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 Kitahiroshima, Hokkaidō, in the Sapporo metropolitan area. They compete in the Pacific League of Nippon Professional Baseball, playing the majority of their home games at ES CON Field Hokkaido. 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 and Korakuen Stadium with the Central League's Yomiuri Giants near the end of their tenure in the capital city. The franchise has won three Japan Series titles, in 1962, 2006, and, most recently, 2016.

In 1946, Saburo Yokozawa, manager of the Tokyo Senators in 1936–1937 (and later a prominent umpire), 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.

For a time, the team was even mockingly nicknamed "Seito" (Bluestockings) after a Japanese feminist magazine of the same name. As the Yomiuri Giants' pet name was "Kyojin", baseball personality Soutaro Suzuki thought that other teams should also have pet names like the Giants, and names such as the Osaka Tigers' alias "Mouko" (fierce tiger), the Senators' "Seito" and the Pacific's "Taihei" (tranquility) began to be used by the press. However, the other teams rejected the use of these pet names, so they were not fully adopted.

On January 7, 1947, the team was sold to the Tokyu Corporation. The Tokyu baseball club was inaugurated into the league, and the team's name became the Tokyu Flyers. At that time Tokyu dominated the Japanese transportation sector, owning several other railway companies, although it was faced with troubles and the possibility of a breakup. Tokyu purchased the team to act as a banner of solidarity for the swelling company, and managing director Hiroshi Okawa assumed ownership of the club. The newly born Flyers, with Hiroshi Oshita becoming one of the most popular players in the league, began to attract many fans, but the team's administration still went into a deficit.

With the formation of the National Baseball League drawing nearer, in 1948 the not-yet-affiliated Daiei club, which had played a few exhibition games against the Otsuka Athletics, joined with Tokyu to create the Kyuei Flyers ("Kyuei" being a portmanteau of the two companies' names). However, Daiei decided to purchase a separate team, the Kinsei Stars, and after only one year the Flyers reverted to their former name.

During the off-season of 1949, the Flyers joined the Pacific League after the former league split. In September 1953, the team completed a new ballpark—Komazawa Stadium—along one of Tokyu's train lines in Setagaya, Tokyo, moving from Bunkyo ward's Korakuen Stadium. The Flyers' wild play on the field eventually earned them the nickname, "Komazawa's hooligans".

On February 1, 1954, Tokyu entrusted the management of the Flyers to the Toei Company, of which Okawa had newly become president. Toei transferred control of the club to a subsidiary company, Toei Kogyo (industrial enterprise). The team's name was changed to the Toei Flyers, and its legal name consequently became the Toei Flyers Baseball Club. This name stuck for nineteen years.