Kazuya Fukuura

Kazuya Fukuura of the Chiba Lotte Marines is another player who retired at the end of the season.  I did a post about him just over a year ago when he got his 2000th (and as it turned out final) hit so I won't repeat any of his biographical details other than to mention that he was originally drafted by the Marines in 1993 as a pitcher but shoulder issues made him switch to being a position player a few years later.

His retirement game was on September 23rd against the Fighters.  Fukuura was in the starting lineup as the DH and he went 0-4 on the day.  Late in the game, however, manager Tadahito Iguchi decided to have him take the field one last time (and for the first time in two years).  With two outs in the top of the ninth, Fighters lead off hitter Shota Hiranuma hit a low line drive that looked like it was headed into right field for a hit.  Fukuura made a diving catch of it for the final out of the game and his career:



Fukuura's BBM rookie card is from the 1994 set (#529)*.  His next BBM card didn't come until 1998 which is the same year as his first Calbee card (#173).

*An interesting (maybe) side note - 1994 was the first year that BBM included cards of ALL the non-ikusei draft picks in their flagship set.  Before that BBM generally included the top two or three draft picks per team (which is why there's no 1992 card of Ichiro despite him being taken in the 1991 draft).  Fukuura was a seventh round pick so if BBM had continued what they did their first three years there wouldn't be a card of him as a pitcher.

Here's some cards from Fukuura's career:

1994 BBM #529

1998 BBM #493

2000 BBM All Stars #A63

2004 Calbee #095

2005 BBM Nippon Series #17

2008 BBM Lotte 40th Anniversary #95

2010 BBM 20th Anniversary #197

2012 Bandai Owners League 03 #066

2013 BBM Classic #065

2016 Calbee #014

2017 Epoch Pacific League #24

2019 BBM Marines #M49