Longtime catcher for the Hawks and Buffaloes Katsuki Yamazaki announced his retirement at the end of last season. Yamazaki was the fourth round pick of the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks out of Hōtoku Gakuen High School. He spent his first four and a half season on the Hawks' farm team before finally making his
ichi-gun debut in August of 2005 for the now Softbank Hawks.
He got his big break when the Hawks starting catcher, Kenji Johjima, departed for Seattle before the 2006 season. He pretty much was the Hawks starting catcher for the next two and half years before Softbank finally despaired of Yamazaki's poor hitting and replaced him with Hiroaki Takaya. He settled into more of a backup role for the remainder of his career. He left the Hawks as a free agent after the 2013 season and signed with the Orix Buffaloes in his native Kansai. He's been with the Buffaloes ever since.
His rookie card was #407 from BBM's 2001 set. His first Calbee card wasn't until 2007 (#243 from Series Three). Here's some of his cards:
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| 2001 BBM #407 |
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| 2006 Shukan Baseball |
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| 2008 BBM 1st Version #306 |
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| 2011 BBM Nippon Series #S12 |
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| 2014 Front Runner Buffaloes Rookies & Young Stars #16 |
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| 2017 BBM Buffaloes #Bs43 |
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| 2020 BBM Buffaloes #B40 |
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