The Japanese archipelago is paying keen attention to the Hanshin Tigers, who beat the Orix Buffaloes in Game 7 of the Japanese Series on the 5th and topped the Japanese professional baseball for the first time in 38 years. This is due to the support of fans who have not changed even though they have not won for a long time.

Founded in 1935, Hanshin has won 10 league titles and two Japanese Series titles (1985, 2023). However, Hanshin's performance has always been disappointing compared to the team's history and the proportion of Japanese professional baseball. In particular, from 1993 to 2002, when it did not leave the bottom of the league, it was like a dark period.

Even during this period, Hanshin always ranked second to third in the number of spectators among the six Central League teams, and also ranked second after the Yomiuri Giants in terms of broadcasting ticket income. Between 2005 and 2011, when the team's performance improved, Hanshin became the Central League's largest crowd mobilization team and later competed fiercely with Yomiuri, its rival in the same league, ranking first and second in the number of league spectators.

This trend continued last year when he ranked third in the league. The average number of spectators at Hanshin's home stadium in 2022 was 36,370. Hanshin's average home crowd increased to 41,064, which won the league title this year. In both seasons, he ranked first among Japanese professional baseball teams.

Therefore, the support of Hanshin fans, who did not change much depending on the league's performance, has always been an object of envy in the professional sports industry. For what reason has Hanshin maintained this fandom for a long time.

First of all, fans' pride in Hanshin can be cited. The Hanshin Tigers is the first Japanese professional baseball team whose parent company owns a home stadium. Its parent company, Hanshin Railway, established the Koshien 園 Stadium in 1924 and founded the Osaka-based professional baseball team in 1935, which has become the home stadium of the Tigers. Koshien Stadium is a sacred place for high school baseball, where Japan's summer high school baseball tournaments are held, and the center of baseball culture in the Kansai region centered on Osaka.

However, the historical nature of Koshien Stadium alone cannot fully explain the Hanshin Tigers' fandom. At the center of the fandom is the sentiment of "anti-communist 巨". Anti-teaching refers to the antipathy of Japanese baseball fans toward Yomiuri, a team representing Japanese professional baseball. Yomiuri is a team that can be said to be the history of Japanese professional baseball itself, winning nine consecutive Japanese professional baseball games from 1965 to 1973. The goal of most Japanese youth who dream of becoming baseball players was to join Yomiuri, and most Japanese baseball fans also cheered for Yomiuri. This is because Yomiuri's heyday was an era of prosperity when the Japanese economy rose vertically. 스포츠토토

However, antipathy against Yomiuri based in Tokyo began in earnest in the 1960s. Yomiuri's overwhelming performance symbolized the centralized system of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. At this time, people in the Kansai region, which had historically been a rival to the Kanto region centered on Tokyo, had a hostile view of Yomiuri. People outside the Kansai region, who were opposed to Tokyo, which controls Japan's politics and economy, also joined the Anti-Corruption Solidarity. It has also been talked about since then that Japanese baseball fans have Yomiuri fans and anti-Yomi fans. Van Yomiuri fans were mainly united around Hanshin Tigers.

In 1985, when Hanshin reached the top of the Japanese baseball league for the first time in his dream, their antipathy toward Yomiuri reached its maximum. Foreign home run hitter Randy Bath (69) was active in Hanshin, which was ranked first in the Central League at the time. Bath had 54 home runs ahead of two regular-season games. The other two matches were against Yomiuri.

Legendary Yomiuri home run hitter Oh Sadaharu (Wang Jung-ki, 83) hit 55 home runs in 1965, the most in a season in Japanese professional baseball. So Yomiuri desperately had to stop Bath's home run. To that end, Yomiuri's pitching staff avoided a head-to-head match with Bath. He even gave away intentional sandals. Oh Sadaharu, the Yomiuri manager at the time, said, "I didn't order an intentional walk." However, it later drew public anger from fans when it was revealed that the Yomiuri pitching coach instructed Bath not to throw strikes. Although Bath failed to break the record, Hanshin was able to win its first championship this year.

After Hanshin won the Central League in 2023 as well as the second Japanese series in history, Japanese media are pouring out articles that Hanshin's victory is having a positive impact on the Japanese economy. In fact, when Hanshin won the league, the stock price of its parent company, Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, rose. After Hanshin won the Japanese Series, there has been a steady stream of fans to buy products with the team's logo on them. Some predicted that Hanshin's victory would result in more than 900 billion won in economic effects across Japan.

It remains to be seen whether such economic effects will really occur. However, the driving force behind Hanshin's victory to create such a great social and economic ripple effect on Japanese society started from the strong fandom that fills the home stadium even if the team ranks third. Therefore, Hanshin's victory should be found above all in the unwavering love of fans who have waited for the team's "winning drought" for 37 years.