Shintaro Yokota

Shintaro Yokota (横田 慎太郎) was a Japanese professional baseball outfielder for the Hanshin Tigers Nippon Professional Baseball. He played for the Tigers from 2014 to 2019.

Early baseball career
Born in Hioki, Kagoshima, Shintaro was the son of Masashi Yokota, a former outfielder for the Lotte Orions (now Chiba Lotte Marines). His family migrated to Kagoshima when he was 3, and he started playing softball in third grade all the way to junior high.

Yokota entered Kagoshima Jitsugyō High School, and batted fourth in his first year. From his third year onwards, he doubled as a pitcher and, with a fastball that surpassed 140 km/h, became the school's ace. Unfortunately, his team always got eliminated during the prefectural tournament. He recorded a total of 29 home runs during his high school career.

Professional career
Yokota was the 2nd pick of the Hanshin Tigers in the 2013 Nippon Professional Baseball draft. He inherited Shinjiro Hiyama's former jersey number, 24. He spent the 2014 and 2015 seasons with Hanshin's Western League affiliate. Yokota made his debut with the Tigers on Opening Day of the 2016 season in centerfield. He would play 38 games in the Central League in 2016, again spending the bulk of the season in the Western League. After a lost 2017 season due to treatment for a brain tumor, Yokota returned to Hanshin on a development player contract for the 2018 season. However, Yokota continued to be plagued by after-effects from his cancer treatment, forcing him to retire at the end of the season.

Playing style
Yokota's physical prowess was highly praised, and even likened to that of Yoshio Itoi's, earning him the moniker "Itoi junior". He employed solid batting techniques, was also known to have a good sense for the ball. He possessed arm strength worthy of a pitcher, and his speed (6.1 seconds for a 50-meter dash) was also one of his better selling points.

Illness and death
In February 2017, Yokota experienced headaches; he was later diagnosed with a brain tumor. He underwent treatment over the following six months. On September 3, 2017, he announced that he was in remission. Yokota made an attempt at returning to baseball after treatment, but due to dealing with the after-effects of his treatment, including blurred and double vision, his comeback attempt was short-lived. Yokota later cited fellow teammate Fumihito Haraguchi, who also dealt with cancer, as an inspiration for his recovery.

Yokota died of brain cancer on July 18, 2023, at age 28.

After the Tigers won the 2023 Central League pennant and the 2023 Japan Series, the team celebrated by throwing closer Suguru Iwazaki in the air, with Iwazaki holding Yokota's #24 jersey. Iwazaki and Yokota joined the Tigers at the same time: the Tigers drafted Iwazaki sixth in 2013.