Card Of The Week September 25

The Tokyo Yakult Swallows are the 2022 Central League Champions!  The Swallows clinched their second straight title with a 1-0 victory over the Yokohama DeNA Baystars today.  Yakult won the game in the bottom of the ninth on a walkoff double by rookie Kazuya Maruyama that scored Yasutaka Shiomi from second.

Maruyama was the Swallows' second round pick in last fall's draft out of Meiji University.  As a collegiate player he had been on the Japanese National Team that took on the USA National team in the 43rd USA vs Japan Collegiate All Star Series in the summer of 2019 and therefore had a memorabilia/autograph card in the 2020 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes set: