Yomiuri Giants

From Academic Kids

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Yomiuri Giants

The Yomiuri Giants (in Japanese: 読売ジャイアンツ; Yomiuri-Jaiantsu) is one of the most popular baseball team based in Japan. It is based at Tokyo Dome, in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan, and is in the Central League. The team is owned by the Yomiuri Group, a media conglomerate which includes two newspapers and a television network.

Founded: 1934

Formerly known as: Dai Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Club (大日本東京野球倶楽部 1934-1935), Tokyo Kyojingun (東京巨人軍 1936-1946), Tokyo Yomiuri Kyojingun (Yomiuri Giants 1947-2002), Yomiuri Kyojingun (Yomiuri Giants 2002-)

Home ballpark: Tokyo Dome

Uniform colors: Orange, White, and Black

Logo design: Intertwined "Y" and "G" in orange on a black field

League championships won (30): 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2002

Japan Series championships won (20): 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1961, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1981, 1989, 1994, 2000, 2002

The Yomiuri Giants are the oldest professional team in Japan, which was founded in 1936 and joined the new Japanese Baseball League. The Giants won nine titles before the establishment of the two league system in 1950. Starting in 1965, the Giants won nine consecutive Central League pennants and Japan Series titles, in large part because of the hitting of Shigeo Nagashima and Sadaharu Oh. The Giants have won the 2002 pennant. The Yomiuri Giants have won more pennants and Japan Series titles than any other team.

It has been said because of the lengthy MLBPA strike in the United States, and because of Japanese lore of the meaning of 60th anniversaries, the 1994 60th Anniversary Yomuiri Giants were the luckiest team in professional baseball, and was actually called by many journalists as the World Champions of Professional Baseball.

Contents

1 Players of note

1.1 Current stars
1.2 Former players
1.3 Retired numbers

2 Mascot

3 External Links

4 Trivia

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Players of note

[edit]

Former players

Warren Cromartie
Suguru Egawa
Tatsunori Hara
Isao Harimoto
Tatsuro Hirooka
Tsuneo Horiuchi
Tetsuharu Kawakami
Norihiro Komada
Hiromi Makihara
Hideki Matsui
Shigeo Nagashima
Kiyoshi Nakahata
Hiromitsu Ochiai
Sadaharu Oh
Masaki Saito
Eiji Sawamura [1] (http://www.baseball-museum.or.jp/museum_e/guide/dendo/profile/008_sawamura_eiji_e.html), [2] (http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/news/mlb_news.jsp?ymd=20021106&content_id=171904&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp)
Kazunori Shinozuka
Victor Starffin [3] (http://www.starffin.com/)
Wally Kaname Yonamine