Park Byung-ho

I had somehow missed the fact that longtime KBO star (and one time Minnesota Twin) Park Byung-ho had retired at the end of last season.  It was only when I saw an article about his retirement game a few weeks ago that I realized it had happened.  I thought I'd do my final retirement post for this off season about him (which takes the bad taste of finishing up with Sho Nakata out of my mouth).

Park was originally drafted by the LG Twins in 2005 but he didn't blossom as a star until he was traded to the then-Nexen Heroes in 2011.  He was the MVP of the league in 2012 and 2013 and led the league in home runs and RBIs for four straight years from 2012 to 2015.  He became the first player in KBO history to hit 50 home runs in consecutive seasons when he hit 52 in 2014 and 53 in 2015.

He left Korea for America before the 2016 season and signed a four year deal with the Twins.  He struggled at the plate in Minneapolis in his first season, hitting below .200 before being banished to Triple-A for the remainder of the season.  After spending all of 2017 in Rochester, New York, he asked for and received his release from the team to return to Korea.

He returned to Nexen for 2018 and it was like he never left, hitting 43 home runs and knocking in 112 runs.  The Heroes were sold to Kiwoom in 2019 and he responded by again leading the league in home runs.  

He left the Heroes as a free agent after 2021 and joined the KT Wiz.  He led the league in home runs one last time in 2022 but his numbers started to decline after that.  He was traded to the Samsung Lions in the middle of the 2024 season and played for them until announcing his retirement last November.  He was activated by the Heroes for his retirement game so his career record indicates that he finished his playing days with Kiwoom. 

I was kind of surprised he hadn't played for the Korean National Team more often.  He only played in three major tournaments - the 2015 and 2019 Premier 12s and the 2023 World Baseball Classic.  He hit two home runs with 15 RBIs in the 2015 Premier 12 with one of those home runs coming against Team USA in the gold medal game.

I thought I'd share all the cards I have of him.  These aren't all his cards - I haven't gotten much in the way of KBO cards since 2021 and TCDB lists 557(!) total cards for him although I'm sure a good many of those are parallels - but I do have 14 of him.  Here they are in roughly the order they were published:

2014 Superstar Baseball Season One #SBC01-043

2014 Superstar Baseball Season Three #SBC03-057-AS

2015 Superstar Baseball Season Two Unnumbered Sticker

2015 Superstar Baseball Hell's Fireball #PA01-NE001

2015 Superstar Baseball Gold Edition #SBCGE-079-N

2016 Topps Chrome #RA-BP

2018 SCC KBO Collection #SCCR-01/156

2018 KBO Collection 2 Red #SCCR-02R/057

2019 SCC KBO Collection #SCCR1-19/077

2019 SCC Premium #SCCP1-19/083

2019 SCC KBO Collection 2 #SCCR2-19/077

2020 SCC Premium #SCCP1-20/H16

2021 SCC Rainbow #SCC-21/H17

2021 SCC Golden Premium #SCC-21/H15

Sho Nakata

I've got one final retirement post to do and I've put this off for last because this is one of the few NPB players that I don't like very much.  Admittedly it's hard to get a strong negative opinion of a player from half a world away but Sho Nakata has always come across as kind of a jackass to me.  It was not a huge shock to me when he was suspended in 2021 for "an act of violence against a teammate" which ended his career with the Fighters.  But he was one of the stars of NPB during the 2010's so I felt I really should do a post for him.

While many players make a name for themselves in high school, Nakata actually made a name for himself in JUNIOR high school.   His home runs at Hiroshima Municipal Kokutaiji Junior High School were the stuff of legends and he was recruited by Osaka Toin, the powerhouse high school baseball team.  Nakata went on to hit a then-record 87 home runs over his three years in high school.  He was selected by four teams in the fall 2007 NPB draft and Nippon-Ham won the lottery for his rights over Orix, Hanshin and Softbank.

He spent most of his first three seasons with the Fighters on the farm team but he became a regular with the top team in 2011.  He would play at a high level for the next ten seasons, hitting at least 20 home runs eight times and topping 100 RBIs five times.  The press dubbed him and Shohei Ohtani "the O-N tandem of the Heisei Era".  Nakata was the original "Sho-time" and it's always kind of grated some of the English speaking Fighters fan community that MLB appropriated that moniker for Ohtani after Ohtani joined the Angels.

During these ten seasons (2011-20), Nakata would lead the Pacific League in RBIs three times, win five Best Awards and four Golden Gloves and be selected for the All Star team eight times (2011-18 - remember there was no All Star game in 2020).  He regularly appeared on the Samurai Japan team in both major tournaments (2013 & 2017 WBCs, 2015 Premier 12) and smaller exhibitions (games against Taiwan in 2013 & 2016, MLB All Stars in 2014, European All Stars in 2015).  

It all came apart in 2021.  He slumped badly to start the season and suffered a couple injuries - at least one of which was essentially self inflicted when he broke his bat in frustration after striking out and injuring his face above his right eye.  He had just returned from being sidelined for almost two months due to back pain when he physically assaulted one of his teammates before an exhibition game during the stretch when NPB suspended their regular season because of the Olympics.

I don't believe it's ever been made public who he assaulted or what he did but the Fighters soon suspended Nakata indefinitely.  Two weeks after the incident, he was sent to the Giants in a "free trade" which basically means the Fighters simply gave him to Yomiuri.  

He continued to slump with the Giants for the remainder of the 2021 season but he bounced back in 2022, hitting over 20 home runs again for the first time in two years.  He was selected to the All Star game but had to skip it as he had contracted COVID-19.  He would win another Golden Glove that year as well.  He made the All Star team again in 2023 but his numbers declined somewhat and, at the end of the season, new manager Shinnosuke Abe made it clear that his plans for the Giants the following year did not include the soon-to-be 35 year old in a starting role.  Nakata considered attempting international free agency but instead activated an opt-out clause in his contract and became a domestic free agent.

He joined the Dragons and spent the last two seasons of his career with them.  His time in Nagoya did not go particularly well as injuries cut into his playing time and his offensive decline continued (and probably accelerated).  He announced his retirement in mid-August of last year and has taken a job as a baseball commentator with Tokai Radio's "Guts Nighter" show.

His first baseball cards were all BBM issues in 2008 with the first being #36 in the Rookie Edition set.  He had two cards in 1st Version (a "regular" card and a "Rookie Of The Year Candidate" subset card) two cards in 2nd Version (a "regular" card and a "Pick Up Rookies" subset card), five cards in the Fighters team set (a "regular" card and a couple subset cards) and a card in the Rookie Edition Premium set.  His first Calbee card wasn't until 2009's Series Three (#222).  Here's a handful of his cards:

2008 BBM Rookie Edition #36

2008 BBM 1st Version #244

2009 BBM Nippon Series #S49

2012 BBM Fighters #FM-1

2013 BBM Young Fighters #YF16

2014 Calbee Series Three #206

2016 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-27

2017 Fighters Legend Series #6

2019 Nippon-Ham Home Run Sausage #R-11

2020 BBM Fusion #TH05

2023 Calbee Series Two #FW-10

2024 BBM 2nd Version #475

That last card features one of the few times he got on base for the Dragons in 2024.

The hype around him during his first training camp in 2008 was such that, when he homered in his first at-bat in the Fighters' first exhibition game on March 1st, Sports Card Magazine issued a card a commemorative card in issue #68 that hit the newsstands later that same month:

2008 SCM #96

Hirokazu Sawamura

Former Yomiuri Giants, Chiba Lotte Marines and Boston Red Sox pitcher Hirokazu Sawamura was another player who retired at the end of last season.  I'd written a post about him when he departed for Boston after the 2020 season so this is going to be kind of an abbreviated summary of his career.

As the earlier post says, Sawamura was the Giants' first pick in the 2010 NPB draft out of Chuo University.  He was Central League Rookie Of The Year in 2011 and was in the Giants starting rotation for a few years before injuries forced him into a bullpen role.  He became the team's closer and led the Central League in saves in 2016 with 37.  He struggled with injuries in the late teens and was traded to the Marines late in the 2020 season.

He left for Boston that winter and spent two seasons in the Red Sox bullpen.  He didn't pitch two well but he was released shortly before the end of the 2022 season.  He returned to Japan and rejoined the Marines.  He spent the past three seasons in Lotte's bullpen with somewhat mixed results and at the end of last season, the Marines decided to part ways with the 37 year old.  He had originally intended to continue playing but decided last December that he'd retire instead.

Here's a selection of his baseball cards.  I wanted to pick cards that I hadn't show in the previous post so there's only one of his 2011 cards here - check out the other post for information on his rookie cards.

2011 BBM 2nd Version #601

2011 Giants Winning Game Card #68

2012 Calbee Series Two #125

2014 BBM Giants #G004

2016 BBM Fusion #122

2019 Epoch NPB #291

2024 Topps Stadium Club NPB #208

I have a certified autographed card of him from his days with the Red Sox and I have to say that's one of the worst autographs I've ever seen on a card:

2022 Topps Baseball Japan Edition #TJA-HS

I really like his Randy Arozarena impression on this 2023 Epoch One card:

2023 Epoch One #154

2023 Topps Now WBC #WBC-49

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