10 Facts About Hanshin Tigers

Hanshin Tigers are a Nippon Professional Baseball team playing in the Central League.

In 1940, amid anti-foreign sentiment, the Tigers changed the name to "Hanshin" and in 1947 changed the name back to "Osaka Tigers".

Hanshin Tigers won four titles before the establishment of the two league system in 1950.

Since the league was split into the Central League and the Pacific League, the Hanshin Tigers have won the Central League pennant five times and the Japan Series once .

The Hanshin Tigers were the only one of the 12 Nippon Professional Baseball teams to achieve this.

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The summer tournament takes place in the middle of the Hanshin Tigers' season, forcing the Hanshin Tigers to go on a road trip and play their home games at Kyocera Dome Osaka.

Famous players in Hanshin Tigers history include Fumio Fujimura, Masaru Kageura, Minoru Murayama, Yutaka Enatsu, Masayuki Kakefu, Randy Bass Taira Fujita, and many others.

In 2003, when the Hanshin Tigers returned to the Japan Series after 18 years with the best record in the Central League, many KFC outlets in Kobe and Osaka moved their Colonel Sanders statues inside until the series was over to protect them from Hanshin Tigers fans.

Since then, the Hanshin Tigers made the 2014 Japan Series, but lost to the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in 5 games.

Hanshin Tigers fans are known as perhaps the most fanatical and dedicated fans in all of Japanese professional baseball.