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Yomiuri Giants

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Yomiuri Giants
Yomiuri Giants

The Yomiuri Giants (読売ジャイアンツ, Yomiuri Jaiantsu) are a popular Central League baseball team based at the Tokyo Dome in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. The team's owner is the Yomiuri Group, a media conglomerate which includes two newspapers and a television network.

The Giants are the oldest professional team in Japan. They won nine Japanese Baseball League titles before the establishment of the two league system in 1950. Starting in 1965, the Giants won nine consecutive Central League pennants and Japan Series titles, in large part because of the hitting of Shigeo Nagashima and Sadaharu Oh. The last Giants pennant was in 2002. The Yomiuri Giants have won more pennants and Japan Series titles than any other team.

The team is often referred by fans and in news headlines simply as Kyojin (巨人), Japanese for "Giants", instead of the usual corporate owner's name or the English nickname.

Outline

Founded: 1934
Formerly known as: Dai-Nippon Tōkyō Yakyū Club (大日本東京野球倶楽部 1934-1935), Tōkyō Kyojingun (東京巨人軍 1936-1946), Tōkyō Yomiuri Kyojingun (Yomiuri Giants 1947-2002), Yomiuri Kyojingun (Yomiuri Giants 2002-)
Home ballpark: Tokyo Dome
Uniform colors: Orange, White, and Black
Logo design: Intertwined "Y" and "G" in orange on a black field
Nickname: Kyojin (巨人), Giants (ジャイアンツ), G
League championships (30): 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2002
Japan Series championships (20): 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1961, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1981, 1989, 1994, 2000, 2002
Mascot: Giabbit (ジャビット)
Contact information: Yomiuri Giants, Takebashi 3-3 Building, 3-3 Kanda Nishiki-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-8462

Players of note

Current players

Former players

Retired numbers

The Giants as "Japan's team"

Tokyo Dome, the Giants' home field

Due to the Yomiuri company's vast influence in Japan as a major media conglomerate, the Giants are successfully marketed to the Japanese people as "Japan's Team." Often, when asked who their favorite team is, a Japanese person will reportedly reply, "I'm Japanese, therefore I like the Giants." In fact, the Giants' uniforms say "Tokyo" on the jersey instead of "Yomiuri" or "Giants," seeming to imply that the Giants represent the vast metropolis and geopolitical center of Japan, even though the Yakult Swallows are also based in Tokyo and three other teams play in the Greater Tokyo Area. This bandwagon appeal has been compared with the marketing of Manchester United to its fan base. However, fans of other professional baseball teams in Japan are often openly derisive and contemptuous of the Giants' bandwagon marketing tactics.

It has also long been alleged that the Giants rely on underhanded tactics to recruit the best players, involving bribes to players and amateur coaches, or using their influence on the governing council of Japanese professional baseball to pass rules that favors their recruiting efforts. This may be one explanation for the Giants' abundance of success in league play.

Trivia

  • Yomiuri Giants uniforms are very similar to those of the American San Francisco Giants.
  • The Giants' main rivalry is with the Hanshin Tigers, a team especially popular in the Kansai region.
  • It has been said because of the lengthy MLBPA strike in the United States, and because of Japanese lore of the meaning of 60th anniversaries, the 1994 60th Anniversary Yomiuri Giants were the luckiest team in professional baseball. Many journalists called the 1994 team the World Champions of Professional Baseball.
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