History of the League

What is now referred to as Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), the name of the league, started out as a series of three tournaments between seven professional team in the spring of 1936. The "league" was called "Dai Ichi Shokugyo Yakyu Riigu Sen" or "The First Occupational Baseball League Games." ("Occupational" as in "work" - not the military use of the word.)

An interesting historical note: The team that is now the Giants, the oldest professional team in Japan, having been put together in 1934, is listed as belonging to the league, but did not participate in any of these first three tournaments in the spring of 1936. Kingyo, who finished the first tournament in third place, did not participate in the next two spring tournaments, but did participate in the following summer and fall tournament leagues (which I'll cover later - unless someone beats me to them).

Source: The Official Baseball Encyclopedia 2004, 4th Edition, Baseball Magazine Sha.

- I wanted to know the official name of the league, along with its founding date.

The league acronym is NPB (for Nippon Professional Baseball). The first year of the NPB was in 1936.

Also the first two-league season that set the grounds for the modern day league was in 1950. The Central League had 8 teams and the Pacific had 7 teams in 1950. The Nippon Series that year was won by Maninichi Orions (now Chiba Lotte Marines) over Shochiku Robins.

Over the next 10-15 years the NPB would work it's way down to the current 6 teams per league line up through mergers.

The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles are the newest member of the NPB in it's first season. They were born out of the remains from the merger between Kintetsu and Orix.