Giants and Tigers

Written by Tomohide Warabi

The histories of Giants and Tigers are very deep. In 1934, Giants started the history as a baseball team called Dai Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Kurabu. The team was the third historical team in Japan. In 1936, the team changed the team name as Tokyo Kyojin Gun, because of the too long name. This process was the beginning of Giants. One year after Giants started the history, Tigers also stared the history as Osaka Tigers in 1935. Tigers was fourth historical team in Japan. In 1936, Giants, Tigers and some baseball teams formed Japan Job Baseball Association. This was the beginning of Japan Professional baseball league, so Giants and Tigers were related to establishing of Professional base ball league from the beginning. It seemed to be good start of Giants and Tigers. From 1936 to 1946, either Giants or Tigers won the first prize in Japan league. Tigers won the first prize three times and Giants did the first prize eight times during those seasons. We call the game of Giants and Tigers the battle of the tradition. However, two team balances was collapsed because of the weakness of Tigers. Giants beat Tigers 962 times and Tigers beat Giants 692 times and draw is 57 times. According to the result of the game, the team power was one-sided to Giants. Giants attained to amazing result during 1965 to 1973. Giants won the first prize each year during that time. It is called V9. Giants succeeded to win the first prize for a series of nine years and often won the first prize after V9. In contrast Tigers were very weak. While Giants accomplished V9, Tigers never won the first prize, and during 1986 to 2002 Tigers never won the first prize. Moreover, during the seventeen seasons, Tigers finished each season in the most bottom position eleven times.
There are some legend players in both teams. They became legend when they were registered as an eternal unused uniform number player. Giants has six players becoming the legend players, such as O, Nagashima, Kawakami and so on. Tigers has three legend players who is Hujimura, Murayama, Yoshida. About twenty years ago there were some good players in Tigers, such as Enatsu and Kakehu. Giants also had the great players, such as Egawa. Both teams have been very famous, so they have been rival relations. Some rival players were existed between both teams, for example, Murayama who was Mr. Tigers versus Nagashima who was Mr. Giants, Enatu who was the king of strikeout versus O who was the king of homerun and Kakehu who was the member of Tigers as a role of fourth batter versus Egawa who was the ace of Giants. Recently, Matsui who was in Giants is famous, and Fujikawa who is in Tigers is popular. Matsui belongs in New York Yankees and he gets regular position now. Fujikawa has the amazing fastball which a good batter can not hit in spite of knowing to come fastball not changing ball. The battle between Tigers and Giants players have made baseball fan enthusiastic.
Giants fans love Giants because of the strength, but Tigers fans are different on the matter. I have already mentioned that Tigers was weak, but real Tigers fan never stop the cheer for Tigers. I believe that the enthusiasm for Tigers is always good. However, it had a bad effect in 1973 Tigers could win the first prize if Tigers won one game out of the two which was the two last game in that season. Tigers lost Doragons in the first game and Tigers hoped to win the next game which was the battle against Giants. Tigers fan believed that Tigers would win the last game. There were forty eight thousands people in the Koushien stadium which is the home ground of Tigers, but Tigers lost to Giants 0-9. As a result, Giants achieve V9. Most of Tigers fan got angry and some enthusiastic fan became mobs. These mobs attacked the bench in Giants and Tigers players, so the first prize winning ceremony of Giants was suspended in the stadium. Tigers members could not get out of the stadium by next day. The accident was the love of reverse to Tigers. The population of Giants was the most V9 time. It was said that the TV program of the game of Giants could get high audience rating in average twenty percent. However, the winning of first prize was decreasing after V9. In 1975, Giants had a bad experience as a bottom team. Giants had never had such an experience by the 1975. Some Giants fans cheered up Giants whose boss was Nagashima in Tamagawa ground. They demonstrated with banner or placard written the hope of Giants fans. Giants lastly finished the schedule in the bottom position in that season. Worse the result of Giants and more decrease the population of Giants at the same time. In 1980, Giants did not have hope of winning the first prize from the beginning of the season. The boss of Giants – Nagashima was retired from the role with being announced by Giants owner - Watanabe. Many Giants fans got angry against the announcement, because Nagashima might be not good at management, but he was very famous and popular. Some Giants fans started the action not to buy the Yomiuri news paper. Recently in 2003 the boss of Giants – Hara was fired suddenly. He was popular but a Giants owner did not like him. Usually the ceremony of resignation of boss had been held, but the ceremony was not held exceptionally at that time. Giants fans felt disappointed from the incident especially against the Giants owner. The supporter and audience rating got worse drastically since the incident happened.
The power balance between Tigers and Giants are changed now. Giants missed the first prize for four years during 2002 to 2006. The incident has never been from the beginning of Giants history. The reason why Giants gets weak is some reasons. One reason is that Giants do not grow the youth members. Giants have huge money to get good players. Giants inclines to get the power players to hold its spotlight, but strangely players who came from another team can not be active in Giant team. In 2002, Matsui who was one of the most important players in Giants transfer to Major League. He belonged in Giants from the youth not transference from another team, and in 2005 Okajima who was unsuccessful pitcher in Giants transferred to Boston Redsocks. He is in active and gets an important position in the team unexpectedly. It seems that Giatns gets players who is not needed and transfers important players. Many batters and pitchers in Giants are slump now. In contrast, Tigers gets strong these days. One reason is relief pitchers. There are three famous pitchers in Tigers. Their names are Jeff Williams, Fujikawa and Kubota. We call their pitchers JFK. Tigers is highly likely to win the game if Tigers have a lead by sixth inning, because JFK appear each one inning. In 2005 season, Tigers won the game which got a lead by sixth inning with possibility of ninety percent. In 2007 season each JFK pitched more than seventy five times. All games are 146 in one season now, so they pitched more than half games in all season. This circumstance have not appeared in baseball history ever before. Their defense rates are very good. Many of the batters in Tigers are also good players. Akahoshi, Imaoka who is Tigers member from their youth are very active recently. In 2001, Tigers got Kanemoto, and in 2007 got Arai from Carp. They also are very active. It seems that fusion between members who had belonged Tigers from the beginning and members who transfered from another team is very successful. This point is the difference between Tigers and Giants these days.
Tigers and Giants have tradition and long history. These teams have an important role of baseball population. Tigers always makes much of the history. It was showed in Tigers song called Rokkou Oroshi. Tigers have never change the song from the beginning of Tigers history. In contrast, Giants have changed the style of the team along with time, so many people do not know the Giants song, because Giants songs sometimes have been changed. I think Giants makes little of own history, so Giants needs to review its sense of value to get strong again, and grow youth power not get famous players from another team. All fan look forward to getting strong both Tigers and Giants, and watching the game between the two more excite.