Description
Chunichi Dragons are a Japanese professional baseball team and belong to the Central League. Their home stadium is Nagoya Dome in Higashi-ku, Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, and their parent company is Chunichi Shimbun Co.,Ltd.
The team was founded in 1936 as the Nagoyagun, a professional baseball team, owned by the Shinaichi Shimbun,( a newspaper company). Later, their parent company and team name were changed several times, and in 1954, Chunichi Shimbun became the owner of the team and the Chunichi Dragons were born, and since then they have been very active in the Japanese baseball world.
The Dragons have a record of nine league championships and two Japan Series tiles, but in fact because they won their 2007 Japan Series title by winning the Climax Series, their Japan Series title after winning the league championship is the only one title in 1954.
Senichi Hoshino was a leading player in the Chunichi Dragons. He joined the team drafted in the first round in 1968, and won 146 career games before his retirement. After the retirement, as a passionate manager nicknamed ‘ Tosho ( brave leader )’ and ‘Moeru Otoko ( passionate man )’, he made a great contribution to Dragons’ two league championships and eight Class-A stages.
Later, Hoshino led the Hanshin Tigers, which had been in a slump and the Rakuten Eagles to the league championships. He served as a manager of Japan National Baseball Team in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the Japan Team came in fourth.
In 1998, Kohsuke Fukudome was drafted in the first round and joined the Chunichi Dragons. He won two Batting Leader titles and three On Base Percentage titles, and also led the team to their three league championships and one Japan Series title before he moved to the Major League. In the Major League, he played for the Chicago Cubs, the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox, and set a record of 498 base hits and 42 home runs.
