History
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, Hanshin Kōshien Stadium, is used by high school baseball teams from all over Japan for play in the national championship tournaments in spring and summer.
Famous players in Hanshin Tigers history include Randy Bass, Masayuki Kakefu, Minoru Murayama, Jeff Williams, Yutaka Enatsu, Kei Igawa and many others.
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“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)