We Have a Majority - 2008 Bowman Chrome Red Refractors #/5

I have been collecting Brandon Laird (now playing in Japan for the Chiba Lotte Marines) cards for a while now and became interested in Brandon's career for two reasons: 1) I worked with his mom in CA several years ago so would get to hear about his adventures in Japan, and 2) I collect some Japanese sports cards and it was a natural fit.  I've been trying to track down all his U.S. cards and parallels from 2008 to present.  I haven't dove too deeply into his Japanese cards since those tend to be a bit more expensive, but I do monitor auctions for cards from his U.S. playing days.  Recently, I was able to add the third #ed to 5 2008 Bowman Chrome Red Refractor meaning I now own a majority of the 5 that were printed.  Not sure I will be able to add the final two, but would be cool to have all 5 in possession at some point in my life.  Anyone else ever have a majority of refractor parallels of any players?

What's wrong with these Brandon Laird Bowman Chrome Cards? - Come on Topps!

The interns were at it again at Bowman.  Maybe this is a known problem or this has been discovered before with these 2008 and 2011 Brandon Laird cards, but can anyone tell me what is wrong with the 2011 card?  5 free packs of Japanese baseball/basketball for the first correct answer.  Come on Topps!

Brandon is in his 4th year with the Nippon Ham Fighters over in Japan and is doing a fairly well with the team through the 3/4 of the season mark.  It'll be interesting to see what he does as I believe his contract extension is up at the end of this season.

Japanese BBM Baseball/Sumo Wrestling Crossover Cards

In Japan, sumo wrestling and baseball have been interlocked in a decades-long battle for popularity supremacy.  In the 1930s, sumo reigned king...after World War 2 it was baseball that carried the torch.  In the mid 1950s, sumo took hold until the 1960s where Oh and Nagashima took baseball to new heights.  In the 1970s, strong wresters like Kitanoumi, Takanohana, and Takamiyama popularized the sport overseas.  In the 1980s, Chiyonofuji was the man in sumo and seemed almost invincible...as well as sumo ratings.  In the 1990s, Nomo-fever brought about Japanese baseball to new fans overseas and was carried by Ichiro and Matsui.  BBM started making baseball sets first in the early 1990s followed 5 years later with sumo and is indicative of baseball's popularity strength.  The early 2000s were kind to sumo, but it's popularity died off until just a few years ago.  This battle will surely be an interesting one going forward.  Occasionally, there are cards that depict these two sports intertwined as is with the 2006 and 2008 Japanese BBM Baseball Ceremonial First Pitch Cards.  These four card feature sumo wrestlers throwing out the first pitch in April games during those season and thus were included in the 2nd series of the sets.  In 2006, Hakuho and Kyokushuzan had the honors...in 2008, Kotomitsuki graced card # 768 and newly minted Yokozuna Hakuho had a second go at this honor.  These are the only 4 cards I know that BBM has crossed over between these two sports.  I am hoping there will be more in the future.

2008 Japanese BBM Osaki Handball Team Cards

That's right, we are looking at official licensed handball team cards from 2008.  This particular set has 22 cards in it...21 base cards and 1 special autograph card.  For ~$8, I couldn't pass this up to take a look and see what wonders lie within for the 2008 Osaki OSOL Sky Magic!! set.  The box advertises 2000 total sets produced. 

There is a Japan Handball League (日本ハンドボールリーグ) with 10 teams.  I'd love to watch a game in person, but YouTube has quite a few games.  I don't quite understand the rules, but looks like Basketball, Soccer, and Lacrosse mixed together.

Opening the box shows the game schedule on the inside of the top flap as well as a team photo.  The set number is stamped in gold in the upper right corner....I got set #1834 in this instance.

Cards come wrapped in a paper sleeve and are printed on BBMs standard high-gloss paper.  Each card is numbered and shows an action shot with a smaller posed shot in the bottom corners.  The imagery is pretty cool.  The backs have personal data as well as another action shop and statistics.  Each players is presented in order of their uniform number so the goal keeper, with uniform #1, is first in the set.  There are 18 cards in the base set and 3 "Shining Moment" card of Daisuke Miyazaki which are basically interview cards to get to know him better.  Daisuke appears to be the star of the team since he got his own 3-card Shining Moment subset as well as appears on the box cover.  He also is touted as the star on the inside front cover and he is standing in the front row of his team photo.  Surprisingly, I also got an on-card autograph of his as my special insert!  It is numbered 52 of 75.  They only made this set of handball cards and only of this team.  I bought two sets and am planning on keeping the other one sealed.  Pretty cool stuff!