Team Cultures

Some people disagree, but the obvious comparison is usually Giants=Yankees and Tigers=Red Sox. Giants-Tigers is considered the biggest rivalry in Japanese baseball, but with similar results to Yankees-Red Sox, meaning the Giants are far richer and far more powerful, having won way more pennants.

Although the Red Sox have turned things around the past few years, the same can't yet be said for the Tigers. They have been very competitive the past few years, but can't get over the hump, losing in the Japan Series in 2003 and 2005. This year they have looked just like the Red Sox of 30 years ago (1978), as they have lost a 13-game lead to fall into a tie for first place with the Giants.

In addition, the Tokyo-Osaka rivalry is similar to New York-Boston, as Tokyo is considered more sophisticated and metropolitan and Osaka more blue-collar and business-oriented. (Although the Tigers actually play in Nishinomiya, Hyogo, they are often more associated with Osaka.)

Anyway, this is the most obvious and famous comparison to get you started.

I don't know much about MLB so can't really compare the Japanese teams to MLB teams. Hanshin in kanji is 阪神. They have taken the 阪 from 大阪 (Osaka) and 神 from 神戸 (Kobe). So Hanshin is more of a Kansai team than an Osaka team. It's neither Hyogo nor Osaka but both Osaka and Hyogo. Osaka, being the biggest city in Kansai, Hanshin is often referred as an Osaka team.

Hanshin from Kansai, together with the Yomiuri Giants from Tokyo, are the 2 most popular teams. After that you have the Chunichi Dragons from Nagoya and Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks from Fukuoka who also draw big crowds.

The Hiroshima Toyo Carp do not draw big crowds, but their fans are known to be very loyal. I don't think there are any teams in Japan where the city and the team has merged themselves into one as much as Hiroshima has. When Hiroshima was going to get a new stadium they did not have enough money, so the team asked its citizens for some financial support, and sure enough, Hiroshima citizens gave money to the Carp and thus they were able to get the new stadium.

Yakult is probably the team I can come to think of who has the least support. Even at home games they are almost always out numbered by visitor fans.

I would question the idea that Japanese baseball teams and U.S. teams can be equated. It fails to take into account the very different cultural aspects of the two countries. Whilst it is attractive to equate the Yankees and Giants and the Tigers with the Red Sox, this move tends to ignore very real and very vital differences.

Tigers represent more of a regional rivalry dating back to the Tokugawa period and are really the most recent representation of that rivalry. They are just the most visible manifestation of this.

And whilst the attractiveness of a Yankee/Giants link is obvious, the Yankees have never had the kind of power or control that the Giants enjoyed over Nippon Professional Baseball as a whole.

Japanese teams have evolved in a Japanese environment which has thrown up some superficial similarities. But to think that these are more than superficial is to deny that Japanese baseball is independent and unique.

I would have to add Yokohama to the list of the teams that have the least fan support nowadays also. It really is a shame that Yakult and the BayStars were once great franchises but now are reduced to bottom feeders.

But with all do respect to the Swallows, they do manage to draw at least 10,000 people a night most of the time whereas Yokohama can't even do that for weeknight games most of the time.

The Swallows probably draw more people than Yokohama, but it is just that most people who go to Jingu are not Swallows fans. This could be because there are more people in Tokyo from other parts of Japan than in Yokohama, and because Tokyo is a bigger city than Yokohama.

If you go and see Yokohama vs. Yakult at Yokohama Stadium there will hardly be any Swallows fans, whereas if you see Yokohama vs. Yakult at Jingu there will be just as many Yokohama fans as Yakult fans. If you go to Tokyo Dome, there too will hardly be any Yakult fans despite Yakult being a Tokyo team.

I think both Yokohama and Yakult could do better in terms of popularity and marketing. Tokyo and Yokohama are two of the biggest cities in Japan, so there is a market. But both teams have not quite figured how to market their teams better. In contrast to, for instance, Lotte who has more fans and seems to do better marketing-wise.

In terms of uniform styles, the Giants, Dragons, and Carp certainly took on the distinct "look" of American teams. The Dragons seem like they adopted the Dodgers look because both names start with D, are seven letters long, with the 'g' right in the middle. The Carp wears the Cincinnati Reds' cap because of the letter C, and "Reds" and "Carp" are both four letters. Obviously they feel some sort of identification with MLB teams is a good thing in some way.

The Chunichi Dragons have only won the Japan Series one time, despite being the third oldest team in Japan after Yomiuri and Hanshin. So in many ways, though many might put Hanshin as the underdogs or the losers, Hanshin has become Japan Champions more often than Chunichi.

From the 1980s until present, the Seibu Lions is the team which has won more than any other team in Japan. Seibu has been a powerhouse. The golden era of Seibu was when Akiyama and Kiyohara were at their peak together with Ishige, Kudoh (the lefty pitcher), and Itoh (the catcher). Despite their success, they have not done so well popularity wise.

Kintetsu (now Orix) and Yokohama (from the days of Taiyo Whales) seem to have had many good foreigners playing for them. Yokohama has had Leon Lee, Paciorek, Rose, Woods, Kroon, etc.

Rose is, by many, regarded as one of the best non Japanese players to have played in Japan, ever.

Chunichi has actually won two Japan Series titles, once in the 1950's and again last year.