Card Of The Week April 5

Last Tuesday, Haruki Hosono of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters no-hit the Chiba Lotte Marines up in Sapporo.  He struck out 12 and threw 129 pitches.  The Fighters won the game 9-0.  It was not a perfect game as three Marines reached base - one on a walk (first batter of the game!), one on a hit-by-pitch and one on an error (in the ninth).  The Hosono No-no is obviously the first no-hitter of 2026 (it was only the fourth day of games) and the first since Daichi Ohsera threw one on June 7, 2024 (which was also against the Marines) - not including the Tatsuya Imai/Kaima Taira no-hitter against the Hawks last April which doesn't count as an "official no-hitter" since it was a combined no-no and the Hawks scored a run.  Here's a card of Hosono from his rookie year of 2024 (since I don't have many cards after that year):

2024 Epoch Fighters Premier Edition #06

I'm not a big fan of Epoch including studio photos of players in their sets but that's a cool pose.

Hosono was a member of the 2023 Collegiate Samurai Japan team and had autographed memorabilia cards available in the 2024 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes set:

2024 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes #JPN-HH

Hirokazu Sawamura

Former Yomiuri Giants, Chiba Lotte Marines and Boston Red Sox pitcher Hirokazu Sawamura was another player who retired at the end of last season.  I'd written a post about him when he departed for Boston after the 2020 season so this is going to be kind of an abbreviated summary of his career.

As the earlier post says, Sawamura was the Giants' first pick in the 2010 NPB draft out of Chuo University.  He was Central League Rookie Of The Year in 2011 and was in the Giants starting rotation for a few years before injuries forced him into a bullpen role.  He became the team's closer and led the Central League in saves in 2016 with 37.  He struggled with injuries in the late teens and was traded to the Marines late in the 2020 season.

He left for Boston that winter and spent two seasons in the Red Sox bullpen.  He didn't pitch two well but he was released shortly before the end of the 2022 season.  He returned to Japan and rejoined the Marines.  He spent the past three seasons in Lotte's bullpen with somewhat mixed results and at the end of last season, the Marines decided to part ways with the 37 year old.  He had originally intended to continue playing but decided last December that he'd retire instead.

Here's a selection of his baseball cards.  I wanted to pick cards that I hadn't show in the previous post so there's only one of his 2011 cards here - check out the other post for information on his rookie cards.

2011 BBM 2nd Version #601

2011 Giants Winning Game Card #68

2012 Calbee Series Two #125

2014 BBM Giants #G004

2016 BBM Fusion #122

2019 Epoch NPB #291

2024 Topps Stadium Club NPB #208

I have a certified autographed card of him from his days with the Red Sox and I have to say that's one of the worst autographs I've ever seen on a card:

2022 Topps Baseball Japan Edition #TJA-HS

I really like his Randy Arozarena impression on this 2023 Epoch One card:

2023 Epoch One #154

2023 Topps Now WBC #WBC-49

Shingo Kawabata

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):

2006 BBM Rookie Edition #74

2006 BBM 1st Version #359

2006 BBM Swallows #TY56

2007 BBM 1st Version #312

2010 Bandai Owners League 04 #032

2011 Swallows Team Set #YsS18

2013 Calbee Series Two #089

2015 Sports Graphic Number Swallows 

2016 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-24

2018 BBM Swallows #S45

2020 Epoch NPB #415

2022 BBM Swallows #S44

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):

2018 BBM Infinity #096

Card Of The Week March 29

I wanted to highlight a couple events from the opening weekend of the 2026 season in both MLB and NPB...

On Friday, Munetaka Murakami of the White Sox became the first player ever to hit a home run in their first at bats in both NPB and MLB.  Murakami has followed up with home runs in his second and third MLB games as well (although, not surprisingly, the White Sox have lost all three games).

2019 BBM Icons - Teenage Memories #22

On Saturday, Tigers pitcher Haruto Takahashi threw a complete game shutout against the Giants in Tokyo.  It was his first complete game shutout in five years and the first one by Hanshin in their Opening Weekend since 2008 (and first ever against the Giants in the Opening Weekend).  I have a soft spot for the oft injured Takahashi, having seen him pitch in person twice.  The first time was when he beat the Giants at Koshien in 2019 for his first win in over a year after having missed time for a shoulder injury.  The second was in 2024 when he was a development player on the Tigers' farm team after Tommy John surgery and another shoulder injury - he pitched his way back to the top team a few months later.  I'm glad to see him pitching well.

2020 BBM Tigers #T14

And, finally, in today's game in Hiroshima, Carp starter Ryoki Kuribayashi took a perfect game into the eighth inning before finally giving up a hit.  That ended up being the only base runner he'd allow.  Kuribayashi had been the Carp closer since he debuted with the team in 2021 until early last season.  He was used as a reliever the rest of the season and I think today was his first professional start ever.  It's going to be hard to top it.

2022 BBM 1st Version #086

Japanese Brisbane Bandits Cards

I got a package in the mail the other day from my friend Steve Smith* in Australia.  Steve was kind enough to send me the cards of the three Japanese players who played for the Brisbane Bandits in this past Australian Baseball League season.

*I should mention here that baseball.com.au recently had an article about Steve and his "mission to collect the baseball card of every Australian who has played professional ball at any point, anywhere in the world".  

Two of the three players - Kyosuke Mashiko and Hayate Nakagawa - were dispatched to Brisbane by the Yokohama DeNA Baystars.  I think this makes them the first active NPB players in the ABL to appear on ABL baseball cards since Kenshi Sugiya in 2018.  (All the other Japanese players on ABL cards since then have been former NPB players.)

The third player is Ryo Kohigashi, who, based on his Facebook profile, used to play for Mitsubishi Motors in the corporate leagues (although I don't know WHICH Mitsubishi Motors team he was with).  Since then he's spent two seasons in North America with the Capitales de Québec of the Frontier League as well as three seasons in Australia (2022-23 with Auckland, 2024-25 with Canberra and 2025-26 with Brisbane).  This is not his first baseball card - he had cards with the Capitales in both 2024 adn 2025.  

All three cards are from the Series 1 card set issued by the Bandits and have identical backs:

Shane, the seller on Ebay that I've previously bought ABL cards from, is selling the complete set so, based on his listing, I can tell you that the set has 13 cards in all with Robbie Perkins probably being the biggest name in the set.

Thanks for the cards, Steve!

Play Ball! (2026)

I'm continuing my Opening Day tradition of doing a post showing a baseball card from the last year that each of the 12 NPB teams won the Nippon Series which was inspired by (or stolen from) the series of posts that Night Owl Cards has been doing for a while now for MLB teams. 

The last time the HAWKS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2025 Epoch NPB #121

The last time the BAYSTARS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2024 Bandai Pro Baseball Deforme #BDC1-B01

The last time the TIGERS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2023 Epoch One #656

The last time the BUFFALOES won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2022 BBM 2nd Version #490

The last time the SWALLOWS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2021 BBM 1st Version #313

The last time the FIGHTERS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2016 BBM Genesis #018

The last time the EAGLES won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2013 Bandai Owners League 02 #111

The last time the GIANTS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2012 BBM No-hitters #81

The last time the MARINES won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2010 BBM 20th Anniversary #190

The last time the LIONS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2008 SCM #94

The last time the DRAGONS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2007 BBM Draft Story #117

The last time the CARP won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

1984 Calbee #152

All 12 current NPB teams have won the Series at least once so there are no "Photo Not Found" teams.

 

Oldest BBM Set With An Active NPB Player - 2026 Edition

Time for another one of my Opening Day traditions - which is the oldest BBM flagship set to have a currently active NPB player (where "active" is a very relative term)?  For the second year in a row, the oldest set is the 2002 one.  All three 2002 rookies who were active last year - Takumi Kuriyama, Takeya Nakamura and Masanori Ishikawa - are on NPB rosters again this year.  Kuriyama and Nakamura are each 43 while Ishikawa is 46.  All three have spent their entire careers with the same teams that took them in the 2001 NPB draft.  Here are their cards from the 2002 BBM 1st and 2nd Version sets (only Ishikawa appeared in both sets):

2002 BBM 1st Version #269

2002 BBM 1st Version #268

2002 BBM 1st Version #24

2002 BBM 2nd Version #442

I, of course, need to mention that there's one former NPB player who's still active in one of Japan's independent leagues.  44 year old Munenori Kawasaki will be suiting up for his seventh season with the Tochigi Golden Braves of the independent Baseball Challenge League.   Kawasaki was drafted by the then-Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in 1999 so his rookie card is in the 2000 BBM set:

2000 BBM #291