Wikipedia:Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles

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For current information on this topic, see 2009 Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles season.

Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles
League	Pacific League
Location	Sendai
Ballpark	Miyagi Baseball Stadium
Year Founded	2004
Nickname(s)	Rakuten (楽天), Eagles (イーグルス), Washi (鷲, meaning eagle), Inuwashi (狗鷲, meaning golden eagle)
League championships	(none)
Japan Series championships	(none)
Colors	Red, gold, and white
Logo Design	Stylized white 'E' with wing, with gold trim.
Uniforms
Home	Away

The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles (東北楽天ゴールデンイーグルス, Tōhoku Rakuten Gōruden Īgurusu^?) are a baseball team founded in 2004 to begin play in 2005 in the Japanese Pacific League. The team was created to fill the void left by the merger of the Orix Blue Wave and the Kintetsu Buffaloes, who merged at the end of the 2004 season due to financial difficulties, leaving the Pacific League with only 5 teams, causing the biggest crisis in the traditional two-league structure in NPB and finally caused the historical-first baseball player strike in Japan. The team is based in Sendai, in Miyagi Prefecture. It inaugurated its first season with a 3 – 1 victory over Lotte. The team is owned by the Internet shopping company Rakuten [1].

The team's manager is Katsuya Nomura, the oldest manager in NPB history.

Players of note

Current manager

• 19 Katsuya Nomura

Current notable players

• 21 Hisashi Iwakuma - P
• 18 Masahiro Tanaka - P
• 29 Lin En-yu - P
• 11 Yasuhiro Ichiba - P
• 13 Hisashi Ogura - P
• 36 Hideki Asai - P
• 42 Marcus Gwyn - P
• 17 Darrell Rasner - P
• 50 Matt Childers - P
• 62 Kazuo Fukumori - P
• 46 Teppei Tsuchiya - CF
•  8 Koichi Isobe- RF
• 17 José Fernández - 3B
• 55 Rick Short - LF or 3B or 1B
•  5 Fernando Seguignol - 1B
•  7 Takeshi Yamasaki - 1B
•  4 Yosuke Takasu - 2B
• 37 Motohiro Shima - C
• 99 Norihiro Nakamura - 3B

Former managers

• Yasushi Tao

Former players

• Luis Lopez
• Ryan Glynn
• Eric Valent
• Cedrick Bowers
• Kevin Hodges
• Gary Rath
• Andy Tracy
• Aaron Myette
• Matt Skrmetta
• Damon Minor
• Katsunori Nomura
• Tetsuya Iida
• Takeshi Nakamura
• Tadaharu Sakai
• Hideo Koike
• Koichi Oshima
• Kevin Witt
• Adam Bass
• Toyohiko Yoshida
• Koichi Sekikawa
• Lin Ying-Chieh - P
• Domingo Guzman - P

Retired numbers

• 10 - This number is worn by both team mascots, Clutch and Clutchina, and is considered the number of the fan, the 'tenth player' on the field. It is the first retired number in NPB involving a fan, inspired by some J-League Teams which retire "12" (However, Pacific League normally have 10 starting members, since DH-rule is used), Chiba Lotte Marines also honors number 26 for similar reason.

Records

Golden Eagles Fan Club honorary members

• Shirō Asano
• Hajimu Fujii
• Great Sasuke
• Takanori Hatakeyama
• Hiroshi Ikushima
• Junichi Inagaki
• Shūhei Mainōmi
• Hiroya Masuda
• Shingo Mimura
• Masatoshi Nakamura
• Toshiyuki Nishida
• Itsurō Ōizumi
• Kōhei Ōtomo
• Sanpei
• Hiroshi Saitō
• Eisaku Satō
• Masao Sen
• Mayo Suzukaze
• Yoshitake Tanaka
• Sukeshiro Terata
• Suzuki Udo
• Kōichi Yamadera

See also

• "The Manpower!!!" (THE マンパワー!!!^?) – the first Golden Eagles' official cheer song, recorded and released as a single by J-pop idol group Morning Musume.
• "Let's Go Rakuten Eagles" (Let's Go 楽天イーグルス^?) – the second Golden Eagles' official cheer song, recorded by J-pop idol group DEF.DIVA of Hello! Project.
• "Daisuki Rakuten Eagles (ダイスキ楽天イーグルス^?) – the third Golden Eagles' official cheer song, recorded by J-pop idol group GAM.
• "Koero! Rakuten Eagles (越えろ！楽天イーグルス^?) – the fourth Golden Eagles' official cheer song, recorded by J-pop idol group ℃-ute.

Gallery

Miyagi Baseball Stadium

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles

• (Japanese) Official page for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles