Why Buy Just a Swatch?

An auction recently popped up for an interesting item that I had to throw down a bid on. The item in question is a pair of Munenori Kawasaki's game-used pants. I didn't expect to win the auction, but I wound up as the winning bidder. 

They arrived in the mail today, and it looks like they are packaged in the bag they came in. They come from Kawasaki's stint with the Chicago Cubs in 2016.

Cross-checking the official MLB hologram tells me that these pants are part of a throwback uniform the Cubs wore in a game against the Reds on July 6th, 2016. Kawasaki didn't appear in that game, as he only made 14 appearances on the year, with his only July appearance coming on the 9th of the month. So these pants are less game-used and more dugout-used. Probably still more relevant than many of the 'event-worn' relics out there.

The pants show a decent amount of dirt and grime for being worn once without a game appearance. That's fine with me. I wish I could find a picture of him from that game, but so far my search has been fruitless. This is a pretty cool item for my collection, especially since I got it for about what a handful of Kawasaki relic cards would sell for.

One of my favorite independent wrestlers, Jazzy 'Alpha Female' Gabert, also has had a couple of MMA fights. She had a neck injury a few months ago, and to help cover her expenses while recovering from surgery, she put some items from her first MMA fight up for sale. I wasn't able to get her ring gear, but I did buy the gear she wore for the weigh-in.

I do have pictures from that event. Here she is flexing on the scale, with all the sponsor logos behind her.

And here is the traditional staredown with her opponent, Manuela Kuhse, before the fight in Iron Fighters Organization (IFO) 3 on October 15, 2016. Gabert would win this fight by TKO in the 2nd round.

She sent along an autographed copy of a photo from that day. I thought that was pretty nice.

And here is the actual gear. She autographed each piece, although it's kind of hard to see in the photos. I don't know how much game- and event-worn clothing I plan on adding to my collection in the future, but these are a couple of cool pieces for my collection. It was fun to get Munenori Kawasaki's pants, and I was glad to be able to help out the Alpha Female while getting some memorabilia in return. Her recovery seems to be going well, and she's started booking some events. It doesn't sound like a contract with the WWE is in her current plans, but she has some other stuff lined up.

I Bought a Piece of Munenori Kawasaki's Ball on Buyee

Late last month I posted about a single wrestling card that I bought from Japan using the Buyee purchasing service. I hinted that I had also bought a single baseball card through Buyee, and today I am going to post about that card.

This is a Munenori Kawasaki baseball relic card from 2008 BBM Touch the Game. I was originally going to post about my Munenori Kawasaki collection for Collecting Cutch's Top 10 contest, but I realized that I didn't actually have ten decent Kawasaki cards to post about. I went looking on Yahoo! Auctions through Buyee and found this one, but by the time I got this card and a few from COMC it was too late and I went with R.A. Dickey for my contest entry instead. I don't know much about this set, but it's a cool card with a bit of baseball embedded in it. I don't think the baseball is game-used or anything, but who knows?

The card features Kawasaki as a member of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. It is serially-numbered # 189 / 300, so it's not particularly rare, but you're probably also not going to find a whole bunch of them lying around. Even though I didn't get this card in time to post about it for the contest, I was happy to add a unique relic card to my Munenori Kawasaki collection. After spending most of last year with the Cubs' AAA team, Kawasaki is back in Japan this season as a member of the Hawks. I don't imagine we'll see him in Major League Baseball again.

A Relic from the WBC

I appreciate all of the comments and messages I received on my recent posts about the loss of our baby. Today was better than yesterday, although that's not really saying much. Probably 99.9% of my days will be better than the last couple of days have been. We had to go to the funeral home today to make some arrangements there, and also talk to each other about what comes next. I've tried to spend some quality time with each of our other three kids during my time away from work. They seem to appreciate the attention. I guess on Monday I will be mostly ready to go back to the office. Things are piling up there, and I can't hide from my responsibilities outside the home forever. My wife has already had to deal with some of that, as she had an exam in school today and she's got homework due throughout next week. She is a strong woman, and I am lucky to be married to her.

I don't follow the World Baseball Classic much, but I am aware that it is going on right now. Apparently the team out of Israel is doing pretty well, with much fanfare from the Topps Now program. I haven't purchased any of those cards, but I did pick up this older WBC card from 2006 Upper Deck SPx. I think this Winning Materials insert was from the actual SPx product and not a 2006 World Baseball Classic box set that apparently exists. I don't know for sure, though, as I wasn't collecting in 2006.

Munenori Kawasaki was one of the players featured on the Winning Materials checklist. I think this is my second WBC relic card featuring him, with the other being from the regular Upper Deck product. He's had a pretty good Spring Training so far for the Cubs, if the numbers are any indication, but I find it hard to believe that he will be on the roster once the real games start, barring some sort of injury to other players.

Munenori Kawasaki Bowman

I don't have a lot of cards in my Munenori Kawasaki player collection, but I think I've got a couple of good ones. One set that wasn't represented in my Kawasaki collection, though, was any version of his 2009 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects World Baseball Classic insert.

I've fixed that problem by grabbing this Gold Chrome parallel of the card, numbered # 46 / 50. I've been following various versions of this card for a long time, but this one finally popped up at a price I was willing to pay for it.

I don't have a lot else to say tonight. It's only Tuesday and I already feel like it's been a hell of a week. The new supervisor at work doesn't seem to be too bad, but even neutral and good changes stress me out.

Konami Kawasaki

Way back in early 2015 I grabbed a copy of Munenori Kawasaki's 2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC card. A couple of weeks ago his 2008 Konami Baseball Heroes card popped up in my eBay feed with an extremely reasonable Buy It Now price. I nearly strained my clicking finger as I added it to my cart and completed the transaction before anyone else could get it out from under me.

While the 2009 card features him in his World Baseball Classic uniform, this card shows him in his Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks garb. He's also sporting a much more serious face in his photo on the back of this card.

These cards were used in some sort of arcade game which, according to Zippy Zappy, inspired the creation of the SEGA Card-Gen arcade game and the trading cards associated with it. The card is a little rough around the edges, so maybe it spent some time actually being used in the arcade. I can't read most of what's on the card, but based on Kawasaki's scores I think he was a fairly valuable player in the game.

I mentioned this recently, but Kawasaki was signed to a minor league deal with the Cubs and might have a hard time getting playing time on the Major League roster. I do really hope that the change in teams is enough to get him a few cards in 2016 sets, as I like gathering cardboard with him on it. It'll be a sad day for me when there are no more Kawasaki cards, although there are plenty out there that I haven't been able to pick up yet, especially among card sets released in Japan.

Doubling Up with Topps Supreme

I picked up a couple of Topps Supreme autographs recently. In what has become a recurring theme lately, one of them was an example of a card I already had in my collection. This first one is nearly the same as a card I already had, but it is at least a different parallel which means those little triangular swooshes at the bottom of the card are a different color and the print run is different. This one is the Orange parallel of Munenori Kawasaki's 2013 Topps Supreme autograph card. It's got a nice low print run, being # 06 / 15.

Kawasaki recently signed a deal with the Cubs. I hope he gets pictured on some cards next season, although I have to wonder if he will get any playing time. The Cubs are pretty well-stocked with talent. I am a fan of Kawasaki independent of any loyalty to the Blue Jays, so the move doesn't have much effect on me either way. I just think that he had room for more playing time on the Blue Jays roster.

Here is the card I already had a copy of, a Purple autograph of Jon Singleton from 2014 Topps Supreme. This one is numbered # 16 / 25. It's a cool card, but I don't really need two of them. I can take some consolation in the fact that it was cheap, selling to me for the opening bid of $0.99 + shipping. I don't know what I paid for my original copy, but I can be pretty sure that it was more than that.

Gray Whale Harpooned: 2013 Topps Supreme Munenori Kawasaki

I recently was able to land a Gray Whale of mine (h/t Cervin' Torren' Up Cards), a card that I wanted but could never really justify at the prevailing asking price. The card in question is any version of the 2013 Topps Supreme Munenori Kawasaki autograph. They are up on eBay all the time, it seems like, but either the bidding always $10-15 more than I feel like spending on one or it just comes around at a bad time for me financially.

Well, events converged for me and one of the Sepia # / 35 copies popped up with a Buy It Now price a little less than the # / 50 ones usually go. I hit the button after a couple hours of thinking about it and worrying that someone else might purchase it before I made the decision to do so. I was also able to use my eBay Bucks certificate from last quarter to bring the price down quite a bit more. It's a very nice card, and I am pretty happy with it. It is a sticker autograph, but the signature is all on the sticker and the sticker is framed fairly well and applied pretty evenly. Last year I was able to add a Munenori Kawasaki relic card to my collection (make sure to read the funny anecdote shared by Zippy Zappy in the comments section), and now I've got an autograph to go with it. This one is numbered # 18 / 35.

He has seen some action this year for the Blue Jays, coming into games mostly in the 7th or 8th innings and getting 17 plate attempts over the course of 12 games during May and June. The rest of the season has been spent in AAA. He's a pretty popular player in spite of his pedestrian numbers, and I would imagine that is why he gets as much run and attention as he does. Pretty much every video clip you see of the guy is entertaining, and you can tell he enjoys life. I hope he is able to hang on for a couple more years and get a few more cards out there with his picture on them.

Click Here to View Cart 6: Randy Kawasaki

I received a small batch of cards from Japan recently, from the same seller who sent me my R.A. Dickey SEGA Card-Gen grail card. First up is the card that I just tacked on to the order because it was cool to me. It's a 2003 Kanebo Topps Series 1 card featuring Randy Johnson. It looks like the set was produced as part of some agreement with Topps, as there are Topps logos and MLB marks on the cards along with the Kanebo logo. Zippy Zappy over at Torren' Up Cards has a post from last year that goes into a bit more detail about the set. I nearly picked up a Jamie Moyer card from Series 2, but it would have put me over my threshold for the transaction.

The second card is a Munenori Kawasaki card from the Extra set of 2012 SEGA Card-Gen. I guess the EX cards were special exchange cards that you could get from playing the game, which may or may not have been encased originally? All I know is that it's hard to build a Kawasaki player collection because he apparently has a lot of fans and not a lot of cards, so you've got to grab what you can get. His stats aren't great, but the card does mention that he hustles on all plays. I like watching him in games, because he's usually doing something entertaining.

And here's another cool Kawasaki card. It's from the 2009 Konami Baseball Heroes World Baseball Classic Edition. Again, I'm going to defer to Zippy Zappy to explain the origins of this set. I am unfortunately not an expert on any of these Japanese card sets, but I do know that I love just about every Japanese trading card I see. I just wish I could read the backs.

That's it for this purchase. I was happy to find some Munenori Kawasaki cards for my small PC of him and add to another unique Randy Johnson card to that PC. I recently picked up quite a few Japanese wrestling cards, too, and I will have to post about them once I get them sorted out.

2006 Upper Deck Munenori Kawasaki World Baseball Classic Relic

I've been looking for a Munenori Kawasaki relic or autograph off and on for quite a while, but it seemed like things never lined up exactly right. He is apparently quite the fan favorite with his antics and interview prowess, so his card prices far outstrip his on-field production.

After several months of being outbid and watching exorbitantly-priced Buy It Now listings end without buyers, I was able to land this 2006 Upper Deck World Baseball Classic relic card for a decent price. It's a pretty nice-looking card. I like seeing something outside of the usual MLB uniforms, and I think the WBC logo looks good on cards. It would still be nice to add an autograph someday, but it may be a little while before I get around to it. 

The back features all the typical relic-card stuff congratulating the buyer on obtaining a guaranteed relic card. It also features one sentence about Kawasaki's performance during the World Baseball Classic.

Taking a 'Saki Break

I can't believe I hadn't read this blog post from Sports Illustrated's Extra Mustard before. I must not be a true fan. They also posted some new Kawasaki material today. Go look at it. It'll make for a good Friday. 

Speaking of the Blue Jays, I thought R.A. Dickey was going to get through his start yesterday without too much damage. Then the 5th inning happened. Dang it all to heck. The Astros are no good. The Blue Jays can't get it done. At least Oakland is doing all right. If you have enough favorite teams, one of them is bound to be doing well at any given time. If this paragraph is getting you down, go back and look at some of that Kawasaki stuff.