Kenji Akashi

Long time Hawks utility player Kenji Akashi announced his retirement at the end of last season.  Akashi was a fourth round pick of the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in the 2003 NPB draft.  He's the last active position player from when Daiei owned the team (Tsuyoshi Wada's the last active player).

Akashi was kind of the Hawks version of Kenshi Sugiya - a player who could never stay healthy or productive enough the hold a regular position.  He only played in more than 100 games with the top team three times in his 19 year career - 2012, 2015 and 2017.  He played well enough in 2012 to make the All Star team for the only time in his career.  His role as super-sub came in handy in the post-season though and he got to play in seven Nippon Series (2011, 2014-15, 2017-20) and of course was on the winning side every time.  He won an "Outstanding Player" award for the 2015 Series.

Akashi made headlines in 2019 when he hit a walk-off home run against the Orix Buffaloes and did a back-flip when he reached home plate.  He did it as a tribute to former manager Koji Akiyama who had done it a couple of times in the Nippon Series when he played for the Lions.  

Akashi's first baseball cards are from the 2004 BBM Rookie Edition (#3) and 1st Version (#27) sets.  His first Calbee card wasn't until 2012 Series Three (#149).  He only had two other Calbee cards - #53 in 2013 Series One and #172 in 2015 Series Three.  Here's a small selection of his cards:

2004 BBM Rookie Edition #3

2004 BBM 1st Version #27

2006 BBM Hawks #H050

2011 BBM Nippon Series #S16

2012 BBM All Stars #A34

2013 Calbee #053

2018 BBM Hawks 80th Anniversary #52

2019 Epoch One #157

2022 Epoch NPB #345

I can not believe that the Epoch One card commemorating his backflip only had a print run of 40.  Seems way too low.