Saitama Seibu Lions
The Saitama Seibu Lions ( Japanese 埼 玉 西武 ラ イ オ ン ズ , saitama seibu raionzu ) are a professional Japanese baseball team in the Pacific League. The team is owned by the Seibu Group, which includes the Seibu Tetsudō railway company and the Prince Hotels chain . The Lions are home to Tokorozawa in Saitama Prefecture . The team is thirteen times Japanese champions. She finished the 2008 season first in the Pacific League and won the 2008 Nihon Series championship against the Yomiuri Giants .
history
The team was in 1950 as Nishitetsu Clippers founding member of the Pacific League and owned by the railway company Nishi-Nippon Tetsudō (short: Nishitetsu). The team's home was Fukuoka . In 1951, the Clippers merged with the Nishi-Nippon Pirates to form the Nishitetsu Lions , who were very successful in the 1950s when they won the Nihon Series three times in a row (1956-1958) against the Yomiuri Giants .
In 1973 the Lions changed hands and gained a new sponsor, Taiheiyō Club, a company that operates golf clubs and vacation resorts, and was called Taiheiyō Club Lions for four years . In 1977 and 1978 the lighter company Crown Gas Lighter sponsored the Lions, the team played under the name Crown Lighter Lions . In terms of sport, the Lions experienced a decline in the 1960s and especially the 1970s: They only won the title in the Pacific League in 1963, but then lost in the Nihon Series. Between 1970 and 1979 they finished sixth six times. H. last of the Pacific League.
In 1978 the Lions were finally sold to the Seibu Tetsudō and have since played as Seibu Lions in Tokorozawa, where the Seibu Lions Stadium ( 西武 ラ イ オ ン ズ 球場 , seibu raionzu kyūjō ) was completed in April 1979 . In the 1980s and 1990s, the Lions dominated the Pacific League, finishing the season first 13 times and winning the Nihon Series eight times. Since January 1st, 2008 the team is officially called Saitama Seibu Lions .
In recent years the dominance has diminished - in the 21st century they have only managed to take part in the Nihon Series three times - and against the background of the financial crisis of the owner company, the Lions also had to struggle with financial bottlenecks.
Founded in 1950, the Lions have recorded more wins than losses: the win rate through 2010 was .532 with 4167 wins, 3661 losses and 325 draws.
Stadion
The Seibu Lions Stadium in Tokorozawa received a roof between 1997 and 1999 and has been called the Seibu Dome since then . For 2005 and 2006 the naming rights were sold to the company Invoice, the stadium was called Invoice Seibu Dome. In January 2007 these rights were sold to the personnel service provider Goodwill Group and the name was changed to Goodwill Dome , but the contract was temporarily terminated in 2008 and the stadium was renamed Seibu Dome. Since then there have been several name changes; the name MetLife Dome has been in effect since 2017 .
As of 2015, the stadium holds 35,556 spectators. The Seibukyūjo-mae station directly at the Seibu Dome serves a branch line of the Seibu-Ikebukuro line to Ikebukuro . In addition, the people mover Leo Liner connects the stadium with the Seibu amusement park.
Famous players and managers
The current most famous former Seibu player is the major league pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka ("Dice-K"), who moved to the Boston Red Sox in November 2006 for a transfer fee of 6 billion yen (around 52 million US dollars) . Matsuzaka had played for the Lions since 1999 after a legendary appearance in the Kōshien (the nationally respected high school tournament) and achieved 108 wins for the Lions.
Important players of the “golden age” of the Lions in the 1980s and 90s were the pitchers Kimiyasu Kudō , Osamu Higashio and Kuo Taiyuan (Kaku Taigen), the catcher Tsutomu Itō , outfielder Kōji Akiyama and the infielder Kazuhiro Kiyohara , Hiromichi Ishige and Orestes Destrade .
Hisanobu Watanabe , who was in office from 2008 to 2013, also played 14 years as a pitcher for the Lions between 1984 and 1997. The current manager Hatsuhiko Tsuji (as of 2018) played for the Lions from 1984 to 1995 and was known as a skilled second baseman .
logo
Logo and mascot of the Lions is a white lion on the Manga -Figur Kimba by Osamu Tezuka back.
Minor league team
- Eastern League, Goodwill : Tokorozawa , Saitama Prefecture
Web links
- Official Website (Japanese)
- Seibu Dome on the Seibu Group website (Japanese)
- Entry of the Seibu Lions on Japanese Baseball Daily (English)
- Historical team statistics on npb.or.jp (Japanese)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Yomiuri Shimbun, November 15, 2007: Fukudome, Giants meet as 'market' opens ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ seibulions.jp - メ ッ ト ラ イ フ ド ー ム 概要 (Japanese), accessed May 24, 2018
