Long time Hawks pitcher Tsuyoshi Wada, the final active player from the "Matsuzaka Generation" announced his retirement a few weeks ago.  Wada had a stellar collegiate career at Waseda University, setting the career strikeout record for the Tokyo Big Six league, before being signing with the then-Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in the "free acquisition phase" of the 2002 draft.

The Hawks immediately put him into their starting rotation and he did not disappoint, going 14-5 with an ERA of 3.38 and 195 strikeouts (in 189 innings).  He capped off what ended up being a Rookie Of The Year winning season with a complete game victory over the Hanshin Tigers in Game 7 of that year's Nippon Series, winning the championship for the Hawks.  He also pitched for the Japanese team in that year's Asian Championship.

He was a mainstay of the Hawks rotation for the next several years before missing much of the 2009 season with elbow issues.  He bounced back in 2010 with a great season, going 17-8 with an ERA of 3.14 and 169 strikeouts.  The 17 wins led the Pacific League and he was the league MVP as well as the Best 9 pick at pitcher.  He followed that up with an even better season in 2011, going 16-5 with a 1.51 ERA for the eventual Nippon Series champions (Wada made two starts in the Series, getting a no-decision in Game One and the loss in Game Six).  Wada then made the decision to move to MLB, signing a two year contract with an option for a third year with the Baltimore Orioles.

He never appeared for the Orioles, however, as he blew out his elbow in early 2012 and underwent Tommy John surgery.  He recovered enough to make 19 starts with the O's Triple-A team in Norfolk in 2013 but Baltimore declined to pick up his option for 2014.  He signed with the Cubs and bounced between the majors and minors over the next two seasons, going 5-5 with a 3.36 ERA in 21 games (20 starts) with Chicago while spending the rest of the time in Triple-A Iowa (plus one game at Double-A Tennessee).

He returned to Japan and the Hawks for 2016 and it was like he'd never left.  He went 15-5 with 3.04 ERA, leading the PL in wins again.  He missed a lot of 2017 with another elbow injury and then missed almost all of 2018 with shoulder injuries.  He was back in the rotation in 2019 and won Game Four of the Nippon Series against the Giants.  He went 8-1 with a 2.94 ERA in 2020 and started Game Four of the Series against the Giants again, getting no decision in a game the Hawks eventually won to sweep the Giants again.  He had a so-so year in 2021, going 5-6 with a 4.48 ERA in 18 starts but bounced back to pitch reasonably well the next two years.  At age 42 and four months, he became the oldest pitcher to appear in an All Star game for the Pacific League in 2023.  He pitched well when healthy last season but staying healthy appears to have been an issue as he missed time with blisters on his fingers and a hip issue.  His contract had been renewed for next year despite him not being on the Hawks roster for the Nippon Series but he announced his retirement right after the Series ended.

He made six All Star teams (2003, 2004, 2010, 2011, 2016 and 2023) and pitched in four Nippon Series (2003, 2011, 2019 and 2020).  He set a record for longest gap between Nippon Series victories with the 16 years between his 2003 Game Seven and 2019 Game Four wins.  He pitched for Japan in two Olympics - 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing - as well as the 2006 World Baseball Classic.

His first baseball card was in the 2003 BBM Rookie Edition set (#63) and he also appeared in BBM's 1st and 2nd Version and Touch The Game sets, their Hawks team set, and their All Star, Nippon Series and Asian Championship box sets that year.  He appeared in BBM's 1st and 2nd Version sets every year that he played in Japan except 2018 (only in 1st Version) and 2019.  His first Calbee card was #146 in the 2003 Series Two set. Here's a bunch of his cards:

2003 BBM Rookie Edition #63

2003 BBM 1st Version #273

2003 BBM Nippon Series #04

2004 BBM 1st Version #375

2005 SCM #51

2006 Upper Deck WBC Jersey Collection #WBC-TW

2008 BBM Japan National Team #JPN12

2010 BBM All Stars #A42

2011 BBM 1st Version #325

2011 BBM Legend Of Tokyo Big Six #083

2012 Topps Chrome #185

2016 Calbee #004

2017 Epoch Pacific League #10

2019 Calbee #ES-02

2021 Epoch Hawks Rookies & Stars #04

2024 Hawks Season Vol. 1 #24SBH123

NOTE - It was incorrectly reported three years ago that Wada had retired.  I had published a retirement post for him at the time and then removed it when I discovered he hadn't actually retired.  This post is mostly what I wrote at the time with some minor updates (and a couple additional cards).

Getting back to the retirement posts...

Itsuki Shoda, who had a 24 year career in professional baseball between Japan and Taiwan, announced his retirement last November.  Shoda had been the ace pitcher for Kiryu Daiichi High School and helped the team win their first ever Summer Koshien title (and first ever for a school in Gunma prefecture) in 1999 by throwing three shutouts and pitching a complete game in the finals while only giving up one run.  He was taken in the first round of the 1999 draft by the Nippon-Ham Fighters.

He pitched mostly on the farm team for his first two professional seasons, only getting in five games with the top team in 2000 and 2001 but he was moved in the starting rotation in 2003.  He had probably his best season in NPB that year, going 9-11 with a 3.45 ERA in 23 starts for the fifth place Fighters, earning him the Pacific League's Rookie Of The Year award.  

Shoda developed left shoulder pain in spring training in 2003 but the Fighters ran him out for 26 starts that year.  He went 5-15 and his ERA ballooned to 5.78 although he had a scoreless streak of 27 innings at one point.  He moved with the team to Sapporo in 2004 and went a decent 8-5 although his ERA was 5.00.  

He was banished to ni-gun midway through the 2005 season after going 2-6 with an ERA of 6.27 in 12 starts.  His Wikipedia page blames control issues although you have to wonder if he was hurt, especially given that he'd probably been overworked as a high schooler.  Regardless of the reason, he never again appeared at the ichi-gun level in the last season and half he spent with the Fighters.

In March of 2007, Nippon-Ham dealt him to Hanshin for Takehito Kanazawa.  He toiled on the Tigers' farm team for two seasons but never got called up to the top team.  The team released him after the 2008 season and he attended the 12 team tryout but didn't get any offers from NPB teams.

He traveled to Taiwan in early 2009 and tried out for and made the Sinon Bulls team.  He ended up spending two seasons in Taichung, going 14-6 with a 4.44 ERA in 2009 and 11-5 with a 2.81 ERA in 2010.  (He also got into two games with Gigantes del Cibao of the Dominican Winter League during their 2009-10 season.)  Despite this success, the Bulls released him after 2010.  It wasn't anything to do with his performance - Sinon was having financial issues and released ALL their foreign players before 2011.

Shoda made a somewhat curious decision at this point.  Rather than attempt to parley two years of success in Taiwan into a new NPB contract, he decided to come to the US and try out for an MLB team.  He signed a minor league deal with the Boston Red Sox and attended spring training in 2011 as a non-roster invitee.  The Red Sox released him just before the season started and he returned to Japan.  

He signed on with the Niigata Albirex of the independent Baseball Challenge League, reuniting with future Swallows manager Shingo Takatsu who he'd been teammates with the previous year with Sinon.  He pitched decently for Niigata, going 3-5 in 23 games with a 3.00 ERA.  He pitched mostly in relief and recored one save.

He signed a contract with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in late 2011, becoming just the second player (after Akichika Yamada) to return to NPB after a stint in the indy leagues.  He spent the next two seasons working out of the bullpen for Yakult, appearing in 39 games and posting a sub-3.00 ERA but the Swallows released him following the 2013 season.  He again attended the 12 team tryout but again drew no interest from any NPB teams.

He returned to Taiwan for 2014, signing on with the Lamigo Monkeys.  It didn't go as well as his previous CPBL tour of duty as he went 2-2 with a 4.81 ERA in eight starts before getting released in mid-May.  

He came back to Japan and joined the Ehime Mandarin Pirates of the Shikoku Island League just in time for the end of the first half of the season.  He dominated the league in the second half, going 7-2 with a league leading 1.02 ERA in 14 starts and won the second half MVP award.  He won the full season MVP award the following year, going 7-3 with an 0.72 ERA (which again led the league).  He once again attended the 12 team tryout at the end of 2015 and once again came away without any teams being interested.

He spent the next eight years continuing to play for Ehime in the SIL.  His 1.38 ERA in 2017 netted him a third league ERA title.  He was a player-coach in his last two seasons.   He was the only player to appear on all three of the Shikoku Island All Star teams that played in the Can-Am League in 2015, 2016 and 2019.  He was the next-to-last active player from the 1999 draft,  With his retirement, the only active player drafted in the 20th Century is now Munenori Kawasaki of the Tochigi Golden Braves of the Baseball Challenge League.

Shoda's baseball cards are mostly from his NPB days along with a handful of CPBL cards.  His first card was #P125 in the 2000 BBM Preview set (it was the first time BBM did draft pick cards although they were only for the first round picks).  He also had a card in the regular BBM set from 2000 (#366) as well as appearances in Epoch's Pro-Baseball sticker set (#082), the Future Bee Power League Dream Stadium set (#099), Konami's Field Of Nine Series 3 set (#FON1CA88) and the Upper Deck Ovation "Rising Stars" subset (#18).  He didn't have another BBM flagship card until 2003 although he was in the 2002 Touch The Game set (as well as Konami's Prime Nine set that year).  He had his first Calbee card in the 2003 Series One set (#077) and had a couple additional cards in other Calbee Series that year but those ended up being the only Calbee cards he ever had.  His appearances in BBM's flagship sets ended after 2007 and his only cards in 2008 and 2012-13 were in the Tigers and Swallows team sets.  He appeared in CPBL cards in 2009-10 and again in 2014.  As far as I can tell, he never had any cards with either Niigata or Ehime.  Here's a handful of his cards:

2000 BBM Preview #P125

2000 BBM #366

2000 Upper Deck Ovation "Rising Stars" #18

2002 BBM Touch The Game #168

2003 BBM 1st Version #376

2003 Calbee #077

2006 BBM 1st Version #154

2008 BBM Tigers #T-011

2012 BBM Swallows #S28

As I mentioned, Shoda was on the roster of the SIL All Star team that played in the Can-Am league three times.  I saw that team in New Jersey each year they came and was able to get Shoda's autograph (with an assist from Drew Naylor) at Yogi Berra Stadium in Little Falls in 2015:

2003 BBM 1st Version #317

The following year I got to see him in action against the Sussex County Miners at Skylands Stadium in Augusta:

Eagles first baseman Ginji Akaminai, who has gone by just "Ginji" his entire career, announced his retirement back in November.  Ginji had been originally drafted by the Eagles as a catcher in the third round of the high school portion of the 2005 draft out of Morioka Chuo High School in Iwate.  He hit well on the farm team his first couple years but he didn't make his debut with the ichi-gun team until 2010, a year after he converted to being an infielder.  He only played in two games with the top team that year but he hit .367 with the farm team, although he didn't have enough at bats to qualify for the batting title.  He hit .345 the next year and DID have enough at bats to qualify for the batting crown.

He was up with the top team for good the following year, hitting .280 and hit over .300 the next three seasons, including the Eagles Championship year of 2013.  The Eagles bounced him all over the field during this period, with him playing first, second, third and right field.  He finally settled in at first in 2016, although he'd occasionally still play second (and memorably was the emergency catcher for one game in 2019).  2019 turned out to be the last year he played in over 100 games with the top team.  I don't know if he was injured or just performed poorly but he was only in 88 games in 2020, only 35 in 2021, bounced back to 83 in 2022 and then only six last year.  He had considered continuing to play after the Eagles released him in October but he announced his retirement the next month.  He'll be some sort of "ambassador" for Rakuten and will promote baseball in the Tohoku region.

He won two Best 9 awards (2014 & 2017), one Golden Glove award (2017) and made the All Star team twice (2014 & 2019).  He never played for Samurai Japan in any of the major tournaments but he played in friendlies against the MLB All Stars in 2014, the European All Stars in 2015 and Taiwan in 2016.  (He had been considered for the 2015 Premier 12 team but ultimately was not selected.)

Ginji's first card was #42 in the 2006 BBM Rookie Edition set.  His only other 2006 cards were both BBM cards - #212 in the 1st Version set and #E45 in the Eagles set.  His only cards over the next four years were in BBM's Eagles team set - his first non-BBM card wasn't until Konami had a card of him in 2011 (although he likely was in the Eagles team-issued sets over this stretch).  2012 saw him get a BBM flagship card again (2nd Version #528) and his first Calbee card (#172 in Series Three) along with more Konami cards and some Bandai cards.  He appeared in both the 1st and 2nd Version set each year from 2013 to 2022 and was in 1st Version in 2023.  He also appeared in every Calbee set from 2012 to 2020, although not in any of their sets in the past three years.  Here's some of his cards:

2006 BBM Rookie Edition #42

2006 BBM 1st Version #212

2010 BBM Eagles #E53

2012 BBM 2nd Version #528

2012 Calbee #172

2013 BBM 1st Version #260

2015 Eagles Team Issued Set #SS1-09

2016 Eagles Team Issued Set #J2

2016 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-29

2017 Calbee #028

2019 BBM 2nd Version #475 (Secret Version)

2020 Calbee #017

2023 Epoch NPB #133