The Hanshin Tigers, a professional baseball team based in the Kansai region of Japan, won the Japan Series for the first time in 38 years.
Hanshin defeated Orix Buffaloes, a team from Kansai and the winner of the Pacific League, 7-1 in the final 7th game of the Japan Series that ended at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan on the 5th.
Hanshin defeated Orix with 4 wins and 3 losses and lifted the Japan Series championship trophy for the second time in the club’s history and 38 years since 1985.
Coach Akinobu Okada (65), a veteran coach, won the Central League championship in 2005 during Hanshin’s first administration, but lost all four games to the Chiba Lotte Marines, who were hit hard by Lee Seung-yeop (current professional baseball Doosan Bears coach) in the Japan Series. 안전놀이터
As soon as he took charge of the Tiger Corps for the second time this year, he won the Central League championship for the first time in 18 years and the Japan Series for the first time in 38 years.
With the score tied 0-0, Hanshin immediately took the win in the top of the 4th inning with a single and a walk, 1 out, 1st and 2nd bases, and a three-run home run by foreign hitter Sheldon Noisy.
Then, with consecutive hits in the top of the 5th inning, with 2 outs and runners on first and third base, Shota Morishita’s timely hit to left, Yusuke Oyama’s infield hit to shortstop, and Noiji’s hit in the middle added 3 runs, effectively splitting the game.
Morishita scored with a timely hit with 1 RBI in the 9th inning.
When Manager Hanshin Okada faced a crisis in the bottom of the 5th inning with 2 outs and runners on 1st and 2nd bases, leading 6-0, he lowered starter Goyo Aoyagi and brought up Hiroya Shimamoto to lock the game.
Next, starting pitcher Masashi Ito, who had won 10 games this year, was hired as the third pitcher starting in the 6th inning to cover 3 innings, and then professional relief pitchers Takuma Kirishiki and Suguru Iwazaki were sent out in the 9th inning to seal the win.
After winning, Hanshin players shared their joy by holding Shintaro Yokota’s uniform with number 24 on it.
Yokota is a former Hanshin player who passed away at the young age of 28 from a brain tumor in July of this year.
Orix, who participated in the Japan Series for three consecutive years, was toast of victory last year, but lost to Yakult Swallows in 2021 and Hanshin this year.
Katsuhiro Miyamoto, professor emeritus at Kansai University and an expert on Japanese sports economics, said the economic effect of Hanshin’s Central League championship for the first time in 18 years amounts to 87.2 billion yen (approximately 765.4 billion won) in the Kansai region alone, and 96.9 billion yen (850.6 billion won) when expanded to all of Japan.
It is expected that the economic effect (65.4 billion yen) of Japan’s victory in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC) will far exceed the economic effect of winning this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC).
With Hanshin winning the Japan Series, the economic effect forecast is expected to increase further.