Yomiuri Giants
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The Yomiuri Giants are one of the popular Central League baseball teams based at the Tokyo Dome in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. The team is often called the "Tokyo Giants" in the American press, but like the Hanshin Tigers and Orix Buffaloes, the team is officially known by the name of its corporate owner rather than the name of the city it plays in. The team's owner is the Yomiuri Group, a media conglomerate which includes two newspapers and a television network. They are regarded as "The New York Yankees of Japan" due to their past dominance of the league.
The Giants are the oldest professional team in Japan. They won nine Japanese Baseball League 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 last Giants pennant was in 2002. The Yomiuri Giants have won more pennants and Japan Series titles than any other team.
The team is often referred by fans and in news headlines and tables simply as Kyojin (巨人), Japanese for "Giants", instead of the usual corporate owner's name or the English nickname.
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[edit] Players of note
[edit] Current players
- Takuya Kimura (木村 拓也) - OF
- Michihiro Ogasawara (小笠原 道大) - 1B or 3B
- Makoto Kosaka (小坂 誠) - 2B or SS
- Tomohiro Nioka (二岡 智宏) - SS
- Yoshitomo Tani (谷 佳知) - OF
- Takayuki Shimizu (清水 隆行) - OF
- Shinnosuke Abe (阿部 慎之助) - C
- Yuya Kubo (久保 裕也) - P
- Masanori Hayashi (林 昌範) - P
- Chien-Ming Chiang (姜 建銘) - P
- Koji Uehara (上原 浩治) - P
- Hisanori Takahashi (高橋 尚成) - P
- Yoshinobu Takahashi (高橋 由伸) - OF
- Lee Seung-Yeop
- Yukinaga Maeda (前田 幸長) - P
- Hiroshi Kisanuki (木佐貫 洋) - P
- Jeremy Powell - P
- Damon Hollins - OF
- Geremi González - P
[edit] Former players
- Jesse Barfield
- Phil Bradley
- Keith Comstock
- Warren Cromartie
- Mariano Duncan
- Suguru Egawa (江川 卓)
- Balvino Galvez
- Dan Gladden
- Gary Glover - P
- Bill Gullickson
- Tatsunori Hara (原 辰徳)
- Isao Harimoto (張本 勲)
- Tatsuro Hirooka (広岡 達郎)
- Tsuneo Horiuchi (堀内 恒夫)
- Gabe Kapler
- Masumi Kuwata (桑田 真澄) - P
- Tetsuharu Kawakami (川上 哲治)
- Norihiro Komada (駒田 徳広)
- Davey Johnson
- Chris Latham
- Shane Mack
- Hiromi Makihara (槙原 寛己)
- Hideki Matsui (松井 秀喜)
- Shigeo Nagashima (長嶋 茂雄)
- Kiyoshi Nakahata (中畑 清)
- Hiromitsu Ochiai (落合 博満)
- Hideki Okajima (岡島 秀樹)
- Sadaharu Oh (王 貞治)
- Roberto Petagine
- Tuffy Rhodes
- Masaki Saito (斎藤 雅樹)
- Eiji Sawamura (沢村 栄治)
- Kazunori Shinozuka (篠塚 和典)
- Reggie Smith
- Victor Starffin
- John Wasdin
- Roy White
- Clyde Wright
- Wally Kaname Yonamine (与那嶺 要)
[edit] Retired numbers
- Sadaharu Oh (王 貞治)
- Shigeo Nagashima (長嶋 茂雄)
- Toshio Kurosawa (黒沢 俊夫)
- Eiji Sawamura (沢村 栄治)
- Tetsuharu Kawakami (川上 哲治)
- Masaichi Kaneda (金田 正一)
[edit] The Giants as "Japan's team"
Due to the Yomiuri company's vast influence in Japan as a major media conglomerate, the Giants are successfully marketed to the Japanese people as "Japan's Team." Often, when asked who their favorite team is, a Japanese person will reportedly reply, "I'm Japanese, therefore I like the Giants." In fact, for some years the Giants' uniforms had "Tokyo" on the jersey instead of "Yomiuri" or "Giants," seeming to imply that the Giants represent the vast metropolis and geopolitical center of Japan, even though the Yakult Swallows are also based in Tokyo and three other teams play in the Greater Tokyo Area. This bandwagon appeal has been compared with the marketing of the New York Yankees or Manchester United to their fan bases. However, fans of other professional baseball teams in Japan are often openly derisive and contemptuous of the Giants' bandwagon marketing tactics.
It has also long been alleged that the Giants rely on underhanded tactics to recruit the best players, involving bribes to players and amateur coaches, or using their influence on the governing council of Japanese professional baseball to pass rules that favors their recruiting efforts. This may be one explanation for the Giants' abundance of success in league play.
[edit] Trivia
- Yomiuri Giants name and uniforms were based on the New York (now San Francisco) Giants. The teams colors (orange and black) are the same colors worn by the National League's Giants, both in New York and San Francisco. The stylized lettering on the team's jerseys and caps is similar to the fancy lettering used by the Giants when they played in New York in the 1930s, although during the 1970s the Giants modernized their lettering to follow the style worn by the American Giants.
- The Giants' main rivalry is with the Hanshin Tigers, a team especially popular in the Kansai region.
- 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 Yomiuri Giants were the luckiest team in professional baseball. Many journalists called the 1994 team the World Champions of Professional Baseball.
- Contact information: Yomiuri Giants, Takebashi 3-3 Building, 3-3 Kanda Nishiki-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-8462
[edit] External links
Yomiuri Giants Official Website
