Claim: Teen Japanese pitching phenom Kazuo Uzuki is poised to become a star in Major League baseball.
Origins: As sports card collectors began assembling sets from packs of 2008 Topps baseball cards released in February of that year, quite a few of them were puzzled by the first entry in Topps' "Future Stars" subset: A picture of one Kazuo ("the Uzi") Uzuki, described on the back of his card as a 16-year-old Japanese pitching prospect with an astonishing
Already being called "The Uzi" by some for his 104 MPH fastball, Kaz will be the first Japan-based high-schooler to jump straight to professional baseball in America when he graduates in 2009. "He is, hands down, the best pitching prospect I've seen in
What caused many collectors to be skeptical of this budding Future Star was not just the improbability of his talent, but the fact that seemingly nobody in America
[price guide publisher] Beckett in regard to the Kazuo Uzuki Future Star card Topps put into the new boxes. If you are not familiar, the card states he is How can Topps get away with this? I am asking if you can contact them and, maybe with your clout, can get an answer. I have been on both message boards, and no one has any answers — yet there are plenty of inquiries.
I am a longtime subscriber to SCD, and I look forward to reading all the different columns. I am writing to you because I have been frustrated by Topps and
On the symbolically significant date of 1 April 2008, Topps 'fessed up and admitted that Kazuo Uzuki was fictitious and that the phenom's bogus card was a hoax "intended to celebrate the opening of the baseball season." The young man pictured on the Future Star card was actually a 25-year-old, non-baseball playing NYU law student named Sensen Lin, who told the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog that:
They put me in all these funky poses. I don't know that much about baseball so I didn't exactly know what I was doing. Turns out, the guys at Topps added some things. I wasn't wearing that necklace and the glove in the picture is different. They also photoshopped in the background.
I have a friend at Topps who called me up a few months ago and asked if I wanted to do this. At first I was a little wary. I thought they were going to ask me to take my shirt off or something and that it'd be a practical joke. But my friend told me they'd pay for the cab over there to their offices and that they'd pay me $500. So I figured why not.
As most press accounts of Topps' hoax noted, one of the many giveaways to the gag was that Kazuo Uzuki means "the first son of April" in Japanese.
Last updated: 8 June 2009
 | Sources: |
Hutchinson, Bill. "What a Card! Flamethrower's April Fool." [New York] Daily News. 1 April 2008. Jones, Ashby. "Law Blog Law Student of the Day: Baseball-Card Hoaxer, Sensen Lin." The Wall Street Journal. 7 April 2008. "Feedback." Sports Collectors Digest. 25 April 2008 (p. 8).
