I have a number of Japanese baseball cards in my collection. Most feature Japanese players who signed with the Mets or North American players who went on to play in the Atlantic League.
Until recently, I didn’t have any Japanese baseball cards of Major League Baseball players… it just never occurred to me to look for them.
Earlier this month, Kenny posted scans of some cards he picked up during a recent trip to Japan (link potentially NSFW due to scans of bikini model cards) at his blog, Torren’ Up Cards.
Among the baseball cards were some produced by Upper Deck for Kelloggs in 2008, and I noticed a partially obscured Jose Reyes card in the image. I left a comment hoping to get a better look at it in a future post, and before you know it Kenny sent me a copy for my own collection.
According to Kenny, the back of the Reyes card says: “Represented the Dominican Republic in the 2006 World Baseball Classic, had a .300 average, 19 HRs & 81 RBI in the regular season which were all career highs. For three consecutive seasons, in 2005, 2006 & 2007, he led the league in stolen bases.”
(I’m not sure how you’re seeing the images above, but the Kelloggs card does have traditional square corners.)
Kenny also sent along a David Wright card from the 2013 Sega Card Gen set, which is from an arcade game in Japan. (Here’s a YouTube “Let’s Play” video if you’re curious about what the game looks like.)
The card text reads, “The Mets’ face of the frachise who has 1426 career hits, a third baseman with a solid mix of speed, offense & defense. In 2012, he hit for a .300 average for the first time in three years and for the sixth time in his career. He managed to cut down on his strikeouts that were rising at an alarming rate and a .300 average, 30 HR, 100 RBI season was in sight. If all goes right, he has the power/potential to lead the league in batting average & RBI.”
(The Sega Card-Gen card really does have slightly rounded corners – I tried to leave extra white space around the scan so they would display accurately even if you’re viewing this under a blog theme that rounds off the corners of my images.)
Finally, Kenny included the Asia Edition of Brandon Nimmo‘s 2014 Bowman Draft card. No translations are needed, since all of the text is in English.
(The Bowman Draft card also has standard square corners. The card back is displayed at a larger size in the hope that most will be able to read it.)
Do you have any baseball cards in your collection that were not produced for the U.S. or Canadian markets?
PaulHadsall.com 
Glad you liked the cards (or at least I’m assuming you did).
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Yes, I did. Most of the others you sent made it into my collection too, but they didn’t fit with the theme of this post. Thanks again!
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Nice cards! I didn’t realize there were Major Leaguers on Japenese cards outside of Sega CardGen… and I just got a CardGen card just to say I had one, but it wasn’t a Met.
I have a modest collection of Japanese cards, but almost all of them feature NPB players. I’ll have to keep an eye out for some Mets.
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Thanks – good luck in your search!
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Oh, man- I HAVE to find one of those Kellogg’s cards for my oddball Frankenset!!
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Good luck – I wasn’t even able to find a checklist of the set (perhaps I’d have more luck if I was able to understand and search on Japanese language websites.)
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