John Joseph Podres (September 30, 1932 – January 13, 2008) was an American left-handed starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who spent most of his career with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. He is perhaps best remembered for being named the Most Valuable Player of the 1955 World Series, pitching a shutout in Game 7 against the New York Yankees to help bring the Dodgers their first World Series title. He later led the National League in earned run average and shutouts in 1957, and in winning percentage in 1961.

Podres helped the Dodgers win World Series championships in 1955, 1959, 1963 and 1965, although he did not pitch in the 1965 World Series itself. After the Dodgers lost the first two games to the New York Yankees, Podres pitched a complete game, seven-hit victory on his 23rd birthday in Game 3. In the climactic Game 7, Podres pitched a 2–0 shutout to bring Brooklyn its only World Series championship. Podres was given the first-ever World Series MVP Award by Sport magazine and presented with a red two-seater Corvette. Later he was honored as the Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated magazine.

Carl Daniel Erskine (born December 13, 1926 in Anderson, Indiana) is a former right-handed starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played his entire career for the Brooklyn & Los Angeles Dodgers from 1948 through 1959. He was a pitching mainstay on Dodger teams which won five National League pennants, peaking with a 1953 season in which he won 20 games and set a World Series record with 14 strikeouts. He pitched two of the NL's seven no-hitters during the 1950s. Following his baseball career, he was active as a business executive and an author.

Known as "Ersk", or more accurately "Oisk", owing to the Brooklynese diction of the borough, Erskine signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946, and after two minor league seasons he made the team in July 1948 as part of a powerful squad that included Roy Campanella, Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider. Along with Snider and Reese, he lived in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bay Ridge, and was frequently to be found around the baseball diamonds on Shore Road, offering encouragement to youngsters.

Johnny & Associates, Inc. (株式会社ジャニーズ事務所, Kabushikigaisha Janīzu Jimusho^?) is a talent agency formed by Johnny Kitagawa in 1962. Johnny & Associates trains and promotes groups of male idols, collectively known as "Johnny's" (ジャニーズ, Janīzu^?), in Japan.

In 1962, Kitagawa launched his first group called Johnnys. However, it was not until 1968 did he see his first real success with Four Leaves. Since then, Kitagawa has formed many successful acts such as solo artist Masahiko Kondo, whose song "Orokamono" (愚か者, Fool^?) won the Japan Record Award at the 29th Japan Record Awards in 1987, and Hikaru Genji, which became the first Johnny's group to achieve the rare feat of having three top-selling singles on the Japanese Oricon yearly charts in 1988.

Beginning in the 1990s, Johnny & Associates adopted a policy that they would decline the nominations of awards from organizations such as the Japan Record Awards and the Japan Academy Awards partly due to a dispute with the accurate music genre of one of their groups in the 32nd Japan Record Awards. Another reason was that the nominations would cause competition between Johnny's groups and other nominees.