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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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)