dig, I tried to look for more unique Ichiros, where they might jumble together in the bin [with varying prices] - I picked out a couple of loose singles [$10 each] that looks like they had a lenticular surface, so even if I paid more than what they where worth, I thought I had a pair of unique looking cards to make keepers.

The third Ichiro I picked up ended up being a graded card for $15 - it might be a case where I did not look hard enough with spotty vision, but the card looks like it has an acetate finish, where that made it a little 'cooler' to make a keeper out of.

My favorite find of the show was off a booth promoting a Japan based commerce Web site that also had cards such as binned singles for sale - it's a graded 2000 Upper Deck Ovation Japan Ichiro #41 [$30].

In a collecting world where PSA 10s rule, I only got myself a PSA 7 copy - but the way I look at it, I could pick up a raw card, spend to get it graded just the same and have the card in a slab with the same numerical grade.

It ends up easier making a decision on a graded card rather than a raw one - as long as the price on the label is still fairly reasonable.

The card might just been another Japanese era, Ichiro card where he was pictured as a longtime veteran - but the cards were patterned after the 2000 Upper Deck Ovation set, which was embossed to mimic a baseball, which was a pretty neat thing to this day.

The card was printed the year before Ichiro would debut in the big leagues - so I almost associate it as a pre-rookie card rather than an 8th year base card of an all-time legend.

FWIW, I picked up the Ichiros knowing that I might have been going to Japan to do some traveling [which eventually happened this past November] - maybe my finds were designed to take the pressure out of seeking out card shops or card related things, where it didn't have to be a do-or-die mission if I came up short.

Credit where credit is due - Hideo Nomo

I am thinking what little blurb I could whip up for this pick up and how did I even come up to thinking about looking for such a card - maybe it was about 'out odding the odd,' where I want to see if I can top what I might have seen posted on a blog or social media.

The truth is that I saw this card on someone else's post on Twitter / X and went on eBay to see if there was a copy I could snag - there are screenshots on my camera roll of the collector's post on Twitter, where he received this a copy card as part of a mail day, so there you go I guess.

I associate Nomo's big league career with the Los Angeles Dodgers through the late 1990s and the Boston Red Sox and then back to the Dodgers through the early 2000s, before he really was kind of done - there are parts of Nomo's pro career in America, where he was lost in the wilderness.

From looking at his Baseball Reference register, this card was apparently from when Nomo pitched for the Milwaukee Brewers AAA team back in 1999 - it's real odd seeing Nomo immortalized in a stint for a minor league team.

TTM autographs received: Richie Scheinblum

The one-time Angel from the 1970s signed my cards in about 10 days - he was the first Jewish player in Japan and had a couple of nice seasons with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp to wrap up a 13-year professional playing career.

TTM autograph received: Roger Repoz

The former big league outfielder and one-time Angel signed my 1968 Topps issue in about a week - this card came from a box of loose cards featuring one-time Angels [either pictured as Angels or in another team's uniform] I still need autographs of.

Just to get the TTM machine going, where I may have some mail to look forward to - I dug out cards from the misfit Angels box, to put together and send out some recent requests.

Repoz was a serviceable player who was just a little above league average as a hitter [105 OPS+] despite a .224 batting average in 9 MLB seasons - though it wasn't in the major leagues, Repoz had a 5-year run as a slugger [122 home runs /.512 slugging] in Japan through the mid 1970s.

2018 Topps Living Set Ichiro #25 PSA 9

I bought a copy of this card last year, but there was a stray mark on the top left hand corner and on principle, I returned the card to the seller - even though it cost me s/h to send it back.

Because the impulse buy didn’t end up working last year, picking up a copy of the card ended up itch I had to scratch - Ichiro was a universally loved player and as a personal tribute to the player and the man, I wanted a cheap, classy looking 'bookend card' for my micro-mini Ichiro PC.

While I don’t have an extensive Ichiro card collection [maybe three or four of his cheapest rookies in addition to whatever loose cards I may have] - I do have several in-person autographs I was able get through parts of his legendary career with a few stories on those IP quests for his scribble.

I would have originally settled for a raw copy of the card as they were released, but after the fact, a slabbed copy [$10.99 BIN - $3.00 eBay promo on purchases of $3.01 or more] only cost several dollars more - while third party grading can be a straight up joke, especially for the most recent of cards, having a card entombed in plastic gives me some peace of mind as far as getting a relatively clean card.

These cards aren't hard to find at all, so PSA 10 listings are not much more than the PSA 9 ones - as far as I’m concerned a PSA 9 is what I'll usually what settle for as the most common grade for most modern cards I’m looking to pick up.

Farewell Ichiro

Ichiro is still pretty damn athletic at 45, but with his bat speed severely diminished and his ability to contribute on a day-to-day basis not something to be seriously considered - he finally walked away from the big leagues for good, getting an opportunity take the field as a player when his longtime Mariners played in Japan to start the 2019 season early.

I liked him just like everyone else seemed to - mainly it was because he was all about infield singles, stealing bases, showing off his arm and his defensive skills as a fast-paced contrast to the plodding all-or-nothing players who had one skill [slugging a lot of home runs], but offered little else.

Maybe for years, the media couldn't pin a narrative to Ichiro's career - part of the appeal was the quirkiness and mystery of this far east hit machine who crashed the major leagues at 27, yet was a year-to-year threat to reach the 200-hit plateau that he made up for 'lost years' to reach the 3,000 hit milestone.

Favorite card of 2018 - Topps Heritage Shohei Ohtani Action Image variation #17

This is in response to Tom's contest over at Waiting 'til Next Year.

Go figure that it would be another Ohtani as my favorite card of the year but the relatively healthy half of him lived up to the hype and I wanted to showcase my best rookie year card of his - the traditionalists who have collected Topps Heritage for years may not like these short print gimmicks because it gets in the way of completing their sets.

However, the Action Image variation cards picturing prominent rookie or second year stars have gotten popular to collect - even if it wasn't autographed, in my mind an Ohtani was a definitive card to have.

Favorite card of 2017 - Mega Box Ohtani

This is in response to Tom's contest over at Waiting 'til Next Year.

I'll throw this up as my favorite card of the year because I actually pulled one [#BCP31] after not even sure if I was going to bust any of the 2017 Bowman Mega Boxes - as a baseball fan, I was excited to see which MLB team Ohtani sign with this off-season, whether it was the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, Seattle Mariners or San Diego Padres.

It's only much sweeter when the 23-year old wunderkind signed with the Angels as opposed to other teams in pursuit of the pitcher / slugger - I figure this will probably be my best Ohtani card and I'm hoping he lives up to the hype and this card stills holds some relative value at the end of next year, even after the market is flooded with his MLB cards.

2017 Bowman Mega Box Shohei Ohtani

It wasn't recently, but when I finally saw them for the first time, I bought the six Bowman Mega Boxes I found at Target - I went through four boxes and pulled Ohtani's first English card, even though it's sort of a 'phantom' issue since the 23-year old never played for Japan in the World Baseball Classic.

The biggest story this off-season is which MLB team Ohtani sign with once he gets officially posted by his Japanese team, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters - I've heard about him for at least a couple of years and with his ability to pitch and swing the bat, he has the potential to make the most impact out of all the baseball imports from Japan in the last 25 years.

I took a picture of Ohtani signing autographs and taking pictures early in the morning a couple of years ago - when he was in Peoria Arizona for his team's spring training workouts.

Collecting topics - nations

2007 Bowman’s Best Masumi Kuwata #67 - serial #’d 391/799; he had a very good career in Japan but he seemed too old to do anything in his lone season with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2007.

2008 Bowman Chrome Kazuo Fukumori #214 - refractor

Fukumori was a veteran reliever coming over to try and pitch in Major League Baseball, but couldn't get his career going with the Texas Rangers - however I can check out what he did in his pro career and look him up on YouTube making an old-timers game appearance and whatnot.

I randomly picked these cards [along with two random Hideo Nomo cards] up just to add variety to my Japan section of my nations collection - so my collection representing players from Japan seems a little deeper.

Featured autographs - Hisanori Takahashi

After a long day at FanFest and waiting for the game to end, my Achilles heel was hurting and I could barely get inside the car - when the pain had subsided, I finally lumbered into the car.

At the tunnel next to where the media trucks are parked Tunnel B, I saw some Japanese guys talking by some SUVs and figured - at least one of them had got to be Hisanori Takahashi and I snuck behind some of the park trucks to see if I could approach him

I walk towards who I thought was Takahashi and call blurt out his name - I ended up getting to sign three cards and hopefully he'll get to pitch in a regular season MLB game soon enough, so I could add his name to my collection of Angels autographs.

Edit: Takahashi faltered in his debut with the Angels - it looks like he retired only one batter, allowing three hits, including a home run Jeff Francoeur in the Angels' 4-2 Opening Day win against Kansas City.

As the saying goes - no pain, no gain.

Autograph request through the mail received: Walt Williams

Walt 'No Neck' Williams c/o home address - signed my 1976 Topps card in black ink and looks like he traced or wrote over the 'W' in Walt.

This autograph request took about a week or so - I'd read about Williams in a book of cult baseball players years ago before finally sending out an autograph request to him just this year.

Williams also played in Japan for a couple of years - though I didn't get a response from 'No Neck' about his time spent playing there, like my previous through the mail success with Ken Aspromonte.

Autograph request through the mail received: Ken Aspromonte

Ken Aspromonte c/o home address - signed my 2008 Topps Heritage foil stamped 1959 Topps buyback card in blue ink.

It took about a week or so to get back this autograph request sent to him - I liked how he responded to my question about playing in Japan once upon a time long ago.

Featured cards: Hisashi Iwakuma Japanese cards

I've had these cards for a couple of years as my friend gave them to me in anticipation of the 2009 World Baseball Classic - now Iwakuma is trying to get to the major leagues after the Oakland Athletics won the bid to be able to negotiate a contract with Iwakuma for about 30 days.

Apparently other Japanese players are itching to join Iwakuma - looking to cross over into Major League Baseball and hopefully be paid well to have some success.