Japanese Baseball Cards: RIP Brian Wolfe

Monday, September 21, 2026

RIP Brian Wolfe

Retired pitcher Brian Wolfe tragically passed away last week at age 45 after fighting leukemia. Wolfe spent parts of nine seasons in NPB with three different teams.

He was originally drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the sixth round of the 1999 draft and played in the Twins, Brewers and Blue Jays organizations, making the big leagues for parts of three seasons with Toronto (2007-09). He signed with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in 2010 and started the season in middle relief before being promoted to closer. He eventually moved on to the starting rotation where he would remain for the next three seasons. On May 24th of 2011, he became the first foreign pitcher in NPB history to record an immaculate inning. He started and won Game Three of the 2012 Nippon Series against the Giants.

The Fighters released him after 2013 and the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks immediately snatched him up, signing him to a two year contract. His elbow gave way two months into the 2014 season and he underwent Tommy John surgery to repair it. He was able to return in 2015 to make just two appearances but the Hawks did not resign him after his contract expired.

He started 2016 without a contract but the Saitama Seibu Lions picked him up in late July for their stretch drive. He made four starts for the ichi-gun Lions and won all four of them, earning himself a contract extension for 2017. He'd spend his final two seasons with the Lions, retiring after the 2018 season.

Here's a selection of Wolfe's Japanese baseball cards. I tried to pick one card from each year of his NPB career but there are no Japanese cards of him from 2016 (and only one from 2015).