Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles

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Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles
Image:Rakuteneagleslogo.gif
League	Pacific League
Location	Sendai
Ballpark	Miyagi Baseball Stadium
Year Founded	2004
Nickname(s)	Rakuten (楽天), Eagles (イーグルス), Washi (鷲, meaning eagle), Inuwashi (狗鷲, meaning golden eagle)
League championships	(none)
Japan Series championships	(none)
Colors	Red, gold, and white
Logo Design	Stylized white 'E' with wing, with gold trim.
Uniforms
Home	Away

The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles (東北楽天ゴールデンイーグルス, Tōhoku Rakuten Gōruden Īgurusu^?) are a baseball team founded in 2004 to begin play in 2005 in the Japanese Pacific League. The team was created to fill the void left by the merger of the Orix Blue Wave and the Kintetsu Buffaloes, who merged at the end of the 2004 season due to financial difficulties, leaving the Pacific League with only 5 teams, which causing one biggest crisis in the traditional two-league structure in NPB and finally caused the historical-first baseball player strike in Japan (see This entry for details). The team is based in Sendai, in Miyagi Prefecture. It inaugurated its first season with a 3 – 1 victory over Lotte. The team is owned by the Internet shopping company Rakuten [1].

As of the end of the 2007 season, the team's manager is Katsuya Nomura. He will be Eagle's manager until the end of 2008 season.

[edit] Players of note

[edit] Current manager

• 19 Katsuya Nomura

[edit] Current players

• 21 Hisashi Iwakuma - P
• 18 Masahiro Tanaka - P
• 91 Ying-Chieh Lin - P
• 29 En-Yu Lin - P
• 11 Yasuhiro Ichiba - P
• 13 Hisashi Ogura - P
• 36 Hideki Asai - P
• 50 Domingo Guzman - P
• 46 Teppei Tsuchiya - CF
•  8 Koichi Isobe- RF
• 17 José Fernández - 3B
• 55 Rick Short - LF or 3B or 1B
•  7 Takeshi Yamasaki - 1B
•  4 Yosuke Takasu - 2B
• 37 Motohiro Shima - C

[edit] Former managers

• Yasushi Tao

[edit] Former players

• Luis Lopez
• Ryan Glynn
• Eric Valent
• Cedrick Bowers
• Kevin Hodges
• Gary Rath
• Andy Tracy
• Aaron Myette
• Matt Skrmetta
• Damon Minor
• Katsunori Nomura
• Tetsuya Iida
• Takeshi Nakamura
• Tadaharu Sakai
• Hideo Koike
• Koichi Oshima
• Kevin Witt
• Adam Bass
• Kazuo Fukumori
• Toyohiko Yoshida
• Koichi Sekikawa

[edit] Retired numbers

• 10 - This number is worn by both team mascots, Clutch and Clutchina, and is considered the number of the fan, the 'tenth player' on the field. It is the first retired number in NPB involving a fan, inspired by some J-League Teams which retire "12" (However, Pacific League normally have 10 starting members, since DH-rule is used), Chiba Lotte Marines also honors number 26 for similar reason.

[edit] Records

[edit] See also

• "The Manpower!!!" (THE マンパワー!!!, "The Manpower!!!"^?) – the first Golden Eagles' official cheer song, recorded and released as a single by J-pop idol group Morning Musume.
• "Let's go Rakuten Eagles" (Let's Go 楽天イーグルス, "Let's go Rakuten Eagles"^?) – the second Golden Eagles' official cheer song, recorded by J-pop idol group DEF.DIVA of Hello! Project.
• "Daisuki Rakuten Eagles (ダイスキ楽天イーグルス, "Daisuki Rakuten Eagles^?) – the third Golden Eagles' official cheer song, recorded by J-pop idol group GAM.
• "Koero! Rakuten Eagles (越えろ！楽天イーグルス, "Koero! Rakuten Eagles^?) – the fourth Golden Eagles' official cheer song, recorded by J-pop idol group C-ute.

[edit] Gallery

Miyagi Baseball Stadium

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles

• (Japanese) Official page for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles