Les légendes des Nippon-Ham Fighters, Kensuke Tanaka, Michihiro Ogasawara, Masaki Mimura, Yukio Tanaka, Yukihiro Nishizaki et Junichi Kashiwabara, se sont réunis pour lancer le premier lancer cérémonial à l’ES CON Field. 2024 marque le 50e anniversaire de la propriété de Nippon-Ham et du surnom des Fighters.
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Par thecursedlexus
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Masaki Miura*
The Club was founded in 1946, and was originally a revival of the Tokyo Senators, but financial and legal troubles led to the team being sold to the Tokyu Group a year later, creating the Toei Flyers. Tokyu then offloaded them on to one of its subsidiaries, the Toei Group, in the early 50s, with Toei keeping the team when it broke away.
Then the black mist scandal happened. With two of their pitchers being invovled in the yakuza sports betting racket (one was suspended, the other banned for life) Toei offloaded the team onto Nittaku Home, who did an impressive job of making everything worse. Nittaku Home originally planned sell the team to Lotte, who would merge them with the Orions, but the league stepped in to block the move.
Yoshinori Okoso, who’d founded Nippon-Ham in 1946, was contacted by one of his old schoolmates, team president and NPB Hall of Famer Osamu Mihara, who begged him to buy the team. Okoso bought them and saved the franchise, and renamed them the Fighters. The number 100 now hangs in the rafters in reference to Okoso, who sadly passed away the year before the team won their first title under NH’s ownership. It’s also why all the players are wearing 100.
Each player represents one of the 6 jerseys the club wore before they adopted their current unis 3 years ago.
That stadium looks nice
Fighters win it 8-3 on this day.