The Shochiku Robins were a Japanese baseball team that played in

Nippon Professional Baseball or NPB is the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning ''Professional Baseball''. Outside Japan, it is often just referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league can be traced back to the formation ...

(NPB). The franchise originated in the Japanese Baseball League (NPB's predecessor) and existed from 1936–1953, when it merged with the

Taiyo Whales The are a professional baseball team in the Japanese Central League. Their home field is Yokohama Stadium, located in central Yokohama. The team has been known by several names since becoming a professional team in 1950. It adopted its curren ...

. Originally based in Tokyo, the club moved to

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

in 1941.

Franchise history

Japanese Baseball League

Dai Tokyo

The club was founded as Dai Tokyo before the 1936 Japanese Baseball League season, with ownership by the Tokyo daily newspaper '' Kokumin Shimbun''. The team made history that year by signing an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

player, Jimmy Bonner, 11 years before

Jackie Robinson Jack Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line ...

broke the

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...

color barrier.Thomas, Dexter
"Japan's First Black Baseball Player: Eleven Years Before Jackie Robinson, Tokyo Signed a Black Ace Pitcher,"
''Medium'' "Culture Club" (Oct. 7, 2014). The worst team in the league its first year, the club improved in spring 1937.

Lion

On August 31, midway through the 1937 fall season, the team changed its name to the Lion Baseball Club when it was acquired by

Komajiro Tamura Komajirō Tamura (February 21, 1904–January 21, 1961) was a Japanese businessman and professional baseball team owner. Tamura was a textile manufacturer, and owner of, among others, Taiyo Rayon and of Lucky Gold Star Telephones. Prior to bec ...

, with sponsorship by Lion Toothpaste. Late in the 1940 season, the Japan Baseball League outlawed English nicknames (due to rising tensions with the West). Owner Tamura refused to change the team's name, insisting that "Lion" is Japanese (In actuality, he wanted to honor the team's sponsorship contract with the Lion Corporation.) The team completed the season as Lion, finishing in last place, 50 games behind

Tokyo Kyojin The are a Japanese professional baseball team competing in Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Based in Bunkyo, Tokyo, they are one of two professional baseball teams based in Tokyo, the other being the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. They ...

Asahi

In 1941 the team moved from Tokyo to

and acquiring new sponsorship from ''

Asahi Shimbun is one of the four largest newspapers in Japan. Founded in 1879, it is also one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. Its circulation, which was 4.57 million for its morning edition a ...

''; from 1941 to 1944 it was called the Asahi Baseball Club. In 1943 the team had its first winning season, finishing at 41-36-7.

Pacific

After the resumption of the Japanese Baseball League in 1946 (after World War II), the team changed its name to Pacific Baseball Club (popularly known as ''Taihei'' — "peace"). Meanwhile, team owner

started another franchise that season, Gold Star, which signed many of Asahi's former players, as well as Asahi's former manager Michinori Tubouchi. To fill out its roster, Pacific signed long-time

Yomiuri Giants The are a Japanese professional baseball team competing in Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Based in Bunkyo, Tokyo, they are one of two professional baseball teams based in Tokyo, the other being the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. They ...

pitcher

Victor Starffin Victor Starffin ( rus, Виктор Константинович Старухин, Viktor Konstantinovich Starukhin, 1 May 1916 – 12 January 1957), nicknamed , was a Japanese baseball player. While playing in Japan, he became the first professio ...

, as well as some other famous players. These signings led to a serious conflict, and Pacific was forced to forfeit four games that season. One homegrown player who rose to prominence was pitcher and part-time infielder

Juzo Sanada was a Nippon Professional Baseball pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to ei ...

(later known as Shigeo Sanada), who eventually became a four-time 20-game-winner and a member of the

Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame The is a museum which includes a library, reference rooms and . It first opened in 1959 next door to Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo, Japan. In 1988, the museum moved to a new site within the Tokyo Dome. The Hall of Fame and Museum was created as a ...

Taiyo Robins

English nicknames returned to Japanese baseball after the 1946 season, and the team changed its name to the Taiyo Robins. Still owned by Komajiro Tamura, "Taiyo" came from Tamura's fabric store Taiyo Rayon, and "Robins" from Tamura's personal nickname, "Koma" ("robins" in Japanese). The ''

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequ ...

'' for "Taiyo" (太陽) has connotations of the sun, and for a brief confusing period the team featured the words "Suns" on its road uniforms and "Robins" on its home uniforms. Starffin left after the 1947 season, and none of the name variations helped improve the team's play. The JBL reorganized after the 1949 season; the franchise ended its Japanese Baseball League run with a losing season every single year except 1943.

Nippon Professional Baseball

Shochiku Robins

In 1950, when the JBL reorganized to become

, the Robins joined NPB's

Central League The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League in the annual Japan Series. It currently consi ...

. A share of the team was sold to the Shochiku Corporation and it became the Shochiku Robins. Amazingly, that year the team won 46 more games than the year before, totaling 98 wins and coming in first in their division. Led by league MVP

Makoto Kozuru Makoto Kozuru (Japanese:小鶴誠, ''Kozuro Makoto'', December 17, 1922 — June 2, 2003) was a Japanese professional baseball player who played in both the Japanese Baseball League and Nippon Professional Baseball. He was the MVP of the Central ...

and his 51 home runs and still-league record 163 RBI, as well as Sanada's 39 victories, the Robins played in the inaugural

Japan Series The Japan Series ( , officially the Japan Championship Series, ), also the Nippon Series, :File:2014_JS_logo.png is the annual championship series in Nippon Professional Baseball, the top baseball league in Japan. It is a best-of-seven series ...

, ultimately falling to the

Mainichi Orions The are a professional baseball team in Japan's Pacific League based in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, in the Kantō region, and owned by Lotte Holdings Co., Ltd. History The Marines franchise began in 1950 as the Mainichi Orions, an inaugura ...

, 4 games to 2.

Merger with the Taiyo Whales

After a mediocre year in 1951, they lost 84 games in 1952. It was decided that any Central League teams ending the season with a winning percentage below .300 would be disbanded or merged with other teams. The Robins fell into this category, and were merged with the

to become the

Taiyo Shochiku Robins The are a professional baseball team in the Japanese Central League. Their home field is Yokohama Stadium, located in central Yokohama. The team has been known by several names since becoming a professional team in 1950. It adopted its curre ...

in January 1953. The resulting franchise is now known as the

Yokohama DeNA BayStars The are a professional baseball team in the Japanese Central League. Their home field is Yokohama Stadium, located in central Yokohama. The team has been known by several names since becoming a professional team in 1950. It adopted its curren ...

Managers

* 1936 (spring): Katsuzo Ito * 1936 (fall)–1937: Tokuro Konishi * 1938: Tokuro Konishi/

Katsuo Takada Katsuo (written: , , or ) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese basketball player *, Japanese boxer *, Japanese boxer *, Japanese footballer *, Japanese sumo wrestler *, Japanese actor *, Japanese l ...

* 1939–1940:

* 1941–1943: Aiichi Takeuchi * 1944: Michinori Tubouchi * 1946:

Sadayoshi Fujimoto was a Japanese baseball manager, most notably as the first manager of the Tokyo Kyojin, which was later renamed to the Yomiuri Giants. With the Kyojin, he won the Japanese Baseball League pennant seven times. He was also the manager of the Pacif ...

* 1947: Michinori Tubouchi/

* 1948: Nobuyoshi Hasegawa * 1949: Shuichi Ishimoto * 1950: Tokuro Konishi * 1951: Kyouichi Nitta * 1952: Kyouichi Nitta/ Tokuro Konishi

Japanese Baseball League season-by-season records

Nippon Professional Baseball season-by-season records

References

{{reflist Defunct Nippon Professional Baseball teams Baseball teams established in 1936 Sports teams in Kyoto Prefecture