In addition to the main awards and the Challenge Stage awards, special awards were also to be given by celebrity judges, including New York Yankees player Hideki Matsui (who suffered a wrist injury playing baseball and had to withdraw from the contest), comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto, and author Lily Franky.
Hideki Matsui; this was set to premiere in June 2006, but was held back due to an on-field injury.
Kato Hideki | Hideki Tōjō | Hideki Matsui | Hideki Yukawa | Hideki Tojo | Hideki Kamiya | Hideki Okajima | Hideki Noda | Daijiro Matsui | Yūsei Matsui | Hideki Irabu | Gorō Matsui | Daisuke Matsui |
Several professional baseball players first made their mark at Kōshien, including Eiji Bandō, Sadaharu Oh, Koji Ota, Suguru Egawa, Masumi Kuwata, Kazuhiro Kiyohara, Hideki Matsui, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yu Darvish and Masahiro Tanaka.