Schedules and Stadiums

- Do teams play in more then one stadium?

Short answer: Yes, all of the teams play "home away from home" games.

- And where are the Tigers located, in what city?

The Hanshin Tigers play at Koshien Stadium, in ivy covered brick and iron place built long before The War. While the Hanshin Tigers are considered the "pride of Osaka," Koshien is actually located in Nishi-Miya city, Hyogo prefecture.

There are two national high school tournaments played at Koshien every year, one in the spring, the other in mid-summer. While many of the Tigers' games during these periods are scheduled as visitors, they do play a number of games as the home team at third party stadiums, increasingly calling Osaka Dome home while Koshien is full of teen-agers.

While the Tigers are really the only team forced from their home, all teams tour other parts of Japan during the season, taking professional baseball to cities (and small towns) that wouldn't normally get to see a live professional game. This has been going on for a very long time. I've heard (but never confirmed) that the Lotte Orions (now Chiba Lotte Marines), while sharing Kawasaki Stadium with the Taiyo Whales (now Yokohama BayStars), played at least half of their home games away from Kawasaki. (Seiyu-san, can you confirm or refute that?)

The Giants tend to only hit large cities, like Osaka, Fukuoka, and Sapporo. But the other teams get off the Shinkan-sen and bus it to some pretty out of the way places that don't even seat 10,000 fans.

To see where each team's main home is, I'd recommend Latham-san's See a Japanese baseball game set of pages. As I say in my FAQ, this should be required reading for those new to Japan who are thinking of going to a game.

Well, I hope this helps to clear things up a bit.

> Nishi-Miya city, Hyogo prefecture.

That would be "Nishinomiya City", but the Kanji seemingly leaves out the "no".

I found this excellent site (in Japanese) which gives the names of the team each year, the manager, and the stadiums played in. [Link]

According to it, the Whales played there from the 1950's until 1978 when Yokohama Stadium was built. After that, the Orions claimed Kawasaki, until they moved to Chiba.