Hiroshima Toyo Carp outfielder Masato Akamatsu announced his retirement at the beginning of September (I think). Akamatsu was a sixth round pick of the Hanshin Tigers in the fall 2004 draft out of Ritsumeikan University. He spent most of his first three years in Kansai with the Tigers' farm team, leading the Western League in average in 2005 and 2006 and steals in 2005 and 2007. For whatever reason this didn't really earn him much time with the ichi-gun squad - he only played 36 games with the top team over those three seasons.
His big break came when the Tigers signed Takahiro Arai as a free agent following the 2007 season. Arai's former team, the Carp, selected Akamatsu as compensation from Hanshin. The Carp installed Akamatsu in the outfield for the 2008 season and he remained their starting center fielder for the next three seasons, being named to the All Star game in 2009 and winning the Golden Glove in 2010 (more about that in a minute).
I'm not quite sure what happened but after playing over 100 games in each season between 2008 and 2010 his playing time dropped over the next six seasons. I think the Carp had decided to move him into a backup outfielder/pinch runner role. He didn't get into more than 89 games in any of those six seasons. He did appear with the Carp in the 2016 Nippon Series, the team's first appearance in the fall classic since 1991.
He was diagnosed with stomach cancer following the 2016 season and had surgery to remove half of his stomach in January of 2017. It was discovered later that the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes as well and he missed all of the 2017 season due to his medical treatments. He was declared cancer free in July of that year. He was able to play again in 2018 but spent all of that season and 2019 with the Carp's farm team with the exception of his retirement game on September 27th.
Here's a bunch of cards from throughout his career:
2005 BBM Rookie Edition #61
2005 BBM 1st Version #409
2008 BBM 2nd Version #608
2009 BBM All Stars #A59
2010 Calbee #039
2013 Front Runner Carp Season Summary #10
2015 BBM Carp #C63
2017 BBM Carp #C63
2019 BBM Carp #C64
Akamatsu gained world wide attention in August 4th, 2010 when the video of his amazing catch that robbed a home run from Shuichi Murata of the Baystars went viral:
BBM immortalized the catch on the card commemorating his 2010 Golden Glove award from the 2011 BBM 1st Version set:
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