Senators and Tokyo eras In 1946,
Saburo Yokozawa, manager of the
Tokyo Senators in 1936–1937 (and later a prominent umpire), looked to revive the franchise and soon founded the new
Senators. He assembled a team of ready and able players like
Hiroshi Oshita,
Shigeya Iijima and
Giichiro Shiraki, but as a newly formed team the Senators faced strict fiscal management and resorted to using hand-me-down uniforms from the Hankyu Railway's pre-war team (who would eventually become the modern-day
Orix Buffaloes). Former Japanese statesman
Kinkazu Saionji, grandson of the influential
Kinmochi Saionji, became the team's owner, and
Noboru Oride, borrowing heavily from a
Ginza cabaret proprietor, became the team's sponsor. Eventually, trapped by a lack of funds, Yokozawa was forced to resign as the team's manager. For a time, the team was even mockingly nicknamed "Seito" (Bluestockings) after a Japanese
feminist magazine
of the same name. As the
Yomiuri Giants' pet name was "Kyojin", baseball personality
Soutaro Suzuki thought that other teams should also have pet names like the Giants, and names such as the
Osaka Tigers' alias "Mouko" (fierce tiger), the Senators' "Seito" and the
Pacific's "Taihei" (tranquility) began to be used by the
press. However, the other teams rejected the use of these pet names, so they were not fully adopted. On January 7, 1947, the team was sold to the
Tokyu Corporation. The Tokyu baseball club was inaugurated into the league, and the team's name became the
Tokyu Flyers. At that time Tokyu dominated the Japanese transportation sector, owning several other railway companies, although it was faced with troubles and the possibility of a breakup. Tokyu purchased the team to act as a banner of solidarity for the swelling company, and managing director
Hiroshi Okawa assumed ownership of the club. The newly born Flyers, with
Hiroshi Oshita becoming one of the most popular players in the
league, began to attract many fans, but the team's administration still went into a deficit. With the formation of the
National Baseball League drawing nearer, in 1948 the not-yet-affiliated
Daiei club, which had played a few exhibition games against the
Otsuka Athletics, joined with Tokyu to create the
Kyuei Flyers ("Kyuei" being a
portmanteau of the two companies' names). However, Daiei decided to purchase a separate team, the
Kinsei Stars, and after only one year the Flyers reverted to their former name. During the off-season of 1949, the Flyers joined the
Pacific League after the former league split. In September 1953, the team completed a new ballpark—
Komazawa Stadium—along one of Tokyu's train lines in
Setagaya, Tokyo, moving from
Bunkyo ward's
Korakuen Stadium. The Flyers' wild play on the field eventually earned them the nickname, "Komazawa's hooligans".
Toei and Nittaku eras On February 1, 1954, Tokyu entrusted the management of the Flyers to the
Toei Company, of which Okawa had newly become president. Toei transferred control of the club to a subsidiary company, Toei Kogyo (industrial enterprise). The team's name was changed to the
Toei Flyers, and its legal name consequently became the Toei Flyers Baseball Club. This name stuck for nineteen years. In 1961, when Yomiuri Giants manager
Shigeru Mizuhara resigned from his position, Okawa attempted to woo him to join his team, bringing him to a bar in
Kyoto and calling famous movie producer
Koji Shundo to meet with them. Shundo, an old drinking buddy of Mizuhara's, convinced the four-time
Japan Series champion manager to join the Flyers, and he solidified a strong relationship with Okawa and Toei Studios. Komazawa Stadium was to be torn down to make way for the 1964
Tokyo Summer Olympics, so in 1962 the Flyers moved their base of operations to
Meiji Jingu Stadium in
Shinjuku. (At that time, college baseball teams had priority at Meiji Jingu, so during weekends or other times when school games were being played the Flyers had to use Korakuen or another field for their games.) In the same year, two star aces,
Masayuki Dobashi and Yukio Ozaki, blossomed under Mizuhara's coaching and the Flyers captured their first league championship. They would go on to defy odds in the Japan Series and defeat the Hanshin Tigers for their first Japan Series title. This championship would be their only one in the Toei era. The
Kokutetsu Swallows jointly occupied Meiji Jingu with the Flyers the following season, and in 1964 the Flyers went back to their old home, Korakuen, also home of the
Yomiuri Giants; both the Fighters and Giants would share a home for the next 39 years. The Flyers assembled a group of powerful sluggers over the next few years—among them:
Isao Harimoto, Katsuo Osugi,
Inchon Bek, and
Shoichi Busujima—but on top of a declining movie industry and the "
Black Mist" match-fixing scandal that rocked the professional baseball world in 1970 (after which Flyers ace
Toshiaki Moriyasu was banned from the game for life), in 1971 Flyers owner Okawa died suddenly.
Shigeru Okada, who did not view Okawa favorably, took over Toei after his death. Together with
Noboru Goto, company president of Tokyu and loyal friend of Okada (and one who also thought unfavorably of Okawa), Okada let go of the unprofitable team. The team was sold to
Akitaka Nishimura of the
Nittaku Home real estate enterprise, a common acquaintance of Okada and Goto, on February 7, 1973. The team's name became the
Nittaku Home Flyers. Nishimura, in an attempt to inject life back into the unpopular Pacific League, developed seven different uniforms for his team and experimented in every aspect of the team's operation, but the effort failed to produce results. Believing that the Pacific League's chances of survival were grim, Nishimura was on the verge of partnering with the
Lotte Orions, who were eyeing a league reunification. When the deal fell through, Nishimura, tired of the baseball establishment, resigned from his leadership position and abandoned the Flyers.
Nippon-Ham era On November 19, 1973, meatpacking company
Nippon Ham purchased the team, led by owner Yoshinori Okoso. Okoso had bought the team as he was willing to bring them back to prominence when essentially no one wanted them. He loved them to death, so much so that he never held any company meetings when the team was playing, and if where he was at, they were not on TV or radio, he would dispatch employees to go to that game and update him via
payphone. The club's name was changed to the
Nippon-Ham Fighters, its official name became the Nippon-Ham Baseball Corporation.
Osamu Mihara became the team president and
Futoshi Nakanishi, Mihara's son-in-law, as its manager. After 27 years, the "Flyers" nickname was abandoned. The "Fighters" nickname was born from a public appeal by the team's management. A female high school student from
Okayama prefecture submitted the winning name, giving the reasoning that "(former Fighters player)
Katsuo Osugi has guts, so he's a fighter." Osugi would be traded to the
Yakult Swallows soon after the Fighters were rechristened. The same would be for
Zainichi Korean Isao Harimoto, as Nakanishi hated Harimoto for challenging his authority, going nearly as far as trying to release him. This was also because Harimoto was upset that the FIghters sent away Osugi, and that he was the only reason he stuck around. In fact, when the then-Flyers attempted to trade Osugi to the Hanshin Tigers for Yutaka Enatsu (who the Fighters would ironically get later), Harimoto went to the front office and demanded they immediately cancel the trade. However, Okoso did not want to let him go, as Nippon-Ham had a major presence in South Korea, and it did wonders for sales having one of the greatest Koreans play for them, and having traded their other Korean player,
Baek In-chun, to the Taiheyo Club Lions in 1974, Okoso was worried Nippon-Ham would completely lose their presence in South Korea. Mihara, however, persisted, and they nearly sent him to the Hanshin Tigers, before the Yomiuri Giants made a convincing last-minute deal to send him there instead. Over the four seasons between 1974 and 1977, the Fighters dwelled at the bottom of the Pacific League, but after improving to finishing in third place for three straight years between 1978 and 1980, manager
Keiji Osawa finally led the Fighters to their second Pacific League pennant in 1981. With saves leader
Yutaka Enatsu and starter
Shigekuni Mashiba (who went 15–0 over the season) forming the heart of the pitching staff, the Fighters shined with offensive sluggers
Tony Solaita,
Junichi Kashiwabara, and
Tommy Cruz. The team that year also featured various important players of smaller stature, like
Makoto Shimada and
Nobuhiro Takashiro. They would go on to play the Yomiuri Giants in the Japan Series, where the Fighters lost in six games. At the time, the franchise shared Korakuen Stadium with the Giants, so scheduling games throughout the season for both teams posed a problem. League schedulers tried to avoid putting the Fighters and the Giants at Korakuen on the same day, but when they both had home games scheduled, league officials made the implicit decision that the Giants would play during the day and the Fighters during the night. One novel aspect of the Fighters was that they attracted armies of grade-school boys to sit in the outfield stands on weekend games under a "Young Boys’ Fan Club" promotion, starting the first organized
fan club in Japanese professional baseball. During the 1980s the Fighters hosted many of the Pacific League's leading pitchers, including
Isamu Kida (led the P.L. with 22 wins in his rookie year in 1980; won
MVP,
Rookie of the Year the same year),
Mikio Kudō (20 wins in 1982),
Hiroshi Tsuno (recorded double-digit win totals in several years throughout the mid-eighties) and
Yasumitsu Shibata (three-time All Star; recorded no-hitter in 1990).
Yukihiro Nishizaki particularly stood out, recording 15 wins and an
ERA under three in each of his first two years (though the Rookie of the Year title eluded him), racking up seven double-digit win seasons over the course of his eleven-year stay with the Fighters and gaining a considerable following from female fans due to his easy-going demeanor. In 1986 shortstop
Yukio Tanaka joined the club; he remained with the team for 22 seasons, becoming known as "Mr. Fighters". From 1988 until the move to
Hokkaidō, the Fighters played their home games in
Tokyo Dome, the stadium that replaced their longtime home Korakuen. After the Dome was finished, the pitching dominance of Yukihiro Nishizaki and Yasumitsu Shibata began to emerge. Keiji Osawa came out of retirement to manage the team for a third time in 1993, only to see his team sink to the bottom of the standings; he gained notoriety for kneeling to the fans at the end of that season, begging for their forgiveness. With the Fighters experiencing more managerial troubles in 1996, then-manager
Toshiharu Ueda suddenly took a personal leave during a pennant race with the
Orix BlueWave, eventually causing the Fighters to fade over the last month of the season. However, new life was born in Tokyo Dome in 1998. Hitters such as
Nigel Wilson,
Jerry Brooks,
Yukio Tanaka,
Atsushi Kataoka,
Katsuhiro Nishiura and a young
Michihiro Ogasawara formed what became known as the
Big Bang lineup and subsequently shattered various batting records. They ran away with first place for the first half of the season, but a pitching collapse in the second half caused a fall of historical proportions. The Fighters would ultimately finish in second place to the
Seibu Lions.
Hokkaido Nippon-Ham era Prior to the 2002 season, the idea of moving the Fighters to
Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaidō and Japan's fifth largest city, emerged. The Seibu Lions also had preliminary plans to move to the northern metropolis. Tokyo's Fighters fans voiced their opposition to the proposed relocation (though the franchise never drew as many fans as their co-habitual counterparts, the Giants, while playing in the capital), but it was eventually announced that the team would indeed call the
Sapporo Dome its new home beginning in 2004. Aiming to build a
grassroots relationship with its future fans, the team decided to change its name to the
Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. At first, with the unhappy Seibu Lions suddenly changing their approval vote, Giants owner
Tsuneo Watanabe and Seibu owner
Yoshiaki Tsutsumi voiced their concerns over the move. They believed that Nippon Ham's choice to move the team would spur a decentralization in Japanese professional baseball, and they threatened that a decrease in the number of teams in the
Kantō and
Kansai regions should merit a one-league system instead of two. As a matter of fact, the question of reorganizing baseball's league structure eventually became a bigger issue than the sale and renaming of the
Kintetsu Buffaloes. The issue eventually settled down, though, and the Fighters' relocation was eventually approved by the league. The response from the people of Hokkaidō was weak, but NPB fans welcomed the move, noting that the Fighters could now be free from the Tokyo Dome's high rent and perpetual second-billing to the Giants. Out of respect for the Tokyo-based Fighters fans, the team decided to schedule a few "home" games per season at the Tokyo Dome. After the move finally was complete in 2004, the Fighters signed former Tigers superstar
Tsuyoshi Shinjo, who came back to NPB from MLB after playing with the
New York Mets and nearly winning a World Series title with the
San Francisco Giants, and a revitalized
Fernando Seguignol. American manager
Trey Hillman led the team to success in his second year on the job, and, at the end of the season, the Fighters were in a fierce race with the
Chiba Lotte Marines for the final spot in the new P.L. playoff system. With a vital win over the
Orix BlueWave on September 24, the newly moved Fighters earned a trip to the postseason, advancing to play Seibu in a three-game series. Though they put up a strong effort against Seibu ace
Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Fighters lost the first game of the series 6–5. They took Game 2 by a score of 5–4. In the decisive third game, the Fighters fought back in the ninth inning after trailing for the whole game but ultimately fell to a
Kazuhiro Wada walk-off home run, losing 6–5. The Fighters would have to wait for another chance for the P.L. pennant. During the pennant race, the Fighters began selling tickets for infield reserved seats at a low 1,500 yen price point, in an attempt to draw fans to the park. At and after 7:30 pm, usually well after the first pitch, the team began selling special child-fare tickets called "730 Tickets" (they started the same promotion at the Tokyo Dome in 2005). In addition to these, in 2005 they added extra-low priced tickets, discount parking passes and beer coupons to attract more fans. As a result of these promotions, and partially due to the rising popularity of young pitcher
Yu Darvish, drafted the year before, the left field stands became constantly sold out for exhibition games, regular season games and playoff games, filled with loud and raucous
Ōendan. Even the right field stands, usually occupied by the visiting team's fans, began to fill with Fighters supporters. In 2005, the Fighters drew over one million fans for the first time since 1993, ranking second in the P.L. after the
Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. Also in 2005, a previously unknown manager,
Shigeru Takada, became the club's first general manager. On April 27, owner
Yoshinori Ohkoso died. The Fighters retired the number 100 in his honor four years later, a first in club history (also the first retired number for owners in NPB; in North American Major League Baseball, the
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (
Gene Autry, 26) and
St. Louis Cardinals (
August A. Busch Jr., 85) have retired numbers, and in
Minor League Baseball, the
Kannapolis Cannon Ballers (
Dale Earnhardt Sr., 3) are the most notable team owners with retired numbers). The number 100 was chosen because, when the Fighters won the 1981 Pacific League pennant, their first under Nippon-Ham, Okoso was given a ceremonial jersey number of 100.
Yukio Tanaka reached a career 1,000
RBI total, and
Makoto Kaneko joined the 1,000
hit club in the same year. On September 20, the Lions smashed the Fighters at home, crushing the Fighters’ hopes of making the playoffs for the second year in a row. In the offseason, the Fighters acquired
Major League veteran
José Macías, and, as former number one starter
Yusaku Iriki tried his luck in America, the club attempted to sign
Kazuhisa Ishii, but failed. In the draft, the team selected pitchers
Tomoya Yagi and
Masaru Takeda. And before the 2006 season,
Shigeyuki Furuki and
Kazunari Sanematsu were traded to the Giants for pitcher
Hideki Okajima. The 2006 season would turn out to be a monumental one for the Fighters. After defeating the
Tokyo Yakult Swallows on the final day of interleague play, the Fighters went on an eleven-game winning streak, the best such streak for the franchise in over 45 years and tying the team record. After achieving the feat, the team had a six- and a seven-game winning streak, demonstrating to the rest of the P.L. that they were a dangerous club. A fierce struggle for first place developed between the Fighters, Lions and Hawks. On September 27, the Fighters emerged in first place, earning the title "Regular Season Champions". They also boasted the best team ERA (3.05) and the best team
home run total (135) in the NPB. Yu Darvish had an especially impressive year, winning 12 games and posting an ERA of 2.89, establishing himself as the ace of the Fighters’ staff. The Fighters swept the Hawks in the second stage of the P.L. playoffs to earn their third pennant. In the Japan Series, the team won their first Japanese championship in 44 years, defeating the
Chunichi Dragons in five games. Fittingly, Darvish pitched for the win in the final game of the series. The series' MVP honors went to Fighters' outfielder
Atsunori Inaba, who hit for a .357
batting average during the series with one home run and six RBIs. The championship win was especially fitting for OF Tsuyoshi Shinjo, who was a longtime veteran of the Hanshin Tigers (who were perennial losers), and also had played for a brief time in the United States'
Major League Baseball. It was Shinjo's ultimate desire to win a championship, and he did in the final year of his illustrious career in Japan with Nippon-Ham. Shinjo would return 14 years later for a tryout, but failed to qualify. He, however, would go on to be later named manager. This victory gave the Fighters a berth in the four-team
Asia Series, in which the team went undefeated in the round-robin and won the final 1–0 over the
La New Bears. The 2006 offseason saw the departure of two of Nippon-Ham's best players, both via free agency. First baseman
Michihiro Ogasawara was signed to a blockbuster contract with the
Yomiuri Giants, and left-handed reliever
Hideki Okajima departed to the
Boston Red Sox. At the start of the 2007 season, Nippon-Ham had a lot of trouble scoring runs, relying far too much on their pitching, despite the continuing maturation of Yu Darvish, who had back-to-back complete-game, 14-strikeout performances early in the season. At one point, Nippon Ham was second-to-last in the
Pacific League, but was able to turn it around. With the start of Interleague play, Nippon-Ham began a 14-game winning streak, which ended on June 9 with a 3–2 extra-inning loss to the
Yakult Swallows, with the bullpen wasting another great performance by Darvish. The Fighters went on to win the Pacific League championship and went through the Climax Series to earn a second consecutive trip to the Japan Series to once again face the Chunichi Dragons. But in a reversal of roles from the prior year, the Fighters took Game 1, but the Dragons took the next four games to defeat the Fighters; the last of which being a combined perfect game by Dragons pitchers Daisuke Yamai and Hitoki Iwase. In 2007,
Yukio Tanaka's final season, he recorded his 2,000th career hit, during a May 15 game against the
Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. The Fighters would win the Pacific League championship again in 2009 and 2012, but they would lose both times in the Japan Series to the Yomiuri Giants. In 2012, the Fighters drafted
Shohei Ohtani, who made his debut in 2013. Despite Ohtani wanting to play for MLB, the Fighters drafted him anyways, as they would have lost him to an MLB team. Ohtani signed with the Fighters nonetheless. With his ability to both pitch and hit, he quickly became a star for the team. He was selected as an NPB all-star five times and was named
Pacific League MVP in 2016. Behind Ohtani, the Fighters returned to the Japan Series in
2016, facing the
Hiroshima Toyo Carp. After dropping the first two games on the road, the Fighters rallied to win the next four games en route to their first championship since 2006. In 2017, the Fighters drafted
Kotaro Kiyomiya, a child prodigy entering the draft with high expectations and a number-one overall pick. The Fighters got his contract negotiation rights after winning a lottery in the draft between six other NPB teams. As Japan would soon find out, however, he became a draft bust. What made it even worse was
Munetaka Murakami, also on Kiyomiya's draft class, who was drafted by the Swallows after losing out to him, was hitting more home runs than him at a rapid pace and already won a Japan Series title with the Swallows. As of 2022, Kiyomiya only had 21 home runs, while Murakami already had 104, and became the youngest NPB player to hit 100 home runs, at only 22 years old. Kiyomiya also did not play on the first squad in 2021. Kiyomiya was also being plagued by injuries, whilst Murakami managed to stay healthy and has played the full 143-game schedule with the Swallows. However, in recent years, Kiyomiya would develop himself into a better player; by 2024, he was back as a regular on the Fighters top team. In 2017, Ohtani left the Fighters to sign with the
Los Angeles Angels. On January 8, 2018, the Fighters signed a partnership agreement with the
Texas Rangers to exchange scouting info with each other and the Rangers will share advice to the Fighters for their plans to build ES-CON Field Hokkaido. ES-CON Field plans would be similar to the then-under construction
Globe Life Field in
Arlington. Both ballparks would have mixed use community districts, and similar structure, hence why both ballparks look very similar. Also, this was due to the stadium being designed by
HKS Architects, who also designed Globe Life Field. In October 2021, the Fighters replaced longtime manager
Hideki Kuriyama, who went on to become manager of
Samurai Japan, with former player
Tsuyoshi Shinjo. He is best known for winning
his first Japan Series title in his last game before retirement. On January 21, 2022, new manager
Tsuyoshi Shinjo unveiled a new logo and uniform for the Fighters. The response from fans was mixed to mostly negative. Fans often compared their jerseys to the
Toronto Blue Jays due to the font they used. On March 24, 2022, Shinjo was approved by the NPB to be registered as "BIGBOSS" for the
2022 season. On September 28, 2022, the Fighters played their final game at Sapporo Dome, an 11–3 loss to the Chiba Lotte Marines and the team finished the season with the worst record in the NPB. After the game, it was announced that Tsuyoshi Shinjo would continue being manager for the 2023 season, but he will not wear "BIGBOSS" on his jersey, and that the BIGBOSS persona would be retired. They would again fare poorly in the 2023 season, finishing with the 3rd worst record in the NPB, primarily thanks to the team suffering a 14 game losing streak in the middle of the year, including 7 straight games of losing by a lone run. However, one of the biggest standouts that year was from Japanese-Congo player
Chusei Mannami, who finished with the second most home runs in Pacific League, hitting 25, just below
Gregory Polanco,
Kensuke Kondoh, and
Hideto Asamura, who all hit 26 each. He also became the second player in NPB history to hit a lead-off and walk-off home run in the same game against the Hawks in September. 2024 would prove to be a standout year for the Fighters, finally making the playoffs for the first time since 2018, with a record of 75-60-8, finishing in second place. Among individual accomplishments included Chusei Mannami winning his second Golden Glove award, new foreign signing
Franmil Reyes making the Best Nine for the Pacific League, alongside breaking Fernando Seguignol's Fighters record for most consecutive games with a hit at 25 games, and
Shun Mizutani, whom the Fighters acquired from the Hawks in the active player draft, having a breakout season, culminating in him winning Interleague MVP. In the postseason, after going down in the first game against the Chiba Lotte Marines, and seeming to be going down in the second, with Shinjo stating he wasn't going to use team ace
Hiromi Itoh, because he thought he would be needed for the Final Stage against the Hawks, Mannami would hit a game tying home run off
Naoya Masuda, then
Daiki Asama would then hit a walk-off hit an inning later. After winning the third game, the Fighters would advance to the Final Stage, where they would get swept by the Hawks in three games, with SoftBank getting a one-game advantage. == The Fox Dance ==