Useful Things I Learned Recently From Yakyu Baka

Hmm, maybe that's not the best title. I always learn useful things from Yakyu Baka - it's just that these things are baseball card related.

- Calbee's first series for the year was originally scheduled to be released nation-wide on March 21, but it ended up getting delayed due to the earthquake. The cards are now being released in different areas on different dates - in Kansai starting this week and Hokkaido starting next week. I don't think that BBM is delaying the release of any cards - I know that the Tokyo Big Six set was released last week and that the 1st Version set is coming out April 23. I think that those were their original release dates.

- It turns out that the new BBM set "Legend Of Bs 2011" is a tie-in to some games that Orix is playing this season where the Buffaloes will wear 1970's era uniforms for both Kintetsu and Hankyu. Kind of like the "Lions Classic" sets BBM has done in the last couple years. There's also a kind of cool website that ties in as well.

- Not baseball card related, but I found this interesting - the Pacific League has released a smart phone app. I downloaded it for my iPad last night and it's...ok. It's not going to make anyone forget about MLB's app. I've gotten it to either hang or crash twice now, so it's kind of buggy. Not being able to read Japanese is a handicap, although I can usually figure out where I'm navigating to, even if I can't read the articles. I mostly downloaded it for the videos, but they appear to be buried in the team sections and I've had mixed success being able to see them. But the app is free and hopefully it will improve.