Team History

1935-1945 -The Early Days-

The Hanshin Tigers were established in 1935, as the Osaka Baseball Club, also known as the Osaka Tigers. The early days of the Hanshin Tigers became the league champions for 3 times (1937 autumn, 1938 spring, 1944), and made the basis of the team to be loved in the Kansai area in Japan.

-Leading players-

#10 Fumio Fujimura (1939-1938, 1943-1956, 1958)

#6 Masaru Kageura (1936-1939, 1943)

1946-1964 -The Post War Period-

After the war, many players were lost all over the league and had many struggles, but the Tigers became the Champions in 1947. In 1950, The Professional Japanese Baseball League (Nippon Professional Baseball, NPB) split into 2 leagues. The Central and the Pacific. Afterwards, the team did not become the champions for quite some time. In 1962 and 1964, the team became the champions.

-Leading Players-

#11 Minoru Murayama

#23 Masaaki Koyama

1965-1984 -The First Dark Age-

No comment. Monsieur, Yoshio Yoshida was a great player.

-Leading Players-

#23 Yoshio Yoshida

#22 Kohichi Tabuchi

1985-1986 -Nippon Series Champions-

The “New Dynamite Lineup” lead the team to be the first Nippon Champions (Nippon is the Japanese term of “Japan”).

-Leading Players-

#7 Akinobu Mayumi

#16 Akinobu Okada

# 31 Masayuki Kakefu

#44 Bandy Bass

1987-2001 -The Second Dark Age-

The failure of promoting the young generation lead the team to a second dark age.

-Leading Players-

#00 Tsutomu Kameyama

#4 Keiichi Yabu

#5 Tsuyoshi Shinjyo

2002-2005 -The Great Restoration-

So called Fighting Genral, Sennichi Hoshino came from the Chunichi Dragons and made drastic changes to the team. “The Great Restoration” lead the team to become the Central league Champions in 2003. It was in 18 years since the last achievement. Although Hoshino left the team due to his health concerns, Akinobu Okada, one of the star players from the New Dynamite Lineup, became the new manager and lead the team to become the Champion again in 2005. ~~For some reason, Tigers lost the Nippon Series disastrously. The team lost by 33-4 in 4 games against the Chiba Lotte Marines.~~

-Leading Players-

#1 Takashi Toritani

#5 Osamu Hamanaka

#6 Tomoaki Kanemoto

#7 Makoto Imaoka

#22 Kyuji Fujikawa

#29 Kei Igawa

#53 Norihiro Akahoshi

2006-2015 -The Stagnation Period-

After the 2 victories, Tigers weren’t that weak, but could not become the champions for quite some time. In 10 years, Tigers made it to the Climax Series for 7 years but never became first in the league. This was because the team could not get good rookies by the NPB draft and were not successful at raising them as well. This team situation lead to stalling every summer and afterwards.

-Leading Players-

#2 Kenji Jojima

#7 Tsuyoshi Nishioka

#9 Matt Murton

#14 Atsushi Nohmi

#67 Craig Brazell

2016-2022 -The Period of Change-

Due to the stagnation of the team, Tigers started to change its corporate philosophy. Tomoaki Kanemoto became the manager and made a team mainly by young players. Although Tigers became last in 2018 and Kanemoto resigned the team to take its responsibility, the change was continued by Akihiro Yano and made the team to a strong and competitive. Although the team couldn’t become the Champion in this period, Tigers were successful to train many star players, such as Yusuke Ohyama, Koji Chikamoto, Teruaki Sato, and “the day” was just there to be seen.