Coaches in PE Class
In April 2018, the Hanshin Tigers opened the Tigers Academy, a year-round school for children. Club alumni teach at its baseball school, and Tigers Girls teach at its dance school. That same year, the club began sending academy coaches into elementary schools as guest teachers. The coaches take over the baseball-type lessons that are required in third- and fourth-grade PE, standing in for the regular teachers. According to the club's yearly pages, the coaches visited 3 schools in Nishinomiya in 2018 and 12 schools in Nishinomiya, Itami and Takarazuka in 2019. In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic put the visits on hold from April to October. They resumed in November, covering 6 schools in Takarazuka and Ashiya. After the restart, the club also added lessons for second graders, the age when many children start sports and other activities. In 2021, 1,611 children took the lessons at 16 schools in Nishinomiya, Takarazuka, Itami and Ashiya. In 2022 the figures were 924 children at 11 schools in Nishinomiya and Itami, and in 2023 they were 1,284 children at 14 schools in Nishinomiya, Itami and Takarazuka. These school counts cover every school where the coaches taught during the year, not only the schools that current players visited.
Players Join the Lessons
In 2019, four players, including Koji Chikamoto and Seiya Kinami, came to Setsuyo Elementary School in Itami on December 19. In 2020, Ryutaro Umeno and Yusuke Ohyama joined a lesson at Suenari Elementary School in Takarazuka. In 2021, five players, including Teruaki Sato, Shoki Murakami and Daichi Ishii, came to Yokai Elementary School in Nishinomiya on December 9. On December 17, four players, including Takumu Nakano, took part at Nishinomiya-hama Compulsory Education School. In 2022, four players, including Takuma Kirishiki, visited Yamaguchi Elementary School in Nishinomiya on December 15, and four more, including Ukyo Maegawa, visited Imazu Elementary School the next day. In 2023, six players, including Shota Morishita and Keito Mombetsu, came to Sonowa-kita Elementary School in Amagasaki on December 5. Sato, Ishii and Murakami, the three who joined the 2021 lesson at Yokai Elementary School, finished first through third in the 2025 Central League MVP voting.
Special Lessons in Nishinomiya
Even before it began sending coaches, the club held a different kind of special lesson at elementary schools in Nishinomiya, the city that is home to Koshien Stadium. The mascot Keyta and Tigers Girls visited public elementary schools in the city to give a 45-minute lesson that used baseball as a way to learn about Nishinomiya. The lessons were mainly for second and third graders and included a video message from Tigers players about the importance of having dreams. The club calls this lesson the Dream Link School and says it reached about 3,800 children at 35 schools over the five years from 2014 to 2018. In 2018, it covered 7 schools and 791 children, from Kami-Koshien Elementary School on September 6 to Kawarabayashi Elementary School on January 22 of the following year. Over the 16 years from 2003 to 2018, the mascots and Tigers Girls also spent time with about 71,000 children at 484 nearby kindergartens and nursery schools.
Donations by Individual Players
Since the 2011 fiscal year, the club has honored players who keep working on community service and fan service. The honor is called the Tadashi Wakabayashi Award. The club explains that the name honors the achievements of Wakabayashi, its ace in the early years, who was also a pioneer in work away from the field. Since 2020, Fumihito Haraguchi has donated an amount based on his hits and runs batted in to Child Chemo House, a medical care facility in Kobe. Since 2021, Suguru Iwazaki has given toys, in an amount based on the games he pitches, to nursery schools and child welfare facilities in Shimizu Ward of Shizuoka, his hometown, and in Nishinomiya, the club's home. In 2024 and 2025 the rate was 20,000 yen per game, and the toys were worth 1.2 million yen and 1.06 million yen. Also since 2021, Koyo Aoyagi has given picture books and book vouchers to elementary schools and nursery schools in Tsurumi Ward of Yokohama, where he grew up. In 2024 he gave items worth 800,000 yen to 22 city elementary schools and 4 city nursery schools, and received letters of thanks from the ward mayor and the ward board of education. In 2022 and 2023, Koji Chikamoto set up the Chikamoto Seats and invited 240 residents of his hometown, Awaji, to games at Koshien each year. Since 2023, Teruaki Sato has donated 100,000 yen per home run to the Gold Ribbon Network, a group that supports children with cancer. The amount was 1.6 million yen in 2024 and 4 million yen in 2025. The club gave Sato the Tadashi Wakabayashi Award for the 2025 fiscal year and also cited the baseball clinics he holds for his former youth team. Since 2026, Shoki Murakami has invited residents of Minamiawaji, where he serves as a hometown ambassador, to official games at Koshien, four people per game.
From School to the Ballpark
Beyond the classroom, the club also gives youth players a place to play at Koshien Stadium and a place to watch professional games. The Tigers Cup, which began as an interleague tournament among three junior high hardball leagues, reached its 18th edition in 2022 with 12 teams taking part. In 2023, the club invited 129 youth baseball teams of junior high age or younger from around Japan, 4,079 people in all, to watch games. The lesson visits are centered on Nishinomiya and reach Itami, Takarazuka, Ashiya and Amagasaki. For Haraguchi, Iwazaki and Sato, the amount depends on hits, games pitched or home runs. Results on the field turn directly into support for local nursery schools and for children who are ill. In my view, what stands out in Hanshin's community work is that it places children's first contact with baseball in the school lesson. A PE class reaches children who do not play baseball, too.