The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles (東北楽天ゴールデンイーグルス , Tōhoku Rakuten Gōruden Īgurusu) is a baseball team based in Sendai, in Miyagi Prefecture, which plays in the Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball Pacific League since 2005. They were Japan Series champions in 2013 after defeating the Yomiuri Giants.
The team was created to fill the void left by the merger of the Orix BlueWave and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes, after the 2004 season due to financial difficulties, leaving the Pacific League with five teams, causing the biggest crisis in the traditional two-league structure in NPB and finally caused the historical-first baseball player strike in Japan. The team is owned by the Internet shopping company Rakuten.
The team's manager was Katsuya Nomura, the oldest manager in NPB history, but he was replaced as of the 2010 season by Marty Brown the former manager of Hiroshima Toyo Carp. Brown was in turn replaced by Senichi Hoshino after a last place finish in 2010.
The stadium was heavily damaged by floods during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
The Yokohama DeNA BayStars (横浜DeNAベイスターズ , Yokohama Dī-Enu-Ē Beisutāzu) are a professional baseball team in the Japanese Central League. Their home field is Yokohama Stadium, located in central Yokohama. The team has been known by several names since becoming a professional team in 1950. It adopted its current name in 2011 when the club was purchased by software company DeNA.
The minor league team shares the same name and uniform as the parent team and plays in the Eastern League. The minor league home field is Yokosuka Stadium, located in Yokosuka, Kanagawa.
The team began as the Taiyo Fishing Company, an amateur team currently affiliated with the Maruha Corporation (presently Maruha Nichiro). The team began to appear in national tournaments in the 1930s and won the National Sports Festival in 1948, giving it national recognition. In the 1949 off-season, the Japanese professional baseball league drastically expanded itself and many players from the Taiyo amateur team were recruited to join the professional leagues. The owner of the Taiyo company decided to join the newly expanded Central League, which was established in 1950. The team's first professional incarnation was as the Maruha Team. The franchise was based in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi.
The team name was changed to the Taiyō Whales (大洋ホエールズ , Taiyō Hoeeruzu) shortly after the start of the 1950 season. The Whales received several veteran players from the Yomiuri Giants to compensate for their lack of players, but ended up in the bottom half of the standings each year.
In 1951, there was talk of merging with the Hiroshima Carp, which had experienced serious financial problems but the merging never occurred due to massive protests from Hiroshima citizens.
In 1952, it was decided that teams ending the season with a winning percentage below .300 would be disbanded or merged with other teams. The Shochiku Robins fell into this category, and were merged with the Taiyo Whales to become the Taiyō-Shochiku Robins (大洋松竹ロビンス , Taiyō Shōchiku Robinsu) in January, 1953. However, the team's re-organization was not completed in time for the 1953 season, and the team ended up continuing its offices in both Shimonoseki and Kyoto. Home games took place in Osaka for geographical reasons, and the team's finances were managed by both the Taiyo and Shochiku companies until the franchise was officially transferred to Osaka in 1954 to become the Yō-Shō Robins (洋松ロビンス , Yō-Shō Robinsu) .
The Saitama Seibu Lions (埼玉西武ライオンズ , Saitama Seibu Raionzu) are a professional baseball team in Japan's Pacific League based north of Tokyo in Tokorozawa, Saitama. Before 1979, they were based in Fukuoka in Kyushu. The team is owned by a subsidiary of Prince Hotels, which in turn is owned by the Seibu Group. The team experienced a recent period of financial difficulty, but the situation brightened when the team received a record ¥6 billion (about $51.11 million) posting fee from the Boston Red Sox for the right to negotiate a contract with Daisuke Matsuzaka. Between 1978 and 2008, the team logo and mascot were based on the adult version of Kimba the White Lion, a classic Japanese anime series by Osamu Tezuka. In 2004, former Seibu Lions player Kazuo Matsui became the first Japanese infielder to play in Major League Baseball.
In 1950, the team became a founding member of the Pacific League. It was then owned by Nishi-Nippon Railroad, which was based in Fukuoka. The team finished sixth that year, and at the end of the season was merged with the Nishi-Nippon Pirates to form the Nishitetsu Lions.
The Nishitetsu Lions called Heiwadai Stadium home for their entire existence. They were one of a dominant team in the Pacific League during the 1950s, winning four pennants, including three straight Japan Series against the Yomiuri Giants behind famed manager Osamu Mihara.
The team struggled through the following decade and did not witness much success on the field. In 1969–1970 the team was caught up in the infamous Black Mist game-fixing scandal, which resulted in four Lions pitchers being banned from NPB for life, as well as other players receiving lesser punishments. These losses decimated the team, which finished the 1970 season in last place.
After a third straight last-place finish, in November 1972 the franchise was sold to the Fukuoka Baseball Corporation, also a part of Nishi-Nippon Railroad. Following the sale, the team was renamed the Taiheiyo Club Lions.
The Hanshin Tigers (阪神タイガース , Hanshin Taigāsu) are a Nippon Professional Baseball team playing in the Central League. The team is based in Koshien, Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and are owned by Hanshin Electric Railway Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Inc.
The Hanshin Tigers are one of the oldest professional clubs in Japan. They played their first season in 1936 as the Osaka Tigers and assumed their current team name in 1961.
The Hanshin Tigers, one of the oldest professional clubs in Japan, were founded on December 10, 1935 with the team being formed in 1936. The team was first called "the Ōsaka Tigers". In 1940, amid anti-foreign sentiment, the Tigers changed the name to "Hanshin" and in 1947 changed the name back to "Ōsaka Tigers". The current team name was assumed in 1961.
The Tigers won four titles before the establishment of the two league system in 1950. Since the league was split into the Central League and the Pacific League, the Tigers have won the Central League pennant five times (1962, 1964, 1985, 2003, 2005) and the Japan Series once (1985).
When the 2004 Major League Baseball season opened in Japan, the Tigers played an exhibition game against the New York Yankees at the Tokyo Dome on March 29. The Tigers won 11-7.
In each of 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009, more than three million people attended games hosted by the Tigers. The Tigers were the only one of the 12 Nippon Professional Baseball teams to achieve this.
On January 31, 2007, the Tigers presented uniforms for the 2007 season. For the home uniforms, yellow, one of the colors of the team, was used again.
The home field, Koshien Stadium, is used by high school baseball teams from all over Japan for play in the national championship tournaments in spring and summer. The summer tournament takes place in the middle of the Tigers' season, forcing the Tigers to go on an annual three-week road trip to allow the tournament to be played.
Famous players in Hanshin Tigers history include Fumio Fujimura, Masaru Kageura, Minoru Murayama, Yutaka Enatsu, Masayuki Kakefu, Randy Bass and many others.
The Chiba Lotte Marines (千葉ロッテマリーンズ Chiba Rotte Marīnzu) are a professional baseball team in Japan's Pacific League based in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, in the Kantō region, and owned by the Lotte conglomerate.
The Yomiuri Giants (読売ジャイアンツ , Yomiuri Jaiantsu) is a professional baseball team based in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. The team competes in the Central League in Nippon Professional Baseball. They play their home games in the Tokyo Dome, opened in 1988. The team's owner is the Yomiuri Group, a media conglomerate which includes two newspapers and a television network.
The team began in 1934 as The Great Japan Tokyo Baseball Club (大日本東京野球倶楽部 Dai-Nippon Tōkyō Yakyū Kurabu?), a team of all-stars organized by media mogul Matsutarō Shōriki that matched up against an American All-Star team that included Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, and Charlie Gehringer. While prior Japanese all-star contingents had disbanded, Shōriki went pro with this group, playing in an independent league.
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