News in Easy English: Hanshin Tigers' famous tiger design reaches 90 years

The Mainichi

09-07-2025

OSAKA -- The Hanshin Tigers, a famous Japanese baseball team, turn 90 years old in 2025. Many people know their popular tiger symbol. But few know the interesting story about how this symbol was made.
The baseball team started in 1935 with the name "Osaka Tigers." The team used the tiger symbol from the very start. This famous tiger design came from an idea by Tadashi Wakabayashi, the team's first star pitcher. Wakabayashi was from Hawaii. His old high school team also had the name "Tigers" and used a tiger picture. Wakabayashi thought this was a good idea for his Japanese team, too.
Wakabayashi asked his high school friend, Susumu Hoshina, to draw the first tiger picture. Then, a professional designer named Genichi Hayakawa from Hanshin Railway finished the design. Hayakawa's design soon became popular. From the start, it was used on posters and tickets.
Early ticket designs were beautiful, even though making colored tickets was difficult and expensive at that time. People who collect old baseball tickets say, "Hanshin Tigers' tickets with the tiger picture were very cool even long ago."
Hayakawa also designed uniforms carefully. At the time, many uniform makers did not think much about stripes and letters. Hayakawa himself decided all the small details. He even drew the stripes by hand.
In 1961, the team's name became the "Hanshin Tigers." Hayakawa retired in 1958, but he stayed connected to the Tigers. He even made designs for their books and posters after retiring.
Over the years, some teams have changed symbols and colors. But the Tigers' symbol has stayed the same. Masaki Omori, a railway designer who has studied Hayakawa carefully, explained, "Many teams change their designs often, but good designs like the Tigers' picture stay for a long time."
Even when the Tigers started wearing special uniforms with different colors for summer events, they kept the yellow and black tiger picture. Omori has always liked the Tigers. As a child, he loved the yellow and black Hanshin baseball cap very much. Omori said, "The tiger symbol is strong and loved by people even after 90 years."
(Japanese original by Mayu Maemoto, Osaka City News Department)
Vocabulary
symbol: a simple picture that shows an idea or a group
design: the way something looks, with shapes, colors, and pictures
professional: someone who does a job very well, often as their main work
uniform: special clothes players wear in sport teams
retire: to stop working after a long time