Nippon Ham

Nippon Meat Packers, Inc. (日本ハム株式会社, Nippon Hamu Kabushiki-gaisha) is a food processing conglomerate headquartered in Hommachi, Chūō-ku, Osaka, Japan. Founded in 1949, the company is commonly known as Nippon Ham. As a multinational corporation, Nippon Ham operates subsidiaries around the world, including China and the United States. In addition to its main business of meat packing and other food processing, the company owns the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, a professional baseball team in Japan's Pacific League, and owns part of the J-League soccer team, Cerezo Osaka.

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Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters

The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (北海道日本ハムファイターズ, Hokkaidō Nippon-Hamu Faitāzu) are a Japanese professional baseball team based in Sapporo, Hokkaidō. They compete in the Pacific League of Nippon Professional Baseball, playing the majority of their home games at the Sapporo Dome. The Fighters also host a select number of regional home games in cities across Hokkaidō, including Hakodate, Asahikawa, Kushiro, and Obihiro. The team's name comes from its parent organization, Nippon Ham, a major Japanese food processing company.

Founded in 1946, the Fighters called Tokyo home for 58 years, as co-tenants of the Tokyo Dome with the Central League's Yomiuri Giants near the end of their tenure in the capital city. The franchise has won two Japan Series titles, in 1962 and 2006 and as well as one Asia Series title in 2006.

Team history

Senators and Tokyo eras

In 1946, Saburo Yokozawa, manager of the Tokyo Senators in 1936–1937, looked to revive the franchise and soon founded the new Senators. He assembled a team of ready and able players like Hiroshi Oshita, Shigeya Iijima and Giichiro Shiraki, but as a newly formed team the Senators faced strict fiscal management and resorted to using hand-me-down uniforms from the Hankyu Railway's pre-war team (who would eventually become the modern-day Orix Buffaloes). Former Japanese statesman Kinkazu Saionji, grandson of the influential Kinmochi Saionji, became the team's owner, and Noboru Oride, borrowing heavily from a Ginza cabaret proprietor, became the team's sponsor. Eventually, trapped by a lack of funds, Yokozawa was forced to resign as the team's manager.

Japan Series

The Japan Championship Series (日本選手権シリーズ, Nippon Senshuken Shiriizu), or Japan Series (日本シリーズ, Nippon Shiriizu) is the annual championship series in Nippon Professional Baseball and the top baseball league in Japan. It is a seven-game series between the winning clubs of the league's two circuits, the Central League and the Pacific League. The Series is the highest level of play in professional baseball in Japan. It is usually played in October or November. As in all of the best-of-seven series, the first team to win four games is the overall winner and is declared the Japan Series Champion (日本一, Nippon Ichi, number one in Japan) each year. The winner of the Japan Series also goes on to be the Japanese representative team in the annual Asia Series.

The home team for games 1, 2 and eventually 6 and 7, alternates between the two leagues with the Pacific League having the advantage on the years ending with an odd number and the Central League on the years ending with an even number. Designated hitters are used if the team from the Pacific League hosts the game. There is a 40-man postseason roster limit, and the rule on drawn games is changed to 15 innings instead of 12. If the series is tied after the seventh game, a Game 8 will be held without any limits in extra innings with the same team hosting Games 6 and 7 hosting this game. Only once a Game 8 has been played in Japan Series history, where the Seibu Lions defeated the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in 1986.

Shohei Otani

Shohei Otani (大谷 翔平, Ōtani Shōhei, born July 5, 1994) is a Japanese baseball pitcher, outfielder, and designated hitter who plays for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. He was the first pick of the Fighters in the 2012 draft. He officially recorded the fastest pitch by a Japanese pitcher, and is now tied with Marc Kroon for top velocity 162 km/h (101 mph) for all NPB pitchers.

Early career

Listed at 193 cm (6 ft 4 in) and 86 kg (190 lb), the high school pitcher has a fastball that has been clocked as high as 160 km/h (99 mph). He set a new Japanese record for the fastest pitch thrown during the Prefecture Tournament in Summer Koshien, even though his team lost in the semi-final. He mainly throws a solid slider in addition to the fastball.

Otani has received interest from numerous teams including the Texas Rangers, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. On October 21, 2012 Otani announced that he would pursue a career in Major League Baseball rather than turn professional in Japan. The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters decided to draft him anyway, knowing that there was a high likelihood he would turn down the draft. After a month-long negotiation between him and the Fighters, Otani announced that he will accept the draft and spend his early career in Japan before a possible MLB move. He was assigned the jersey number 11, previously worn by Yu Darvish. The official press conference was held on December 25.