1993 Hawaiian Winter League Ichiro

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by packs

I don't think these cards are real. The set mentioned doesn't have any checklist attached to it. While it might be some other scarce regional issue there is no guarantee the set referenced in the news article featured Ichiro or is related in anyway to the supposed set with the Ichiro we're familiar with.

Ichiro was on the team whose set is mentioned though, no? Seems unlikely they would have made a set without him.

[packs]

There are no players mentioned at all. It just says Hawaii league. That’s what I’m pointing out. There are no identifying characteristics listed for the set mentioned in the article at all. It’s just assumed this Ichiro card is part of the set mentioned in the article but there’s no real connection that anyone can discern from that short article. I’ve yet to encounter a set that managed to feature every single player in the league. I would say it’s hard to suggest that because Ichiro played in the league and there may have been a small set produced for this card show that the set must have featured Ichiro. You can’t tell which is all I’m saying.

[packs]

From a collector who was there when this team existed, collected contemporary minor league sets exactly like this one, who also never heard of or saw these cards until 2001:

http://japanesebaseballcards.blogspo...cards.html?m=1

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by packs

There are no players mentioned at all. It just says Hawaii league. That’s what I’m pointing out. There are no identifying characteristics listed for the set mentioned in the article at all. It’s just assumed this Ichiro card is part of the set mentioned in the article but there’s no real connection that anyone can discern from that short article. I’ve yet to encounter a set that managed to feature every single player in the league. I would say it’s hard to suggest that because Ichiro played in the league and there may have been a small set produced for this card show that the set must have featured Ichiro. You can’t tell which is all I’m saying.

So you think it was just one 32 card set for the whole league? I read it as a 32 card set of each team, in which case it's a pretty fair inference the Hilo team included Ichiro. But perhaps not. In this hobby there is no end to deception of course.

[packs]

It says a lot of things that are inconclusive and not at all concrete. I read it as 32 cards per team, but it also says the event is to purchase "pre-sales" of the set, which there's no guarantee was ever produced. That's the whole point. The mention is too brief and too vague to draw any conclusions from. Even if there was such a set, you can't assume the checklist the same way you can't assume any other checklist for any other set. There are no 2022 rookie cards for Adley Rutschman, for example, and he finished 2nd in ROY. And you can't assume this was the design of the set mentioned in the article. There are no photos of it.

I read the first person account I linked to and several threads on other forums. They tend to reach the same conclusion: nobody saw this card until 2001.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by packs

It says a lot of things that are inconclusive and not at all concrete. I read it as 32 cards per team, but it also says the event is to purchase "pre-sales" of the set, which there's no guarantee was ever produced. That's the whole point. The mention is too brief and too vague to draw any conclusions from. Even if there was such a set, you can't assume the checklist the same way you can't assume any other checklist for any other set. There are no 2022 rookie cards for Adley Rutschman, for example, and he finished 2nd in ROY. And you can't assume this was the design of the set mentioned in the article. There are no photos of it.

I read the first person account I linked to and several threads on other forums. They tend to reach the same conclusion: nobody saw this card until 2001.

It was delayed in production lol.

[packs]

Most importantly, in my opinion, is the fact that Jason Giambi would have been the big draw for this supposed set. He was an American player drafted in the 2nd round in 1992, had his own card already in the 1991 and 1992 Topps Traded sets and would have just won the MVP in 2000, conveniently one year before Ichiro arrives in the US.

If there really was a 1993 Hawaiian Winter League card of Jason Giambi it would have been a chase card far before Ichiro was and there didn't seem to be any.

[packs]

The final nail in the coffin:

The third and final subject from the set that I'm aware of is supposedly Benny Agbayani.

Again, the year 2000 comes into play. Benny Agbayani would have just finished starring in the Subway Series against the Yankees in the year 2000.

Why is this important? Because of all the theoretically 128 individual subjects supposedly in the set (4 teams with 32 cards each) only the three relevant players in 2001 have emerged:

Ichiro (huge superstar coming over to America), Jason Giambi (reigning 2000 MVP), and Benny Agbayani, who just happened to play in the league at the same time and had the fortune of appearing in the last World Series against the Yankees.

That should do it.