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Orix BlueWave
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Pacific
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Bluewavejpg
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Surpass Kobe
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(4)
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1996 1977 1976 1975
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PL
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(12)
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1996 1995 1984 1978 1977<br/> 1976 1975 1972 1971<br/> 1969 1968 1967
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The ( team based in
Kobe ,
Japan , which played in the
Pacific League and was owned by the
Orix Group , a Tokyo financial services company. Kobe is the hometown of the owner of the group and club, and was a reason that Orix BlueWave franchised in Kobe. Another reason was its former incarnation, '''Hankyu Braves''' (阪急ブレーブス), had franchised in
Nishinomiya , a neighboring town of Kobe in
Hyogo Prefecture .
After the
2004 season, the
Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes were acquired by Orix Group and were merged with the BlueWave to form the
Orix Buffaloes .
Orix BlueWave was founded in
1936 as (大阪阪急野球協会) under the ownership of a Japanese railway company
Hankyu Electric Railways (''Hankyu Dentetsu''), which was one of the oldest Japanese professional baseball team. Later the team was nicknamed Hankyu Braves.
The Hankyu Braves was thought to be one of the strongest teams not only in the Pacific League but in all of Japan. In the
1970s , the Hankyu Braves won the Pacific League three times, but lost the Japan Series against the
Tokyo Giants . In the
1980s , the team was still known as strong but lost the pennant to the
Seibu Lions . The manager Ueda Toshiharu was known as "the good manager in tragedy" because of those losses.
On , Hyogo Prefecture. This was a surprise to everyone, because it was much rarer in those days in Japan for the ownership of a professional baseball team to change, not to mention for a large company to sell one of its branches; Hankyu Electric Railways was thought of as one of the big companies that would never need to do such a thing.
During the first two years of new ownership, the team were known as the in Nishinomiya, Hyogo. In
1991 , the team became the '''Orix BlueWave''', located in Kobe. Longtime fans were shocked by these changes. However, since Nishinomiya and Kobe are close to one other, and the new home field of the team was better than the previous field, most fans became content with the move, with some nostalgia for the "Braves" name. The team was sometimes called ''Aonami'' (青波) by fans and the baseball media, which means "Blue Wave" in Japanese.
In
1995 and
1996 the Orix BlueWave won the Pacific League pennant. In
1996 , they also won the
Japan Series .
Famous players who have played for Orix BlueWave include
Ichiro Suzuki and
Shigetoshi Hasegawa (both of whom have played for the
Seattle Mariners of the
American League ), as well as
Daryl Spencer ,
Yutaka Fukumoto ,
Troy Neel ,
Masafumi Yamamori and
So Taguchi .
