Founding of the Japanese Professional Baseball League
On February 5, 1936, the Japanese Professional Baseball League was officially established with seven teams: the Tokyo Giants, Osaka Tigers, Nagoya (later Chunichi Dragons), Hankyu, Dai-Tokyo, Nagoya Kinko, and Tokyo Senators. The league's creation was directly triggered by the success of the 1934 Japan-US baseball series, which featured MLB stars including Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. The series drew over 500,000 spectators across 16 games nationwide. Inspired by this success, Matsutaro Shoriki of the Yomiuri Shimbun spearheaded the creation of professional baseball, securing seven teams by late 1935. At the time, university baseball dominated Japanese sports culture, with the Waseda-Keio rivalry drawing massive crowds. The term 'vocational baseball' carried a dismissive connotation, and professional players were viewed as those who 'sold baseball for money.'
The Two-Season Spring-Autumn Format
The inaugural season adopted a two-season format with spring and autumn leagues. The spring league opened on April 29, with all seven teams competing in a round-robin format. Home stadiums were still under development, so teams played at venues including Koshien Stadium, Korakuen Stadium, and Narumi Stadium. The Tokyo Giants won the spring league championship, while the Osaka Tigers claimed the autumn title as inaugural champions. Each team played approximately 40 games throughout the year, far fewer than the current 143-game schedule. Average attendance was roughly 3,000 per game, a stark contrast to university baseball's Waseda-Keio matches that drew tens of thousands. Nevertheless, this new professional baseball venture marked the first step toward establishing itself in Japan's sporting landscape.
Sawamura and Kageura - Stars of the Inaugural Season
The standout player of the inaugural season was Yomiuri pitcher Eiji Sawamura, who had gained national fame by pitching brilliantly against MLB stars including Babe Ruth during the 1934 Japan-US series. In the 1936 professional season, Sawamura posted a remarkable 0.81 ERA, overwhelming batters with his fastball and sharp drop curve. Meanwhile, Osaka Tigers' Osamu Kageura delivered a two-way performance with a .338 batting average and 1.69 ERA, a precursor to modern two-way players like Shohei Ohtani. Other notable players included the Yomiuri's Shigeru Mizuhara, the Tigers' Kenjiro Matsuki, and the Senators' Hisanori Karita, all of whom became prominent figures in Japanese baseball. Most had transitioned from university or corporate baseball, making their move to professional baseball a significant decision at the time.
Origins of the Parent Company Model
The seven teams' financial foundations were fragile, unable to survive without backing from newspaper companies or railway corporations. The Tokyo Giants were supported by the Yomiuri Shimbun, the Osaka Tigers by Hanshin Electric Railway, and the Nagoya team by the Chunichi Shimbun. This 'parent company model' positioned teams as advertising vehicles, with standalone profitability never expected from the outset. Parent companies absorbed team losses in exchange for indirect benefits such as newspaper circulation boosts and increased railway ridership. This structure remains the foundation of NPB nine decades later, representing a distinctly Japanese approach to team ownership fundamentally different from MLB's franchise model. Of the original seven teams, Dai-Tokyo and Nagoya Kinko disappeared within a few years, but the Yomiuri, Tigers, and Dragons have survived to the present day, embodying the history of Japanese professional baseball itself.
The Legacy of 1936
The 1936 launch was a turning point in Japanese sports history, carving a path for sports as a viable profession in an era dominated by amateurism. While inaugural attendance was limited, the completion of Korakuen Stadium in 1937 began establishing professional baseball's commercial infrastructure. After wartime interruption, the introduction of the two-league system in 1950 propelled professional baseball to the status of national pastime. The seeds planted in 1936 grew over nine decades into a massive industry with 12 teams drawing approximately 26 million spectators annually. The Sawamura Award, named after inaugural star Eiji Sawamura and given to NPB's best pitcher, continues to this day, ensuring the memory of that first season lives on through institutional legacy.