Roki Sasaki of the Los Angeles Dodgers

To the surprise of no one, yesterday former Chiba Lotte Marines picher Roki Sasaki announced that he had signed with the Dodgers.  Normally in a post like this, I'd be writing a mini-bio of the player but I think Sasaki's details are pretty well known - the tragedy he suffered as a result of the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami in 2011; being drafted in the first round by the Marines in 2019; throwing a perfect game against the Buffaloes in 2022 while striking out 19; throwing another eight perfect innings in his next start before being lifted for a relief pitcher; and pitching in the 2023 World Baseball Classic - so I'll stick to his baseball cards.

Well, some of his baseball cards, anyway.  I did a post about his rookie cards back in 2022* so I don't see a need to revisit them now.  I also did a post about the cards that commemorated his perfect game and, again, I don't see a reason to revisit those either.  So I'm just going to show a handful of his cards from the past four years.

* Just to be clear - I did the post in 2022 but the rookie cards are from 2020

2021 Epoch One #248

2021 Konami Baseball Collection #202116-R-M017-00

2022 Marines Collection

2022 Bowman NPB #133

2023 Epoch One #502

2023 Topps 206 #165 Stadium Background Parallel

2024 BBM 1st Version #193

2024 Calbee Series One #S-16

A couple notes on these cards:

• The 2021 Epoch One card commemorates his first ichi-gun start

• The 2022 Marines Collection card commemorates his victory on April 3rd against the Lions which was his last start before his perfect game

• The 2023 Epoch One card commemorates him reaching 100 strikeouts that season

I also wanted to share a couple cards of him with Samurai Japan that were not from the WBC sets that Topps did in 2023 (or the BBM Infinity set that included some Samurai Japan cards).  Sasaki's first time pitching for the national team was for their two friendlies against Team Australia in November of 2022.  Topps issued 16 Topps Now singles for those games as well as a full 30 card team set.  Sasaki appeared on both a single and the team set:

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan #013

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan Team Set #SJ-1

Finally there were three baseball cards given away at Chiba Marine Stadium in May of 2023 when the WBC trophy was on display at the ballpark.  The three cards showed the Marines member of Samurai Japan  - Sasaki and manager Masato Yoshii, who was the team's pitching coach.  There was a solo card for Sasaki, a solo card for Yoshii and a card showing both of them.  Here's Sasaki's solo card:

2023 Marines Samurai Japan