Shingo Kawabata

Back to the recent retirees...

Longtime Tokyo Yakult Swallow Shingo Kawabata hung up his spikes after a twenty year career.  Kawabata was the team's third round pick in the high school player portion of the 2005 NPB draft out of Wakayama Municipal Commercial High School.  It took him a couple seasons to establish himself as a regular with the Swallows but, when healthy, he was a key member of the team for much of the 2010's.

That "when healthy" caveat is carrying a lot of weight here.  I think after he became a regular with the team, he managed to only have a couple seasons in which he didn't miss time due to an injury.  His litany of injuries included a fractured ring finger (2007), a right shoulder injury (2009), "left wrist pain" (2011), left ankle (2013), broken foot (2016), herniated disk (2017), concussion (2018) and back (2019).  

His best season was 2015 when he led the Central League in batting with a .336 average and hits with 195.  He won his only Best 9 and Golden Glove awards that year and won a Climax Series MVP award while helping the Swallows to the Nippon Series (which they lost to the Hawks).  He made his only All Star appearances in 2015 and 2016.  His sole appearance with Samurai Japan was in the 2015 Premier 12, although he was mostly a backup to Nobuhiro Matsuda in the tournament.

His last few seasons with the Swallows saw him mostly in a pinch hitting role.  He's now the hitting coach for the Swallows' farm team.

His good looks led him to be nicknamed "Prince Of Swallows" but his tendency for injuries caused him to also be dubbed "Prince Of Glass".

His rookie cards were all 2006 BBM issues - Rookie Edition (#74), 1st Version (#359) and the Swallows team set (#TY56).  His first Calbee card wasn't until 2011 - #215 from Series Three.  Here's a bunch of his cards (including all three rookies):

2006 BBM Rookie Edition #74

2006 BBM 1st Version #359

2006 BBM Swallows #TY56

2007 BBM 1st Version #312

2010 Bandai Owners League 04 #032

2011 Swallows Team Set #YsS18

2013 Calbee Series Two #089

2015 Sports Graphic Number Swallows 

2016 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-24

2018 BBM Swallows #S45

2020 Epoch NPB #415

2022 BBM Swallows #S44

2024 BBM 1st Version #123

Kawabata's younger sister Yuki is arguably the better of the two baseball playing siblings as she had a stellar career in the Japan Women's Baseball League (JWBL) as well as being one of the corner stones of Madonna Japan, the women's national team that has dominated the Women's Baseball World Cup for the past two decades.  Here's a card showing the two of them together (or together-ish at least since it's two separate photos):

2018 BBM Infinity #096

Card Of The Week March 29

I wanted to highlight a couple events from the opening weekend of the 2026 season in both MLB and NPB...

On Friday, Munetaka Murakami of the White Sox became the first player ever to hit a home run in their first at bats in both NPB and MLB.  Murakami has followed up with home runs in his second and third MLB games as well (although, not surprisingly, the White Sox have lost all three games).

2019 BBM Icons - Teenage Memories #22

On Saturday, Tigers pitcher Haruto Takahashi threw a complete game shutout against the Giants in Tokyo.  It was his first complete game shutout in five years and the first one by Hanshin in their Opening Weekend since 2008 (and first ever against the Giants in the Opening Weekend).  I have a soft spot for the oft injured Takahashi, having seen him pitch in person twice.  The first time was when he beat the Giants at Koshien in 2019 for his first win in over a year after having missed time for a shoulder injury.  The second was in 2024 when he was a development player on the Tigers' farm team after Tommy John surgery and another shoulder injury - he pitched his way back to the top team a few months later.  I'm glad to see him pitching well.

2020 BBM Tigers #T14

And, finally, in today's game in Hiroshima, Carp starter Ryoki Kuribayashi took a perfect game into the eighth inning before finally giving up a hit.  That ended up being the only base runner he'd allow.  Kuribayashi had been the Carp closer since he debuted with the team in 2021 until early last season.  He was used as a reliever the rest of the season and I think today was his first professional start ever.  It's going to be hard to top it.

2022 BBM 1st Version #086

Japanese Brisbane Bandits Cards

I got a package in the mail the other day from my friend Steve Smith* in Australia.  Steve was kind enough to send me the cards of the three Japanese players who played for the Brisbane Bandits in this past Australian Baseball League season.

*I should mention here that baseball.com.au recently had an article about Steve and his "mission to collect the baseball card of every Australian who has played professional ball at any point, anywhere in the world".  

Two of the three players - Kyosuke Mashiko and Hayate Nakagawa - were dispatched to Brisbane by the Yokohama DeNA Baystars.  I think this makes them the first active NPB players in the ABL to appear on ABL baseball cards since Kenshi Sugiya in 2018.  (All the other Japanese players on ABL cards since then have been former NPB players.)

The third player is Ryo Kohigashi, who, based on his Facebook profile, used to play for Mitsubishi Motors in the corporate leagues (although I don't know WHICH Mitsubishi Motors team he was with).  Since then he's spent two seasons in North America with the Capitales de Québec of the Frontier League as well as three seasons in Australia (2022-23 with Auckland, 2024-25 with Canberra and 2025-26 with Brisbane).  This is not his first baseball card - he had cards with the Capitales in both 2024 adn 2025.  

All three cards are from the Series 1 card set issued by the Bandits and have identical backs:

Shane, the seller on Ebay that I've previously bought ABL cards from, is selling the complete set so, based on his listing, I can tell you that the set has 13 cards in all with Robbie Perkins probably being the biggest name in the set.

Thanks for the cards, Steve!

Play Ball! (2026)

I'm continuing my Opening Day tradition of doing a post showing a baseball card from the last year that each of the 12 NPB teams won the Nippon Series which was inspired by (or stolen from) the series of posts that Night Owl Cards has been doing for a while now for MLB teams. 

The last time the HAWKS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2025 Epoch NPB #121

The last time the BAYSTARS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2024 Bandai Pro Baseball Deforme #BDC1-B01

The last time the TIGERS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2023 Epoch One #656

The last time the BUFFALOES won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2022 BBM 2nd Version #490

The last time the SWALLOWS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2021 BBM 1st Version #313

The last time the FIGHTERS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2016 BBM Genesis #018

The last time the EAGLES won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2013 Bandai Owners League 02 #111

The last time the GIANTS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2012 BBM No-hitters #81

The last time the MARINES won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2010 BBM 20th Anniversary #190

The last time the LIONS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2008 SCM #94

The last time the DRAGONS won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

2007 BBM Draft Story #117

The last time the CARP won the Nippon Series, cards looked like this:

1984 Calbee #152

All 12 current NPB teams have won the Series at least once so there are no "Photo Not Found" teams.

 

Oldest BBM Set With An Active NPB Player - 2026 Edition

Time for another one of my Opening Day traditions - which is the oldest BBM flagship set to have a currently active NPB player (where "active" is a very relative term)?  For the second year in a row, the oldest set is the 2002 one.  All three 2002 rookies who were active last year - Takumi Kuriyama, Takeya Nakamura and Masanori Ishikawa - are on NPB rosters again this year.  Kuriyama and Nakamura are each 43 while Ishikawa is 46.  All three have spent their entire careers with the same teams that took them in the 2001 NPB draft.  Here are their cards from the 2002 BBM 1st and 2nd Version sets (only Ishikawa appeared in both sets):

2002 BBM 1st Version #269

2002 BBM 1st Version #268

2002 BBM 1st Version #24

2002 BBM 2nd Version #442

I, of course, need to mention that there's one former NPB player who's still active in one of Japan's independent leagues.  44 year old Munenori Kawasaki will be suiting up for his seventh season with the Tochigi Golden Braves of the independent Baseball Challenge League.   Kawasaki was drafted by the then-Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in 1999 so his rookie card is in the 2000 BBM set:

2000 BBM #291

 

Upcoming Milestones

With Opening Day 2026 arriving shortly, it's time to roll out my now-traditional post about which players are approaching the career milestones that will ensure them admission to the Meikyukai or "Golden Players Club".  The requirements are that the player has to have been born in the Showa Era (1926-89) or later and accumulated more than 2000 hits, 200 wins or 250 saves.  Statistics from MLB count but only if the NPB stats came first - which is why Alfonso Soriano is eligible but Larry Parrish isn't.

There are six members of the Meikyukai active in NPB right now - Hayato Sakamoto, Takumi Kuriyama, Yohei Ohshima, Yoshihisa Hirano, Hideto Asamura and Masahiro Tanaka - and one in MLB - Yu Darvish.  

In previous years, I've used the most recent NPB cards I had of each player but, because I stopped buying new cards for the most part last year, I can't do that anymore (unless I swipe images from the internet).  So instead I decided to use the earliest appearance that I have of each player from a BBM team set (either comprehensive or not).  It made it kind of interesting to see which teams these players who all have somewhat long careers started from.   

I'm going to start by listing the active hitters who have less than 2000 hits but more than 1500:

1. Yoshihiro Maru, Giants: 1929 hits

2008 BBM Carp #C70

2. Takeya Nakamura, Lions: 1830 hits

2004 BBM Lions #58

3. Ryosuke Kikuchi, Carp: 1789 hits

2012 BBM Rising Carp #11

4. Shogo Akiyama, Carp: 1832 hits (1761 NPB + 71 MLB)

2011 BBM Lions #L67

5. Tetsuto Yamada, Swallows: 1643 hits

2011 BBM Lions #S45

6. Yuki Yanagita, Hawks:  1616 hits

2011 BBM Hawks #H67

7. Daichi Suzuki, Eagles: 1608 hits

2013 BBM Marines #M50

8. Akira Nakamura, Hawks:  1516 hits

2012 BBM Hawks #H65

I think Maru is likely to reach 2000 this year but I don't see anyone else doing it in 2026.

Next up are pitchers with more than 150 wins and less than 200:

1. Masahiro Ishikawa, Swallows:  188 wins

2005 BBM Swallows #S27

2. Takayuki Kishi, Eagles:  170 wins

2007 BBM Lions #L19

3. Hideaki Wakui, Dragons: 166 wins

2005 BBM Lions #L007

4. Kenta Maeda, Eagles: 165 wins (97 NPB + 68 MB)

2007 BBM Carp #C31

I don't see any of these guys getting to 200 this year - or ever, really.

Last but not least, here's all the pitchers with more than 200 hundred saves and less than 250:

1. Naoya Masuda, Marines:  248 saves

2015 BBM Marines #M29

2. Yuki Matsui, Padres:  237 saves (236 NPB + 1 MLB)

2014 BBM Eagles #E02

3. Yasuaki Yamasaki, Baystars:  232 saves

2015 BBM Baystars #DB11

4. Raidel Martinez, Giants:  212 saves

2018 BBM Dragons #D32

Martinez is the new entry in the list.  Pitchers can accumulate saves quickly so it's possible that all four of these guys could pass 250 this year.  Martinez is the only one who's currently a closer (although I'm not sure if the Padres promoted Matsui now that Robert Suarez went to the Braves), so it's probably not likely.  Martinez has had more than 40 saves in each of the past two seasons so if anyone does it, it'll probably be him (which would make him I think the second foreign born member of the meikyukai, following Alex Ramirez - Soriano is eligible but doesn't appear to have accepted membership).

Most of the cards displayed are from the player's rookie year.  The exceptions are the cards for Takeya Nakamura, Ryosuke Kikuchi, Daichi Suzuki, Akira Nakamura, Masanori Ishikawa and Naoya Masuda.