Japanesebaseballcards

Former Kintetsu Buffaloes and Yakult Swallows pitcher Toshio Kanbe passed away at age 83 about a week ago.  Kanbe's path to professional baseball was kind of circuitous as he signed on with the Mitsubishi Paper Mills team in Japan's corporate leagues after graduating from high school in I'm guessing around 1962 as he was born in 1943.  He switched jobs in 1965 and went to "wo...

Former baseball player Baek In-chun passed away late last week at the age of 82 in Cheonan, South Korea.  Baek had a 20 year career in NPB under the name "Jinten Haku" and then played in the KBO's first three seasons.  I'm not entirely sure but I believe...

I'm a little late getting to this since I was out of town for a bit but on August 4th, Naoya Masuda of the Chiba Lotte Marines became the latest member of the Meikyukai or "Golden Players Club" when he notched his 250th save.  Masuda was reported in the press as the "first reliever born in the Heisei Era to make the Meikyukai" which is kind of silly as he's only the second He...

Livan Moinelo of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks made his first start of the 2026 season last Tuesday.  The reigning 2025 Pacific League MVP had a late arrival to Japan in the spring due to the World Baseball Classic and a wide scale power outage in Cuba.  He worked out with the farm team and made an appearance with the ikusei squad against the Shikoku Island League's Ehime...