Ichiro Suzuki’s 2001 MLB arrival didn’t just change the game on the field — he helped feed growing international demand for baseball cards via plenty of new premium brands that helped pave the way for the ultra-deluxe stuff of today.

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A legendary career and baseball journey on two continents makes its final stop this month in Cooperstown, N.Y., and the Hall of Fame and there’s a lot that can be said about that in several directions. 

Ichiro Suzuki changed the game with his arrival in MLB, eschewing the longball in favor of speed and hits — lots and lots of hits. But, “hits” are also the story of all those years when it comes to baseball cards with the prized rarities found in packs with autographs on them — or pieces of memorabilia in them — being an unstoppable force in those years. 

Of course, hits didn’t start with the Japanese star’s arrival, but many of his cards in sets alongside another now-legendary 2001 rookie, Albert Pujols, helped change the cardboard world even faster. Demand for their stuff prompted several new brands from several companies making MLB cards back then to try new things, capitalizing on their new stars who could move packs and boxes of cards -- just like they could move players around the bases and move butts into seats to watch games. One could argue that 2001 was in part a big piece in the evolution of what we see in today’s sports card landscape -- a focus on rarities with small print runs and with premium prices that weren’t like the wax paper-wrapped pocket-change treasures of not that many years before. 

Now, what’s to come here is absolutely not a definitive list of top cards — and it’s not one purely based on volatile values or one limited solely to Rookie Cards. Why? There’s a lot to choose from for Suzuki on all fronts — there could be several ways to take on this challenge. He has more than 50 different Rookie Cards between his 1993 Nippon Professional Baseball and 2001 Major League Baseball debuts (depending on how you want to argue about RC definitions) and he had roughly 500 cards in 2001 alone. Many of them are rarer cards where it is impossible to own them all thanks to small print runs and rare serial-numbered versions. 

In all, he appears on more than 19,000 different cards made over the years between NPB and MLB -- and even though his playing career ended in 2019 his cardboard career has not. He’s got a place in the game in seemingly every new baseball card set on the way and that figures to be the story for the rest of cardboard eternity. He’s not just a Hall of Famer … he’s an international icon.

Here’s a small sampling of 25 Ichiro Suzuki cards that are both fun and notable.

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Simply put, this one is all about the best of the best.

Baseball's global icon and living legend Ichiro Suzuki takes his spot in the National Baseball Hall of Fame later this month in Cooperstown, N.Y., and just one piece of all that's to come with his history-making day is Baseball America's special issue that's precision-crafted with a little bit of everything inside when it comes to Japan's greatest player and an icon among the elite in MLB history.

The Ichiro Baseball America Hall of Fame Commemorative is 50 pages of full-bleed retrospective splendor that showcases all of the memorable moments, rarely seen photographs, historic analysis, other memories and stories from yesteryear, thoughts from opposing pitchers and, of course, it's even got some baseball cards inside.

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What's Buzzing: New pulls from WWE, MLB and NBA pulls boxes as well as Victor Wembanyama, NFL chatter and Roki Sasaki.

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What's Buzzing: Card economy thoughts, NFL Week 10 chatter, Roki Sasaki reactions, new pulls and more in today's edition.

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From time to time, Buzz will break a box of something and post the results here. Like this and want to see more? Or maybe there's a box you'd want to see busted? Send Buzz an email at BlowoutBuzz@blowoutcards.com.

The pack: MJ Holding one-pack & more baseball repack
Where to buy: Retail -- click here for Topps Nippon Professional Baseball boxes

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are a few threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: A unique Frank Thomas auto, Aaron Donald retires, new pulls, Kenny Pickett is traded, wrestling chatter on Austin 3:16 Day and more.

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What: 2024 TRISTAR Hidden Treasures Platinum autographed baseballs
Arrives: March 13
Box basics: One autographed baseball per box (12 boxes per case)
Order: Click here (live soon)

What's buzz-worthy: TRISTAR's autographed baseball chase brand hits the field for another year with some big chase baseballs -- think legends of the game -- and then a varied mix of stuff in every case.

The biggest chase of them all this year? Keep reading for that and a gallery of what's in this one.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are a few threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: Yoshinobu Yamamoto to the Dodgers, the Bowman Draft Superfractor problem, LeBron James' Chrome Rookie Card, NFL chatter and more.

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What: 2023 Topps World Baseball Classic baseball cards
Arrives: Dec. 20
Box basics: One autograph or autographed Relic per 10-card box (12 boxes per case)
Checklist: Click here
Odds: Click here
Order: Click here (when available)

What's buzz-worthy: The World Baseball Classic helped start the baseball year and now it's one of the releases that will help close out the cardboard year, too

Keep reading for more and a full gallery of images.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are a few threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: Scouting Black November, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, pondering Hall of Famers, NFL Week 12 and more.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are a few threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: Bronny James, MLB chatter, big on Japanese Bowman Chrome, a grading question, scouting Black November and NFL Week 11 chatter.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are a few threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: Matt Olson, new MLB pulls, NFL preseason chatter, lawsuit reactions, a huge Japanese Chrome card and ... "how long should you hold prospects?"

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What: 2023 Topps World Baseball Classic Global Stars baseball cards
Arrives: Live now via Topps
Pack basics: 20 cards per pack (autographs every third box)
Checklist: Click here
Order: Via Topps.com; Click here (when available)

What's buzz-worthy: The World Baseball Classic gets a standalone in-pack release that showcases stars from around the world, includes plenty of parallels and offers up ink as well -- though not in every pack.

Keep reading for more info and a gallery for this one.

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From time to time, Buzz will break a box of something and post the results here. Like this and want to see more? Or maybe there's a box you'd want to see busted? Send Buzz an email at BlowoutBuzz@blowoutcards.com.

The pack: 2021 Topps Chrome Nippon Professional Baseball baseball cards
Where to buy: BlowoutCards.com

Keep reading for a full breakdown and gallery of what was in this one.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are a few threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: New pulls, international appeal, making changes, fighting bots as well as some NBA and WWE chatter, too.

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His first 10 games as a Chicago Cub have already generated headlines and some new ink in the MLB record books -- as well as a good about of Topps Now cardboard, too, if that's your way to measure popularity.

But Seiya Suzuki has a good amount of other cardboard you might want to chase, too, and there are even Superfractors out there to be found for this new MLB standout.

But first? Some basics. He's hitting .429 (12-for-28) this season with four homers and 11 RBI. He's got nine runs and a pair of doubles in there, too, along with nine strikeouts but nine walks to perhaps even things out. (How that looks so far in the record books? Click here.) In Japan as a member of the Hiroshima Carp he hit 189 homers in nine seasons of Nippon Professional Baseball play before coming to America. His Topps Now cards -- the newest dropped today above -- have averaged 4,562 copies sold so far and the newest will put him over 20,000 cards sold this year.

But, like Buzz said, there are Superfractors out there waiting to be found.

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A young player, international appeal, historic games ... and a Superfractor chase.

Those are some key ingredients making some hot cardboard right now -- if you know about it -- as 20-year-old Chiba Lotte Marines star Roki Sasaki has been arguably the most-dominant pitcher on the planet this month. A week ago, he threw a perfect game with 19 strikeouts in Nippon Professional Baseball action and he followed that up yesterday with eight perfect innings with 14 more strikeouts before the ball was handed to a closer.

Why might this matter to American collectors? Well, he's got 18 cards in both of Topps' 2021 NPB releases you can easily chase (or cash in on if that's your thing) with 10 in Chrome and eight in the basic set. They're all paralleled out so, yes, there's a Superfractor in play out there somewhere as he's dominating the game.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are a few threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: Roki Sasaki dominates, a major price check, a huge blaster pull, the USFL and more in today's edition.

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Like many collectors, Buzz is a fan of grading and knows that there are many reasons that collectors choose to slab cards. Sometimes it's to enhance the appeal and protect them when selling. Other times it's to protect an investment for the long-term or to protect for sentimental reasons. Or, it might be just for fun or curiosity about a potential grade.

Here's this month's grading diary here on The Buzz ...

A CAREER YEAR
The Card: Dansby Swanson 2017 Topps Heritage #76B action variation SP -- Rookie Card parallel
The Reason Bought: I'm a sucker for Heritage RCs and multi-player cards from the past, but I've never really chased the SPs that have been immensely popular since around this year where a few key names went solo from their card counterparts and have cards of their own -- both signed and unsigned. I had Swanson stashed on my fantasy league all season (mostly on the bench behind a favorite of mine you see here often) and saw the career year as it was happening. I had been eyeing this card for years now -- I own plenty of the regular ones as well as a couple of the Chrome types (I might slab those) -- and grabbed this awhile back. With the Braves' World Series showing, I figured I'd have him batting lead-off here ... and he won't be alone from the ATL here this month.
The Grade: BGS 9.5

Reality Check: I wasn't really worried about the pop report but I also didn't realize there were so few cards above this one. I will stash this one away with my Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuña Jr. slabs I've picked up or slabbed on my own the last couple years like I suspect many have and will be doing. I probably need to slab some of their pitchers and you might see a Freddie Freeman Heritage card or two here in the future. (I lean toward the new guys more but have had some good Heritage pulls.)

Keep reading for more of this month's pick-ups and new slabs for Buzz.

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Japan's professional baseball players will soon appear on Topps cards.

The company revealed this week that it has a new deal with Nippon Professional Baseball to make its baseball cards in Japan. This deal is a first for Topps with the debut NPB cards coming later this year.

"We have been actively pursuing the NPB league as a way to better serve baseball and sports fans in Japan and beyond," said David Leiner, Topps' Global GM for Sports and Entertainment. "We feel the licensing agreement will deliver fans an exciting range of collectible products and enhance how fans collect their favorite teams and players."

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There could be a new slugger on his way to MLB from Japan -- and you might already have some of his baseball cards.

Yoshitomo Tsutsugo will posted by his team, the Yokohama DeNA BayStars, soon and that means MLB teams will have a shot at signing him. He's a guy who has hit 139 homers in the last four years -- his best season being 2016 when he hit .322 with 44 homers and 110 RBI.

Thanks to the World Baseball Classic, he's already got a few baseball cards that have been found in past Topps packs -- and, of course, he has BBM cards if you want to go further back into the past.

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What: 2018 Topps Transcendent Collection Japan Edition baseball cards
Arrives: Dec. 21
Box basics: 11 autographed cards -- and plenty more -- per box
Checklist: Click here
Order: Click here

What's buzz-worthy: Topps' biggest high-end baseball brand gets a Japanese edition with a sole focus on two of the biggest MLB stars from the country -- Ichiro Suzuki and Shohei Ohtani.

So, what comes in this one? Keep reading for more info and a full gallery of images released so far.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are a few threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing Today: Nothing but MLB and NFL chatter as well as some big pulls in today's edition.

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Do you like Buzz Breaks? Today's your day then as we launch 12 in 12 -- a series of a dozen breaks of wax boxes and wax packs in a dozen hours. We'll post one every hour all day long ... this is Hour 10.

The box: 2005 BBM Glorious Stars Japanese baseball cards
The cost: $20 (at The National)

What's inside this one? Why is it being ripped here? Keep reading ...

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As previously noted here on The Buzz, Panini America's first baseball card release of the year will include autographs of new Los Angeles Angels signee Shohei Ohtani.

But now we have the specifics for 2018 Donruss and the cardboard to prove it after the former Nippon Professional Baseball star signed for Panini last week.

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