Tetsuya Kokubo

Another player who announced their retirement at the end of last season was long time Hiroshima Toyo Carp and short time Chiba Lotte Marine utility infielder Tetsuya Kokubo.  Kokubo attended high school at baseball powerhouse PL Gakuen and went on to attend college at Aoyama Gakuin University.  He was a star in college, winning four Tohto League Best 9 awards and leading the league in batting with a .373 average in the 2007 spring season.  He earned a spot on the Japanese collegiate national team that played in the USA-Japan Collegiate Baseball Championship in North Carolina that summer (and like Yuki Saitoh ended up with a card in Upper Deck's USA Baseball set the following year).

He was Hiroshima's third round pick in the college/industrial league portion of the 2007 draft and made his debut with the top team the following April.  To some degree I think Kokubo spent most of the early years of his career unsuccessfully trying to establish himself as a starter at one of the infield positions but almost always either losing out to another player (Eishin Soyogi, Takuro Ishii, Kenta Kurihara, Brian Barden, Shota Dohbayashi, Ryosuke Kikuchi), not playing well or getting injured.  His personal highs in both games played and plate appearances occurred in his first season (98 games, 316 plate appearances) and he spent a good deal of each season with the farm team.  He was versatile enough to play all four infield positions and the Carp kept him around for 13 seasons as a late inning defensive replacement/pinch hitter.

He and the Carp parted ways after the 2020 season and he started the 2021 season with the Hinokuni Salamanders of the independent Kyushu Asia League.  It was the inaugural season for both the team and the league.  Kokubo hit .421 in 18 games with the Salamanders, attracting the attention of the Chiba Lotte Marines who signed him to a contract just before the deadline for teams to add players who would be eligible for the playoffs (which was the end of August).  He started September on the Marines' ni-gun team and sizzled there, hitting .471 in five games.  He was promoted on September 9th and made a big splash in his first game with Lotte, hitting a solo home run against the Buffaloes.  Unfortunately that ended up being his only hit with the Marines.  He ultimately had 18 at bats over seven games and hit a lowly .056.  He announced his retirement at the end of October and will be a coach for the Carp this season.

His first BBM cards were #27 in the 2008 Rookie Edition set and #179 in the 2008 1st Version set.  His first Calbee card was #228 in the 2008 Series Three set.  He also appeared in a couple Konami sets in his rookie season.  Here's a bunch of his cards:

2008 Upper Deck USA Baseball #JN-6

2008 BBM Rookie Edition #27

2008 BBM 1st Version #179

2011 BBM Tohto 80th Memorial #83

2013 Front Runner Carp Season Summary #20

2015 Calbee #217

2017 BBM Carp Successful Achievement #22

2018 BBM Carp #C45

2020 Epoch NPB #346

2021 BBM Fusion #605