The kingly nature of the players, factions, sponsors… the unique circumstances of the Hanshin Tigers

The year is 2023. The Hanshin Tigers have become number one in Japan.

In the end, they won by a landslide, beating second-place Hiroshima by 11.5 games. Newspapers, television, magazines, and all other media were covered in yellow, and manager Okada was praised as a “great coach” almost every day.

The use and development of players who are as old as Okada’s grandchildren were analyzed, and Okada’s catchphrase “are”, which is a slang for “championship”, became the team slogan “ARE”, which also won the annual New Words and Buzzwords Awards at the end of the year. The economic impact was 96.9 billion yen. The overwhelming power of the Tigers was once again demonstrated.

In the book “Tiger’s Blood,” I covered the topic of “why the Tigers can’t win the championship” through Ichiro Kishi, the eighth manager of the Hanshin Tigers, who was “dismissed” after only 33 games in the 1955 season. The power relationship between the owner, the head office, and the team.

I was overwhelmed by the unique and special nature of the Tigers baseball team, including the history and behind-the-scenes happenings since the Kishi era that could not be included in this book, such as the manager and players’ kingly mentality, the factions and media battles, the sponsors and money.

And the fact that they won the championship in the same year that I finished writing this article. What a fateful ending. For me, it feels like a reward for reaching the goal, but it is a final issue that cannot be easily concluded with “how difficult it is to win with the Tigers.”

The Hanshin Tigers are Japan’s top team for the first time in 38 years. This is the second victory for manager Okada since 2005, and the first in Tigers history since Sadayoshi Fujimoto. This victory also marks the first in 59 years for the Kansai Derby. How did the Tigers become Japan’s top team despite not making many improvements compared to the previous year?

“It had been 21 years since our last victory. When we say yellowtail, yellowtail, yellowtail, it means Toyama’s winter yellowtail. But if this was a team that would win every year, we wouldn’t make such a fuss.”

November. Kawato Kozo burst out in laughter while eating a bowl of seafood from the Sea of ​​Japan in Tokyo.

Perhaps if the Tigers were to win every year, no one would jump into Dotonbori. The longer the time until the championship, and the stronger the desire to win, the more explosive the moment of joy when they finally achieve it.

In that sense, the long intervals between championships that make fans so happy may be the Tigers’ guilty charm, in keeping with the principle of “tiger blood.”

“But everyone always talks about Okada Okada as if it was Okada alone who made the team win. Roma didn’t win in a day either. Oka’s achievements this year are obviously great. But I think it was the managers before him, like Yano, Kanemoto and Wada, and the era before them that made it possible.

Even if you lose, there is something that accumulates. Past generations of managers also tried to win, tried to win, but lost because they lacked something. There are elements to win, and elements to lose. It’s just that this is one of the rings of the tree, and the results have come to fruition this year.

The manager’s power is not everything. First of all, you can’t win without the power of the team. You can talk about a great or wise manager, but did the Hanshin Tigers win when Katsuya Nomura came to the team? It’s all about whether the team, the manager and coach, and the front office are all united. That’s what it means to finally be facing in the same direction.”