Young_Buffalo_Bell

Orix Buffaloes
Orix Buffaloes

League: Pacific League
Location: Osaka, Kobe
Ballpark: Kyocera Dome Osaka and Hotto Motto Field Kobe
Year Founded: 1936
Nickname(s): Orix (オリックス), Buffaloes (バファローズ), Bs
League championships:Hankyu/Orix: 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1984, 1995, 1996

Kintetsu: 1979, 1980, 1989, 2001
Japan Series championships Hankyu/Orix: 1975, 1976, 1977, 1996
Former name(s) Orix BlueWave:
Hankyu Professional Baseball Club (1936–1946), Hankyu Bears (1947), Hankyu Braves (1947–1988), Orix Braves (1989–1990), Orix BlueWave (1991–2004)

Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes:
Kintetsu Pearls (1950-1958), Kintetsu Buffalo (1959-1961), Kintetsu Buffaloes (1962-1998), Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes (1999-2004)
Colors White, yellow and dark blue
Manager

Okada Akinobu
LogoDesign = "Buffaloes" written in yellow and blue

The Orix Buffaloes (オリックス・バファローズ Orikkusu Bafarōzu?) are a Nippon Professional Baseball team based in Osaka and Kobe, Japan. They play in the Pacific League. The team is owned by the Orix Group, a leading diversified financial services company based in Tokyo.

The team was formed after the 2004 NPB season by the merger of the Orix BlueWave and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes. The merged team began play in the 2005 NPB season, splitting its home games between the Kobe Sports Park Baseball Stadium, the former home of the BlueWave, in Kobe and the Kyocera Dome Osaka, that of the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes, in Osaka
Franchise history
Hankyu/Orix, 1936-2004
The Hankyu Braves

The Orix BlueWave was founded in 1936 under the ownership of a Japanese railway company Hanshin Kyuko Railway Company (阪神急行電鉄 Hanshin Kyuko Dentetsu?, present: Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc.), as Osaka Hankyu Baseball Club (大阪阪急野球協会 Ōsaka hankyū yakyū kyōkai?). Later nicknamed Hankyu Braves, it was one of the first Japanese professional baseball teams.

The Hankyu Braves were one of the strongest teams not only in the Pacific League but in all of Japan. Between 1967 and 1972, the Hankyu Braves won the Pacific League pennant five times, but lost the Japan Series each time against the Tokyo Giants. Manager Yukio Nishimoto was known as "the great manager in tragedy" because of those losses. But the Hankyu Braves won Japan Series three times in a row from 1975, against Tokyo Giants in 1976 and 1977, led by manager Toshiharu Ueda. At that time many good players in Japanese Baseball history played for the Hankyu Braves.

In the 1980s, the team was still strong but lost the pennant to the Seibu Lions every year except 1984.

On October 19, 1988, Hankyu Railway sold the franchise to the lease company Orient Lease (since 1989 known as Orix Group). That was known as "the longest day of the Pacific League" because it was also the day when Kintetsu Buffaloes played the legendary double-header for the Pacific League pennant (but they could not have got the pennant because of a draw game). The deal had been done with two assurances: the team name would remain "Braves", and the franchise would stay in Nishinomiya. The sale was a surprise, 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 parts; Hankyu Railway was thought of as one of the big companies that would never need to do such a thing.
The BlueWave

During the first two years of new ownership, the team was known as the Orix Braves and played in Nishinomiya. In 1991, the team became the Orix BlueWave, and moved to Kobe. Longtime fans were shocked by these changes. However, since Nishinomiya and Kobe are close to one another, and the new home field of the team was better than the old one, most fans accepted the move, although with some nostalgia for the historic "Braves" name. The team was sometimes called Aonami or Seiha (青波?) by fans and the baseball media, which means "blue wave" in Japanese.

Led by Ichiro Suzuki, in 1995 and 1996 the Orix BlueWave won the Pacific League pennant. In 1996, they also won the Japan Series.
Famous players

Famous former Orix BlueWave players include Ichiro Suzuki (now playing for the Seattle Mariners of the American League) and Shigetoshi Hasegawa (formerly of the Anaheim Angels and Seattle Mariners), as well as Daryl Spencer, Troy Neel, and So Taguchi.

Other remarkable former players include: Tetsuya Yoneda (350 game winner), Takao Kajimoto, Roberto Barbon, Tokuji Nagaike, Mitsuhiro Adachi (underhand big-game pitcher who defeated the Tokyo Giants), Yutaka Fukumoto, Hisashi Yamada (Japan's winningest underhand pitcher), Hideji Kato, Yutaro Imai (once pitched a perfect game), Roberto Marcano, Yoshinori Sato, Greg 'Boomer' Wells (the first non-Japanese triple crown hitter in NPB history), Masafumi Yamamori, Nobuyuki Hoshino and Yasuo Fujii.
Kintetsu, 1950-2004
Main article: Kintetsu Buffaloes

The Kintetsu Buffalo were the first Japanese team to sign an American player. They signed former major league pitcher Glenn Mickens and catcher Ron Bottler for the 1959 season. Mickens had played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1953 and Bottler had been a career minor league catcher in the United States.

Orix Buffaloes roster

First squad Second squad

Pitchers

42 Alfredo Figaro
16 Yoshihisa Hirano
19 Chihiro Kaneko
15 Daisuke Katō
12 Hiroshi Kisanuki
18 Mamoru Kishida
11 Kazuki Kondō
68 Ben Jámin Mír
17 Ryota Katsuki
49 Shinya Nakayama
63 Yūki Nishi
40 Kazuya Takamiya
20 Hayato Terahara
48 Makoto Yoshino
99 Cha Seung Baek
69 Dan Hú-Flung-Pú
7 Патрик Wieland

Catchers

00 Mathieu Macchiato
54 Hikaru Itō
27 Takeshi Hidaka
44 Fumihiro Suzuki



Infielders

52 Aarom Baldiris
1 Mitsutaka Gotō
5 Mike Hessman
6 Keisuke Kaneko
23 Hirotoshi Kitagawa
2 Kōji Yamasaki
25 Lee Dae-Ho

Outfielders

0 Makoto Moriyama
4 Shogo Akada
8 Shunta Gotō
55 Takahiro Okada(T-Okada)
9 Tomotaka Sakaguchi
36 Shinji Shimoyama
33 So Taguchi
00 Tomochika Tsuboi


Manager

80 Okada Akinobu

Pitchers

28 Satoshi Komatsu
13 Kentaro Kuwahara
14 Shuichi Furukawa
21 Takuya Kai
35 Motoki Higa

Catchers

22 Daisuke Maeda
37 Toshiya Tsuji
45 Toshio Saitō
67 Tetsuya Yokoyama

Infielders

58 Yusuke Kajimoto
10 Keiji Ōbiki
31 Makoto Shiozaki

Outfielders

66 Shintarō Yoshida

Baseball Hall of Famers

Elected mainly for Hankyu Braves service

Takao Kajimoto, P, 1954-1973 (inducted 2007)
Yutaka Fukumoto, CF, 1969-1988 (inducted 2002)

Elected for service with other teams, as well as Hankyu and Orix

Hisashi Yamada, P, 1969-1988 (inducted 2006)
Hiromitsu Kadota, DH, 1989-1990 (inducted 2006)
Akira Ōgi, MGR 1988-1992†, 1994–2001, 2005 (inducted 2004)
Toshiharu Ueda, MGR, 1974–1978, 1981-1990 (inducted 2003)
Tetsuya Yoneda, P, 1956-1975 (inducted 2000)
Futoshi Nakanishi, Head coach / Hitting coach, 1985-1990†, 1995-1997 (inducted 1999)

†For Kintetsu Buffaloes Elected mainly for Kintetsu Buffaloes service

Keishi Suzuki, P, 1966-1985 (inducted 2002)
Yukio Nishimoto, MGR 1974-1981 (inducted 1988)

Former players and managers

as Orix Buffaloes

Japan Akira Ogi (仰木 彬) - manager, deceased
Japan Norihiro Nakamura (中村 紀洋) - IF
Japan Yoshitomo Tani (谷 佳知) - OF
Mexico Karim García - OF
United States Cliff Brumbaugh - RF
Japan Kazuhiro Kiyohara (清原 和博) - 1B or 3B
United States Ryan Vogelsong - P

as Orix BlueWave

Japan Akira Ogi (仰木 彬) - manager
United States Greg Wells, IF
Japan Shigetoshi Hasegawa (長谷川 滋利) - P
Japan Hiromitsu Kadota - OF
South Korea Dae-Sung Koo - P
Japan Takahito Nomura (野村 空生) - P
Japan Kazuhiro Sato (佐藤 和弘) - also known as "Punch" Sato (パンチ佐藤), OF
51 Japan Ichiro Suzuki (鈴木 一朗, イチロー) - OF
Japan So Taguchi (田口 壮) - OF

as Kintetsu Buffaloes

Japan Norihiro Nakamura (中村 紀洋) - IF
Japan Hideo Nomo (野茂 英雄) - P
United States Charlie Manuel - OF

as Hankyu (and Orix) Braves

Cuba Roberto Barbon - IF
Japan Tetsuya Yoneda (米田 哲也) - P
Japan Yutaka Fukumoto (福本 豊) - OF
Japan Hisashi Yamada (山田 久志) - P
Japan Hideji Kato (加藤 英司) - 1B
United States Animal Resry - P
Japan Hiromi Matsunaga (松永 浩美) - 3B
Venezuela Roberto Marcano - IF
~Buffalo Bell~
Age:10
Hight4'4"
Weight:112 lbs
~bio~
Buffalo Bell is a big Baseball fan. she would go after school to every day to watch the Baffalos practices and would go every week end to see there at home games or take the train to watch them play. she is such a fan and was so cute that the Buffalos made her there mascot. now she gets to go to every game for free and help cheer her favorite team on and get the other fans going. but its not always easy. you see do to her "fan" following; mainly perv Otaku's. alot of the other mascots hate her . the other teams mascots often tease her, try to bring her down or even worse hurt her. buffalo Bell is very energetic despite this and gives all her energy supporting the team. giving of i lively bubbledashious personality to her.