"Kaiun! Nandemo Kanteidan" (TV Tokyo, Tuesdays 8:54 PM) is a variety show hosted by talent Koji Imada, freelance announcer Akira Fukuzawa, and former Sakurazaka46 member Yuuka Sugai. On January 27th, former professional baseball player Toshiaki Imae, who played for the Chiba Lotte Marines and other teams, made a guest appearance. A shocking appraisal result was revealed on the first WBC championship ring, a treasure that adorns the history of baseball.
Imae was selected as a member of the Japanese national team for the first WBC in 2006, playing in five games. He contributed greatly to Japan's victory in the world championship with four RBIs.
The treasure was a gift from the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) after he returned to Japan. Made of 18k gold, it is embedded with natural diamonds, rubies, sapphires, peridot, and citrine, and features a design of a ball and bat. It is an ultra-luxurious ring engraved with Imae's name and uniform number "8."
He personally valued the ring at 500,000 yen, but the appraisal result was 4 million yen, to which Imae raised both hands in surprise and exclaimed, "Wow!" Seiji Yamamoto, representative of COLLECTIBLES FIELD, who performed the appraisal, praised it, saying, "It's an extremely valuable championship ring. It costs about 1 million yen to make one of these rings. With the Japanese national team reaching the top of the world, the attention on the WBC has increased dramatically, and it has transformed into a major baseball event that everyone knows."
Imae was delighted, saying, "I hope that Japan can keep up this momentum and become number one in the world again this year."
