Japanese Baseball Cards: RIP Shintaro Yokota

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

RIP Shintaro Yokota

Tragic news out of Kobe yesterday - former Tigers outfielder Shintaro Yokota has passed away from a brain tumor at age 28. Yokota was Hanshin's second pick in the fall 2013 draft and he spent his entire six year professional career in their organization.

Yokota spent his first two seasons with the farm team before getting into 38 games with the ichi-gun team in 2016, hitting .191. He performed well in the Asian Winter League that offseason though and was working out at first base the following spring in hopes of improving his chances of making the top team when he began to suffer unexplained headaches. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor and missed the season due to treatment which successfully put the tumor into remission. The Tigers released him after the 2017 season and re-signed him as a development player (ikusei). He spent two more years with the Tigers farm team trying to recover but issues with his eyesight ultimately prevented him from playing in any games other than his retirement game at the end of the 2019 season.

After retiring from baseball at age 24 he wrote a book about his battle with the brain tumor called "Miracle Back Home" which was made into a documentary. He was diagnosed with a spinal tumor in 2020 and underwent successful treatment for it. In March of 2022 the brain tumor returned and ultimately cost him his eyesight in both eyes. He was recuperating from treatment earlier this year when he passed away in a hospital in Kobe.

Yokota didn't have a lot of baseball cards. TCDB lists 43 total but when you eliminate the parallel, insert, autograph and memorabilia cards, there's only about 14 base set cards. I have nine of these: