Japanese Sumo Wrestling Cards and Menko
Monday, August 12, 2019
A sumo wrestler gets a baseball card
Sumo wrestling and baseball have a long tradition of being the top sports in Japan. The athletes often mingle with each other and sumo wrestlers sometimes get the honor of throwing out the first pitch at baseball games. The first time this was captured on a baseball card was when Yokozuna Wajima got to do it during 1976 Pennant Race between the Yakult Swallows and Tokyo Giants (The Giants eventually lost to the Hankyu Braves in the championship game). Wajima was one of the most dominant Yokozuna in the 1970s and his 14 top-tier championships puts him 7th all-time. Here he is throwing a pitch to the Giants' player Isao Shibata on card #535 of the JC4: 1975/1976 Calbee set which consists of over 1400 cards!
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Sweet card! It's crazy that there are vintage Calbee sets with over 1400 cards. I wonder how many complete sets are floating around out there.
ReplyDeleteThere can’t be that many I am guessing.
DeleteThere are only two complete sets that I've heard of. Probably there are some others sitting in collections somewhere, but I doubt there are more than 10 (kind of an arbitrary number, but given the difficulty I'm having in putting one together I don't think many have managed it!)
DeleteAnd this is one of my favorite cards in the set!
You are going to have a world-class set once you complete it!
DeleteNice! Those Calbee cards are cool. I like the crossover with the two sports!
ReplyDeleteYeah, these are pretty cool. I have one crossover that shows some baseball players eating chanko nabe with sumo wrestlers.
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