Description
The Yomiuri Giants are the oldest Japanese professional baseball team and belong to the Central League. Their home stadium is Tokyo Dome in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, and their parent company is the Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings.
The team was founded in 1934 as ‘the Dainihon Tokyo Yakyu Club’, and in the following year, 1935, the team name was changed to ‘the Tokyo Kyojingun’. In 1947, the Yomiuri Shimbun, a newspaper company, got the management right of the team, and the team name was changed to ‘the Yomiuri Giants’.
The Giants have been the most strong and popular team. They have won 45 league championships, 22 Japan Series titles, and 1 Asian Championship title. The Giants are equivalent to the New York Yankees in MLB. From 1965 to 1973, they won nine straight victories in the pennant race and the Japan Series. This achievement has been passed down as ‘V9’ from generation to generation.
The leading players in those days were Shigeo Nagashima, a Japanese baseball legend, who was to lead the team to the Japan Series title, and Sadaharu Oh, who was called ‘world home run king and achieved 756 home runs, a world record, which exceeded the record set by Hank Aron. Sadaharu Oh hit a large number of home runs by using his original batting style called flamingo-style batting stance. He set a record of 868 career hits as a slugger of the Giants with many other Japanese baseball records, and became the first People’s Honor Award winner.
In 1992, Hideki Matsui , who was drafted first, joined the Yomiuri Giants. He played an active role as a big slugger of the Giants and led the team to their victory of the four league championships and the three Japan Series titles until he moved to the New York Yankees in 2003. He also won a lot of titles; three Batting Leaders, three Home Run Leaders, three Run Batted In Leaders, and three On Base Percentage Leaders.
Koji Uehara is from the Giants, too. He played for the Baltimore Orioles, the Texas Rangers, and the Boston Red Sox, and has belonged to the Chicago Cubs since 2017,
Uehara won 20 matches as a starter in his rookie year and played for the Giants from 1999 to 2008 with the four major titles of Winning Pitcher, Earned Run Average Leader, Strike Outs Leader, and Winning Percentage Leader as well as the rookie of the year and Sawamura Award bofore moving to the MLB. Osaka born right-handed pitcher was the ace of the Giants for a long time.
