Sunday, May 31, 2015

Tired Of Waiting For BBM...

Between Niki and the latest issue of SCM, I think I can figure out enough about BBM's upcoming releases for the next month or so to go ahead and do a post about them instead of waiting for BBM to put information up on their website.  So here goes:

The Tigers team set is the only set I'm going to mention that actually is up on BBM's website.  The base set will have 81 cards - 69 cards for the manager and players, five "Reliable Pitching Staff" cards and seven "Dynamite Row 2015" cards.  There are four insert sets - "Burning Bright" (9 cards), "New Age Builders" (5 cards), "Rescue From Overseas" (4 cards) and "Shintaro Fujinami Special" (6 cards).  There's the usual large number of autograph cards available, including ones with two player signatures and some "1 of 1" versions.  The set will be out June 12th.

The Marines team set also has 81 cards in its base set.  This breaks down to 71 player cards (including the manager), three three card subsets ("Ageless Wonder", "Real Steal" and "Foreign Impact") and a checklist card.  There are three insert sets - "Fast Lane" (6 cards), "Spring Fever" (3 cards) and "Prime Time" (9 cards) and a similar group of autograph cards that the Tigers set featured, including multiple players and "1 of 1" versions.  The set's release date is June 24th.

- Continuing the trend, the Baystars set also has 81 cards in its base set.  68 of those are player (and manager) cards and the rest are split among 3 subsets plus a checklist card.  I'm not entirely sure what the subsets are, however.  There's a three card subset featuring Yasutomo Kubo, Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh and Takayuki Kajitani - each card features one of the trio in the foreground with the other two in the background.  There's a six card subset that I think is called "Pitching For Win" - half the cards feature sequential photos of Yasuaki Yamasaki.  I don't know if the entire subset is for him.  The last subset is three cards but I don't know what it is.  There are two nine card insert sets ("Blue Flash" and "Blue Diamond") and the same sort of assortment of autograph cards that the other two sets have (including the dual autograph cards and the "1 of 1" cards).  The set will be released on MayJune 25th, the day after the Marines set.

- This year's edition of BBM's Classic set will be released on June 17th.  The base set features 108 cards - 72 current players and 36 OB players.  The 72 current player cards are in the style of the 1993 BBM set (as expected since last year's was in the 1992 style).  The 36 OB players are in a style very similar to the OB cards in last year's set - same design but different color.  There are three insert sets - a 24 card "All Stars" set that uses the same design as the 2002 Touch The Game set's insert set of the same name.  The other two sets are based on the "Above Average" and "Pitch Perfect" inserts from the 1999 Diamond Heroes set - both sets contain 12 cards.  There's a Tetsuto Yamada game used bat card based on the 2000 Ichiro bat card and a large number of autographed "buy back" cards.

- The first of the two annual team cheerleader cards is due out on June 26th.  Dancing Heroine - Hana has 99 cards in its base set and a number of autograph cards.  There do not appear to be any insert cards.

- I mentioned the other day that SCM 111 had a checklist for the Second Series from Calbee this year.  I assume that the set will be out in mid to late June but I haven't seen a release date.  The set will be released on June 22.  Like Series One, there will be 84 regular player cards (7 per team).  There will be a 12 card subset featuring the managers of each team and four checklist cards, making there an even 100 in the base set.  There's also the standard 24 card "Star" insert set.  There are also two premium items that can only be obtained through redemption cards known as "Lucky" cards - a 12 card box set called "Wins Leaders" (featuring a starting pitcher for each team) and a "magic motion"-style card of Chihiro Kaneko.  The checklist is available on line at Calbee's website.

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