Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks
Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks founded in 1938 |
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earlier names) |
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league |
Pacific League |
Ball park (s) |
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successes |
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Website : softbankhawks.co.jp |
The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks ( Japanese 福岡 ソ フ ト バ ン ク ホ ー ク ス , fukuoka sofutobanku hōkusu ) are a Japanese professional baseball team. You play in the Pacific League and have won the Nihon Series seven times so far . The owner is the media company SoftBank . Fukuoka is the home of the Hawks and they play their home games in the Fukuoka Dome .
history
The team is one of the oldest professional teams in Japanese baseball. As Nankai-gun ( 南海 軍 ) of the railway company Nankai Tetsudō , she took part in the game operation of the professional league founded two years earlier from autumn 1938. It was initially located in the Sakai-Ōhama baseball stadium ( 堺 大 浜 球場 , Sakai Ōhama kyūjō ) in Sakai , Osaka Prefecture , from 1939 then in the Nakamozu baseball stadium ( 中 百舌 鳥 球場 , Nakamozu kyūjō ) also in Sakai. Regular games were played in the Koshien and the Hankyu Nishinomiya Stadium . The years up to the end of the war were not very successful in terms of sport, with Nankai finishing fourth in 1941. Well-known players of the time were the pitcher ace Kanda Takeo and Tsuruoka Kazuto , homerunch champion from 1941 and later long-time manager of the team. From June 1944, Nankai-gun was called after the merger of the Nankai with the Kansai-Kyūkō railway Kinki-Nippon-gun .
In the resumption of game operations in 1946, the team participated for two years as Greatling ( グ レ ー ト リ ン グ , gurētoringu ).
Famous players and managers
- Katsuya Nomura (C, 1954-1977)
- Hiromitsu Kadota (OF, 1970–1988)
- Kazunori Yamamoto (OF, 1983–1995)
- Makoto Sasaki (OF, 1984-1993)
- Kōji Akiyama (OF, 1994–2002)
- Hiroki Kokubo (2B, 1994-2003, 2007-)
- Kimiyasu Kudō (P, 1995-1999)
- Kenji Jōjima (C, 1995-2005)
- Kazumi Saitō (P, 1996–)
- Tadahito Iguchi (2B, 1997-2004)
- Nobuhiko Matsunaka (1B, 1997–)
- Munenori Kawasaki (SS, 2000–2011)
- Toshiya Sugiuchi (P, 2002–2011)
- Tsuyoshi Wada (P, 2003–)
Stadion
The Hawks' home stadium has been the Fukuoka Dome since 1993, with space for around 35,000 spectators. Before that, they had played in Osaka Stadium ( Ōsaka kyūjō ) since 1950 and after moving to Fukuoka from 1989 in the Heiwadai baseball stadium.
Web links
- Official Website (Japanese)
- Historical team statistics at the NPB (Japanese)