Back to the recent retirees...
Longtime Tokyo Yakult Swallow Shingo Kawabata hung up his spikes after a twenty year career. Kawabata was the team's third round pick in the high school player portion of the 2005 NPB draft out of Wakayama Municipal Commercial High School. It took him a couple seasons to establish himself as a regular with the Swallows but, when healthy, he was a key member of the team for much of the 2010's.
That "when healthy" caveat is carrying a lot of weight here. I think after he became a regular with the team, he managed to only have a couple seasons in which he didn't miss time due to an injury. His litany of injuries included a fractured ring finger (2007), a right shoulder injury (2009), "left wrist pain" (2011), left ankle (2013), broken foot (2016), herniated disk (2017), concussion (2018) and back (2019).
His best season was 2015 when he led the Central League in batting with a .336 average and hits with 195. He won his only Best 9 and Golden Glove awards that year and won a Climax Series MVP award while helping the Swallows to the Nippon Series (which they lost to the Hawks). He made his only All Star appearances in 2015 and 2016. His sole appearance with Samurai Japan was in the 2015 Premier 12, although he was mostly a backup to Nobuhiro Matsuda in the tournament.
His last few seasons with the Swallows saw him mostly in a pinch hitting role. He's now the hitting coach for the Swallows' farm team.
His good looks led him to be nicknamed "Prince Of Swallows" but his tendency for injuries caused him to also be dubbed "Prince Of Glass".
His rookie cards were all 2006 BBM issues - Rookie Edition (#74), 1st Version (#359) and the Swallows team set (#TY56). His first Calbee card wasn't until 2011 - #215 from Series Three. Here's a bunch of his cards (including all three rookies):
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| 2006 BBM Rookie Edition #74 |
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| 2006 BBM 1st Version #359 |
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| 2006 BBM Swallows #TY56 |
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| 2007 BBM 1st Version #312 |
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| 2010 Bandai Owners League 04 #032 |
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| 2011 Swallows Team Set #YsS18 |
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| 2013 Calbee Series Two #089 |
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| 2015 Sports Graphic Number Swallows |
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| 2016 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-24 |
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| 2018 BBM Swallows #S45 |
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| 2020 Epoch NPB #415 |
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| 2022 BBM Swallows #S44 |
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| 2024 BBM 1st Version #123 |
Kawabata's younger sister
Yuki is arguably the better of the two baseball playing siblings as she had a stellar career in the Japan Women's Baseball League (JWBL) as well as being one of the corner stones of Madonna Japan, the women's national team that has dominated the Women's Baseball World Cup for the past two decades. Here's a card showing the two of them together (or together-ish at least since it's two separate photos):
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| 2018 BBM Infinity #096 |
