Nippon Professional Baseball or NPB is the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called Puro Yakyū (プロ野球), meaning Professional Baseball. Outside of Japan, it is often referred to as "Japanese baseball".
The Pacific League, or Pa League, or the Persol Pacific League, due to sponsorship reasons, is one of the two professional baseball leagues constituting Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship competes against the winner in the Central League for the annual Japan Series. It currently consists of six teams from around Japan.
The Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes were a Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) team based in Osaka, Japan, which was in the Pacific League. In 2005 the team was merged with the Orix BlueWave to become the team now known as the Orix Buffaloes. The team played in Fujiidera Stadium, and later in Osaka Dome.
The Orix Buffaloes are a Nippon Professional Baseball team formed as a result of the 2004 Nippon Professional Baseball realignment by the merger of the Orix BlueWave of Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes of Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The team plays in the Pacific League and is under ownership by Orix, a leading diversified financial services company founded in Osaka.
Atsuya Furuta is a Japanese former baseball player and player-manager for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows professional baseball club in the Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Drafted in the 2nd round in 1990, Furuta became a leader for the Swallows as a catcher and became the first player-manager in Japanese baseball in 29 years, since Katsuya Nomura in 1977. In addition to his skills on the field, he is also known for leading a successful two-day strike in 2004 as the head of the Japanese baseball players union.
Norihiro Nakamura is a Japanese former professional baseball third baseman. Nakamura spent almost all of his professional career in Japan with the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes. Nakamura had a .266 career batting average, 404 home runs and 1338 RBI, and was an eight-time All-Star and four-time Golden Glove winner. Nakamura is one of only 16 players to have hit 400 or more home runs in NPB.
The Western League (ウエスタン・リーグ) is one of the two minor leagues ("ni-gun") of Japanese professional baseball. The league is owned and managed by the Pacific League of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
Tetsuya Matoyama is a Japanese former professional baseball catcher, and current the first squad battery coach for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
Masataka Nashida is a former Nippon Professional Baseball catcher and manager. As a player, he played for the Kintetsu Buffaloes from 1972 to 1988. After playing, he went on to manage three NPB teams. First, Nashida was the final manager of the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes before they were dissolved and merged after the 2004 season. He then went on to manage the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters from 2008 to 2011. Finally, he went on to manage the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, the team created to fill the void left by the Buffaloes merger. He was able to lead the Eagles to their third-ever playoff berth in 2017, however he resigned in July the next year when the club dropped to 20 games below a .500 winning percentage. After his resignation, Eagles' coach Yosuke Hiraishi acted as team's interim manager for the remainder of the 2018 season.
The 2001 Japan Series was the 52nd edition of Nippon Professional Baseball's postseason championship series. It matched the Central League champion Yakult Swallows against the Pacific League champion Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes. The Swallows defeated the Buffaloes in five games to claim their fifth Japan Series championship.
The 1989 Japan Series was the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) championship series for the 1989 season. It was the 40th Japan Series and featured the Pacific League champion Kintetsu Buffaloes against the Central League champion Yomiuri Giants. Kintetsu barely scraped into the series with a winning percentage only .001 higher than the second place Orix Braves, and Yomiuri won the CL pennant by 8 games to return to the series for the 25th time in franchise history. Played at Fujiidera Stadium and Tokyo Dome, the Giants won the series after losing the first three games to the underdog Buffaloes and staging a miraculous comeback, winning four games in a row with the final two wins coming on the road. Yomiuri slugger Norihiro Komada was named Most Valuable Player of the series. The series was played between October 21 and October 29 with home field advantage going to the Pacific League.
Hiroshi Takamura is a former Nippon Professional Baseball pitcher, and current the second squad pitching coach for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
The 2001 Nippon Professional Baseball season ended with the Yakult Swallows defeating the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes in the 2001 Japan Series 4 games to 1.
The 2004 Nippon Professional Baseball realignment was a series of events that occurred during the 2004 Nippon Professional Baseball season that changed the landscape of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). In June of that season, the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes and the Orix BlueWave announced that, due to financial difficulties, the two teams planned to merge into one for the start of the 2005 season. Both teams were in the Pacific League (PL), and a merger between the two would result in a team imbalance with the PL's opposing league, the Central League (CL). Soon, it was announced that a second merger was being explored between two of the remaining four PL teams. With the possibility of the PL losing a second team, discussion about possibly restructuring NPB's two-league system into one ten-team league began. PL and CL executives continued to discuss the merits of both systems until it was finally decided that the two-league system would remain intact and interleague play would be introduced in the 2005 season.
Interleague play, officially titled Nippon Life Interleague Play for event sponsor Nippon Life, is an event consisting of 108 regular-season baseball games played between Central League (CL) and Pacific League (PL) teams in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
The 2021 Japan Series was the championship series of Nippon Professional Baseball's 2021 season. The 72nd edition of the Japan Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the Orix Buffaloes and Tokyo Yakult Swallows, the winners of the Pacific and Central League's Climax Series, respectively. Both teams were the winners of their respective league's regular season championship.
The 2004 Fukuoka Daiei Hawks season is the 67th season of the franchise in Nippon Professional Baseball, their 11th season in Fukuoka Dome, and their 15th and final season under Daiei, because SoftBank Group would take over the Hawks' ownership the following season and rebrand them as the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. This also is the team's 9th season under manager Sadaharu Oh.
The 2001 Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes season was the 51st season of the franchise in Nippon Professional Baseball, the team's 4th season at Osaka Dome, and the team's 51st season under Kintetsu Railway. This was also the team's second season under manager Masataka Nashida. For another year, the Buffaloes were led offensively by star tandem Norihiro Nakamura and Tuffy Rhodes. For the first time since 1989, the Buffaloes won the Pacific League pennant, and in stunning fashion, with Hirotoshi Kitagawa hitting a grand slam walk-off home run against the Orix BlueWave to secure the pennant. Had they lost, they still had to win a series against the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks to win the pennant. They however, would lose to the Yakult Swallows in the Japan Series in 5 games. This season would also be Kintetsu's last Pacific League pennant win.
The 2022 Nippon Professional Baseball season was the 73rd season of professional baseball in Japan since Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) was reorganized in 1950. There are 12 NPB teams, split evenly between the Central League and Pacific League.
