TOKYO — Cubs pitcher Jameson Taillon knew there was a Pokemon Center near the team hotel in Tokyo, but he wanted to do more digging.
To expand his collection – which already includes a binder of a couple hundred of “the hits,” about 20 PSA-graded slabs and 1,000 to 2,000 bulk cards sitting on his nightstand –Taillon wants to visit a local hobby shop. Some Pokemon cards are only released in Japan, and the art can differ from American cards. Any of his teammates are invited to join him on his quest.
“That’s the motherland,” Taillon said in a conversation with the Sun-Times.
To be clear, baseball comes first for Taillon and the Cubs on this work trip to Tokyo. They play a pair of exhibition games – Taillon is scheduled to start the second, against the Yomiuri Giants – and then open the regular season with two games against the Dodgers.
“We get to play the defending world champs in the Tokyo Dome,” Taillon said. “I think that’s pretty cool.”
On a trip that will also serve as a team bonding exercise and cultural experience, there’s plenty more to get excited about. Justin Steele is looking forward to trying different foods. Matcha is high on Porter Hodge’s list. Pete Crow-Armstrong is interested in the fashion, and specifically Japanese denim. Taillon, in addition to Pokemon, wants to check out the coffee scene.
A jock by trade – though one who’s a fan of analytics – Taillon embraces his self-described “nerdy hobbies.” His enthusiasm for the video game Fortnite and collecting Pokemon cards have become connectors between him and teammates current and former. But the roots of his Pokemon affinity can be traced back to long before his professional baseball career.
“I feel like our age group was the age group for it,” said Taillon, who was about to turn seven years old when Pokemon debuted in North America in 1998. “Once your buddies start opening cards and you go to a sleepover at your friend’s house and you bring your binder and show off your cards and compare and make trades, those are just good memories.”
He also watched the show, and played both the Game Boy game and Pokemon Snap growing up.
Fast-forward to the beginning of 2023.
“I’d been curious about collecting cards in general,” Taillon said. “Around COVID, people got into sports cards and stuff. But I had a few buddies that were really into Pokemon cards.”
Sports card collecting is particularly common in baseball clubhouses. But while Taillon appreciates the practice, he prefers his hobbies to provide a little more of an escape from his job. So, he followed in the footsteps of former teammates Jordan Montgomery and Chad Kuhl, who Taillon says have “way better” collections than him, and re-started his own.
“If one of us has a good game, we’ll all get on [Twitch] and buy packs and celebrate and watch together, even when we’re all on flights,” Taillon said. “Sunday nights, we’re all on flights and we’ll just know. Or someone has a bad game – it’s like, a little retail therapy, let’s buy some packs and get in there and talk some smack.”
Taillon has a pretty robust collection of Snorlax cards – a rotund Pokemon who charmed many a 90’s kid with its size, squishiness, and passion for sleeping. More recently, Taillon has turned his sights to Machamp, a muscly four-armed fighter.
One of Taillon’s most valuable cards is a Lugia – which looks like a cross between a bird and a dragon – that he pulled in the middle of the season on a Twitch stream while waiting for the team bus on a getaway day.
He has other cards that cherishes for the stories. He bought a vintage pack at DNA Cards and Collectables in Arizona last spring. If a vintage pack is heavy, it probably has a holographic card. And the guy making the sale assured Taillon it was a heavy pack. Taillon went back with Kuhl and used a coffee scale to weigh it.
“It’s heavy, and it was like, ‘Oh s—, we might have something big in here,’” Taillon said. “I feel like a lot of people would just hold that pack and keep it sealed, and you can re-sell it in 20 years as a heavy pack for more. And we decided to rip it.”
He pulled a holographic Venomoth.
“It wasn’t the biggest hit in that set, but I feel very attached to that card,” Taillon said. “And just that bonding moment for me and him. Dude, we were giggling. … True adrenaline. Just two grown guys opening a vintage pack of Pokemon. And those are the moments that make collecting cool.”
Now, imagine the stories Taillon tell the cards he collects in Tokyo.