Before he was Dice-K, he was a teenage Koshien monster, and the summer of 1998 remains one of those stretches where baseball starts to feel a bit supernatural. He threw 250 pitches in one game and somehow that was only the beginning.
My latest is on Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Monster of the Heisei Era.
2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC card of Alfredo Despaigne
2020 Epoch Buffaloes Rookies & Stars card of Masataka Yoshida
Card Of The Week - Alfredo Despaigne is playing in his fifth WBC and Masataka Yoshida homered in front of the Emperor, causing @gabelerman.bsky.social to ask if he was the first Japanese player to do it since Nagashima in 1959 japanesebaseballcards.blogspot.com/2026/03/card...
It was one of the best I've been to. Absolutely electric.
Time for some baseball.
Randy Bass in Japan:
.389 for a whole season
202 home runs
Two Triple Crowns
One championship
And a chant from Hanshin fans that went:
God. Buddha. Bass.
I'd love to take up up on that if you've got extras for weekend games.
I appreciate the gesture! I'm sure we can take in a Marines game together sometime...
Guess I'm going to the WBC after all, thanks to one generous reader.
2007 BBM Atsuya Furuta Memorial set #17
Your mention of the Swallows doing training camp in Yuma makes me want to share this card
This card is awesome. I'm off to scour Mercari.
He also once threw out Barry Bonds.
Atsuya Furuta believed catching wasn't about toughness. It was about understanding people.
He won batting titles. He guided a dynasty. He led a strike to preserve Japanese baseball.
And he did it all wearing glasses.
This is the longest piece I’ve written for this newsletter and maybe the strangest story in Japanese baseball history.
October 19, 1988: a pennant race decided by the clock.
Yes, a clock.
Saturday means sushi. Yeah, that's salmon with pesto and mozzarella. It was delicious.
Draft controversy. Suspension. Injury. Reinvention. An MLB debut at 39.
When his body changed, he adapted.
Few careers in Japanese baseball were stranger or more thoughtful than Masumi Kuwata’s.
It's too bad we can't watch here in Japan.
It's time to ruin your sleep schedule again: the #PacificLeague Midnight Matinee is back for a 5th season.
Sunday April 5 Marines vs Hawks
Sunday April 26 Eagles vs Lions
Sunday May 24 Lions vs Buffaloes
All 12am EDT starts; tune in at youtube.com/@pacificleag...
(all games subject to change)
Masayuki Kakefu wasn’t a phenom or a top prospect.
He was a tryout player drafted in the sixth-round who became the face of the Hanshin Tigers and one of the most beloved players in Japanese baseball history.
Welcome back.
2010 BBM Lions 60th Anniversary card of Don Buford
1975/76/77 Calbee card of Davey Johnson
1988 Takara Swallows card of Doug Decinces
2021 Topps NPB card of Adam Jones
Card Of The Week - there are four members of the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame who played in NPB japanesebaseballcards.blogspot.com/2026/02/card...
Kazuhiro Kiyohara hit over 500 home runs, was one of the greatest sluggers in Japanese baseball history, and one of the hardest to understand.
This is the story of the Uncrowned King.
We rang in the New Year with ice cream, fell asleep early, and drove through a snowstorm to go shopping.
My latest is a photo post from our trip to snow country in northern Japan.
Card Of The Week - Takashi Ogino is headed for the Czech Republic japanesebaseballcards.blogspot.com/2026/01/card...
Godspeed.
I turned 38 this week and celebrated by writing about strange things that happened in Japanese baseball.
Phantom home runs.
No-hitters with runs allowed.
A game-ending fake fall.
13 weird moments from the 2025 NPB season:
At least he was able to outperform Oh as a manager.
Can't wait for this to start. Still can't believe I missed on every lottery for tickets.
There’s a difference between being a star and being a successor.
Tatsunori Hara was asked to be the latter from the moment he arrived.
I wrote about what that did to him.
#NPB #baseball
With the news that Takashi Ogino is signing with Draci Brno—the powerhouse of Czech baseball—this feels like a good time to revisit the day I met him at his potato farm.
Good for him. We're gonna miss him here in Japan, but excited for him to show more people what he can do.
