The are a
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese baseball team based in
Fukuokais the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture and is situated on the northern shore of the island of Kyūshū in Japan, across the Korea Strait from South Korea's Busan....
,
Fukuoka Prefectureis a prefecture of Japan located on Kyūshū Island. The capital is the city of Fukuoka.- History :Fukuoka Prefecture includes the former provinces of Chikugo, Chikuzen, and Buzen....
. The team was bought on January 28, 2005 by SoftBank Corporation.
It was formerly known as Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. In 1988,
Daiei, based in Kobe, is one of the largest supermarket chains in Japan. In 1957, Isao Nakauchi founded the chain in Osaka near Sembayashi Station on the Keihan train line. Daiei is now under a restructuring process supported by Marubeni Corporation and ÆON Co., Ltd., another Japanese supermarket chain....
bought the team from
Osakais a city in Japan, located at the mouth of the Yodo River on Osaka Bay, in the Kansai region of the main island of Honshū.Osaka is a City in Japan and also is designated city under the Local Autonomy Law and the capital city of Osaka Prefecture...
's
Nankai Electric Railwayis a private railway in Japan. IC cards are accepted.Nankai was founded in 1884, then became one of the companies that merge to form Kintetsu in 1944, but separated again in 1947. Nankai predates all electric railways in the Tokyo region....
Co., and its headquarters was moved to Fukuoka. The Daiei Hawks won the
Pacific LeagueThe or is one of Japan's two major professional baseball leagues, the other being the Central League.It was founded as the Taiheiyo Baseball Union in 1949 with seven teams, the name changing to its current form in 1980...
championship in 1999, 2000 and 2003 and won the Japan Series in 1999 and 2003.
Nankai (1938 to mid-1944)
Kinki Nihon (mid-1944 to 1944)
Kinki Great Ring (1946 to mid-1947)
The name of the franchise started from Nankai when they joined the league, originated from the name of the owning company,
Nankai Electric Railway Co.is a private railway in Japan. IC cards are accepted.Nankai was founded in 1884, then became one of the companies that merge to form Kintetsu in 1944, but separated again in 1947. Nankai predates all electric railways in the Tokyo region....
. Since then, there are several changes in the team's name, sometimes by the pressure from the atmosphere of nationalism during the second world war and sometimes by the team's own will. However, the team had still belonged to Nankai Electric Railway Co. during that period. And finally the name of the team settled down to the Nankai Hawks in the middle of the 1947 season.
Nankai Hawks (mid-1947 to 1988)
The were one of the most successful franchises in the first two decades of the history of the
Pacific LeagueThe or is one of Japan's two major professional baseball leagues, the other being the Central League.It was founded as the Taiheiyo Baseball Union in 1949 with seven teams, the name changing to its current form in 1980...
with 2 Japan Series championships, and 10 Pacific League pennants.
But they fell on hard times and finished no better than the 4th place out of 6 teams in the league every year from 1978 to 1988. During that period, the team had constantly lost its fan base and attendance and the profit turned into huge deficits, even after the advertising effect of the franchise was considered. The board of directors and the union consistently put pressure on Den Kawakatsu, then-president of the Nankai Electric Railway Co. and owner of the team, to sell the team , which he refused to do.
However, Mr. Kawakatsu, the biggest supporter of the team in the Nankai Electric Railway, died in 1988, and the team was sold to the Daiei corporation to become the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks after the 1988 season.
Katsuya Nomurawas one of Nippon Professional Baseball's greatest players as a catcher and is a long-time manager, currently serving as the skipper of the Rakuten Golden Eagles of NPB's Pacific League.-Career:...
, Mutsuo Minagawa,
Hiromitsu Kadotawas a Japanese professional baseball player for the Nankai Hawks, Orix Braves and Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. He was known for his slugging ability. He ate much and became a strong hitter though he is suffered from diabetes mellitus even now. He hit 44 home runs at the age of 40 in 1988. He was retired...
, Chusuke Kizuka, Kohei Sugiyama are considered as the franchise players of the Nankai era.
Fukuoka Daiei Hawks (1988 to 2004)
After the franchise was acquired by department store chain Daiei, Inc., the Hawks were flush with new funds, and a new home city in Fukuoka, the capital of the eponymous prefecture on Kyushu Island. However, in spite of those efforts of the new ownership, the Hawks still remained to be a mediocre team in the Pacific League, and continued to be at the bottom half of the league until 1997.
However, when new faces were brought in through the draft, the fortunes of the Hawks started to look up. Future stars that were drafted included current
Seattle MarinersThe Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle, Washington. Enfranchised in , the Mariners are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League...
catcher
Kenji JohjimaKenji Johjima is a catcher who is currently a free agent. He played in Major League Baseball for four years with the Seattle Mariners in the American League....
, infielders
Hiroki KokuboHiroki Kokubo is a professional baseball player from Wakayama, Japan. He currently plays for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks in the Japanese Pacific League....
,
Tadahito Iguchiis a second baseman currently playing for the Chiba Lotte Marines.Iguchi began playing in high school and after graduating in 1993, went to Aoyama Gakuin University where he distinguished himself by hitting the Tohto University Baseball League record of eight home runs in a season and winning the...
,
Nobuhiko Matsunakais a left fielder and designated hitter for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.Matsunaka is the only active hitter in Japanese professional baseball to have ever led the league in all three Triple Crown categories in the same season...
, an outfielder
Hiroshi Shibaharais a professional baseball outfielder for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball.-External links:...
, pitchers Kazumi Saitoh,
Toshiya Sugiuchiis a left-handed starting pitcher for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.Sugiuchi was the Eiji Sawamura Award winner in . He has had some of the most international experience of any active Japanese baseball player, pitching in the 2000 Sydney and 2008 Beijing Olympics as well as the 2006 and 2009 World...
,
Tsuyoshi Wadais a left-handed starting pitcher for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.Wada pitched in the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympics as well as the 2006 World Baseball Classic for the Japanese national team...
,
Nagisa Arakakiis a professional baseball player for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball. Despite having one of the best fastballs of anyone in the league, Arakaki has battled control problems and injuries throughout his career...
and
Takahiro Maharais a right-handed pitcher for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball. He played in the 2006 World Baseball Classic.-External links:...
. They begun to rebound after that and re-established themselves as one of the premier Pacific League teams in the late 1990s.
Even with shaky financial ground looming up until Daiei's sale of the team in 2004, the Hawks were competitive every year from 1999 on, winning the
Japan Series, or is a seven-game championship played by the teams of Japan's two professional baseball leagues .The Series is the highest level of play in professional baseball in Japan. It is usually played in October or November. As in all of the best of seven series, the first team to win four games is...
against the
Chunichi DragonsThe are a professional baseball team based in Nagoya, the chief city in the Chubu region of Japan. The team is in the Central League. They won the 2007 Japan Series and Konami Cup Asia Series 2007.- History :...
in 1999, making a Japan Series against the Hideki Matsui-led
Yomiuri GiantsThe are a professional baseball team based in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. The team competes in the Central League of Japan's top-tier major league, Nippon Professional Baseball, and they play their home games in the Tokyo Dome, opened in 1988...
in 2000, and winning a second Japan Series title as the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in 2003 against the
Hanshin TigersThe are a Nippon Professional Baseball team based in Koshien, Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and are in the Central League. Hanshin Electric Railway Co., Ltd., the subsidiary of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Inc., owns the Hanshin Tigers directly...
.
In 2001, American
Karl "Tuffy" RhodesKarl Derrick "Tuffy" Rhodes is a professional baseball player, currently playing his 11th season of Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan...
, playing for the
Kintetsu BuffaloesThe was a Nippon Professional Baseball team based in Osaka, Japan, which were in the Pacific League. The team was owned by Kinki Nippon Railway Co. and later sold to the Orix Group, the owner of the Orix BlueWave baseball team, in 2004...
, hit 55 home runs with several games left, equalling Hawks' manager
Sadaharu OhSadaharu Oh or officially Wang Chenchih , is a former baseball player and manager of the Yomiuri Giants in Nippon Professional Baseball and is the former manager of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. He holds the world record for home runs in a top league, having hit 868 in his career...
's single-season home run record. The Buffaloes played the Oh-managed Fukuoka Hawks on a late weekend series in Fukuoka. Rhodes was intentionally walked during each at-bat. Hawks catcher Kenji Johjima could be seen grinning as he caught the intentional balls. Oh denied any involvement and Hawks battery coach Yoshiharu Wakana stated that the pitchers acted on his orders, saying, "It would be distasteful to see a foreign player break Oh's record." Rhodes completed the season with 55 home runs. League commissioner Hiromori Kawashima denounced the Hawks' behavior as "unsportsmanlike." Hawks pitcher Keizaburo Tanoue went on record saying that he wanted to throw strikes to Rhodes and felt bad about the situation.
In 2002, Venezuelan
Alex CabreraAlex Cabrera is a Venezuelan first baseman and right-handed batter who played in Major League Baseball for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Nippon Professional Baseball for the Seibu Lions in Japan...
hit 55 home runs with five games left in the season and his team played Oh's Hawks. Oh told his pitchers to throw strikes to Cabrera, but most of them ignored his order and threw balls well away from the plate. After the game, Oh stated, "If you're going to break the record, you should do it by more than one. Do it by a lot." In the wake of the most recent incident involving Cabrera,
ESPNESPN is an American cable television network dedicated to broadcasting and producing sports-related programming 24 hours a day....
listed Oh's single-season home run record as #2 on its list of "The Phoniest Records in Sports."
Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks (2005-)
The Hawks continued their winning ways even after the sale of the team to
SoftBankis a Japanese telecommunications and media corporation, with operations in broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-Commerce, Internet, broadmedia, technology services, finance, media and marketing, and other businesses....
. One of the richest teams in Japan, the Hawks core is still intact from the last years of the Daiei era, especially the starting pitching of Saitoh,
Tsuyoshi Wadais a left-handed starting pitcher for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.Wada pitched in the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympics as well as the 2006 World Baseball Classic for the Japanese national team...
,
Nagisa Arakakiis a professional baseball player for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball. Despite having one of the best fastballs of anyone in the league, Arakaki has battled control problems and injuries throughout his career...
, and
Toshiya Sugiuchiis a left-handed starting pitcher for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.Sugiuchi was the Eiji Sawamura Award winner in . He has had some of the most international experience of any active Japanese baseball player, pitching in the 2000 Sydney and 2008 Beijing Olympics as well as the 2006 and 2009 World...
. In 2005, the Hawks fell to the eventual
Japan Series, or is a seven-game championship played by the teams of Japan's two professional baseball leagues .The Series is the highest level of play in professional baseball in Japan. It is usually played in October or November. As in all of the best of seven series, the first team to win four games is...
champions, the
Chiba Lotte MarinesThe are a professional baseball team in Japan's Pacific League, based in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, in the Kantō region.-History:The Chiba Lotte Marines franchise began in 1950 with the birth of the Pacific League. The Marines were founded as the Mainichi Orions, and they won the inaugural...
in the playoffs despite a second-place finish. In 2006, a dramatic pennant race led to an even more exciting playoff run that ended in Sapporo Dome to the hands of the eventual Japan Series Champions, the
Hokkaido Nippon Ham FightersThe are a Japanese professional baseball team based in Sapporo, Hokkaidō. They compete in the Pacific League of Nippon Professional Baseball, playing the majority of their home games at the Sapporo Dome. The Fighters also host a select number of regional home games in cities across Hokkaidō,...
. Team manager Sadaharu Oh missed most of the season due to stomach cancer.
The 2007 season saw injuries, ineffectiveness, and inconsistency leading to another 3rd-place finish, and another first-stage exit at the hands of the Marines. In 2008, though various injuries still affected the Hawks' bench (especially the bullpen), they would claim their first Interleague title in June, winning a tiebreaker against
Hanshin TigersThe are a Nippon Professional Baseball team based in Koshien, Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and are in the Central League. Hanshin Electric Railway Co., Ltd., the subsidiary of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Inc., owns the Hanshin Tigers directly...
. However, their injuries caught up with them in the final month of the season, and the Hawks finished in last place, 54-74-2, their worst season since 1996. At the end of the 2008 season, Oh announced his retirement, and former Hawk and fan favorite
Koji AkiyamaKoji Akiyama is a retired professional baseball player for the Seibu Lions and the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball...
was named as Oh's successor.
2003
Daiei Inc of Japan had a 60% ownership stake in the team. Daiei Inc., under financial pressure, agreed to sell the team as well as the
Fukuoka DomeThe is a baseball field located in Fukuoka, Japan. The stadium serves as the headquarters of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. In 2005, Yahoo! Japan, one of SoftBank's subsidiaries, bought the stadium's naming rights for five years term, and thus renamed it or abbreviated as until 2009.Built in 1993,...
and the Sea Hawk Hotel.
2004
In August, Daiei's was in discussion with its primary lenders, including UFJ Bank, to avoid having to sell the Daiei Hawks.
Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks Era
- OF - P(a.k.a. C.J. Nitkowski in the MLB) - P - OF, DH - 3B - 2B (Currently with Cincinnati Reds MLB) - IF - C (Currently with Seattle Mariners MLB) - DH
Honored numbers
Through not officially, Hawks honoured 90, which belongs to Yasutake Kageura, a fictional character from Japanese Baseball manga
Abu-sanis a baseball manga by Shinji Mizushima that has been serialized in Big Comic Original since 1973. It tells the story of fictionall baseball player '. Despite enjoying a long serialization spanning over 30 years, it has received no anime or live-action adaptations...
(which he was in the team since Nankai Hawks era). This is the only squad number honored to a fictional manga character in NPB.
Sadaharu OhSadaharu Oh or officially Wang Chenchih , is a former baseball player and manager of the Yomiuri Giants in Nippon Professional Baseball and is the former manager of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. He holds the world record for home runs in a top league, having hit 868 in his career...
's 89 was originally planned to be retired or honoured after his retirement, but Oh would like to give the number to the successor, but his successor, Akiyama, declined Oh's request because it is too honorable to bear Oh's number, especially right after Oh's retirement. The number's fate is currently unknown. Instead, Akiyama decided to take #81.
Mascot
Hawks has the largest number of mascots in
NPBNPB can refer to:* The National Printing Bureau of Japan* Nippon Professional Baseball, the highest level of professional baseball in Japan* The National Parole Board...
,
Hawk family. The current family member since 1992 as follows:
- Harry Hawk-a yellow colored hawk with Number 100, Harry supports the team as the main mascot. He is the youngest brother of Homer Hawk, the former main mascot.
- Honey Hawk- a pink colored female hawk, Honey is a girlfriend of Harry, and the cheer leader of Hawks' dancing team, Honeys.
- Harculy Hawk-an orange based hawk with Number 200, Harcury is Harry's teammate as well as his longstanding rival since Hawk University days.
- Honkey Hawk- a middle aged hawk, Honkey is Harry's uncle, and the mayor of Hawks Town. He loves Baseball.
- Helen Hawk- a middle aged female hawk, Helen is Honkey's wife. They have eloped during their high school days.
- Huck Hawk-Harry's nephew. He wears red-lined T shirts and the same color cap.
- Rick Hawk- Harry's nephew and middle of Hawk brothers. Rick wears glasses and blue-lined T shirts and the same color cap.
- Hock Hawk-Harry's nephew and youngest brother of Huck and Rick. He wears a green-lined T shirts and the same color cap.
2007
J-Pop group
AAA (band)AAA, pronounced as and also known as Attack All Around, is a Japanese pop band signed to the label Avex Trax which debuted in September 2005...
released ざゆけ若鷹軍団2007 (Izayuke Wakataka Gundan 2007) as a single.
External links
Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks official web site