The Hiroshima Toyo Carp Stood The Test of Time

The Hiroshima Toyo Carp, a team that was “given” to the civilians of Hiroshima to forget about life after the atomic bomb. Unlike other Japanese (NPB) clubs, the Toyo Carp didn’t have a big company that backed them and yet the club stayed alive. Here is how.

After the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was in shambles for the following years. To let the citizens forget about daily life, the city of Hiroshima made a bid for a professional baseball team when the NPB was established. The club would be part of the Central League. But the club lacked financial support of a big company like the Yomiuri Giants or the Osaka Tigers.

The new baseball club was named the Carp after the koi fish that climbed the rapids of Hiroshima Castle. The name was chosen to signify Hiroshima’s rebirth and perseverance following the aforementioned atomic bombings. 

The team’s lack of funding became an even more serious problem in 1951, and it was proposed by NPB that the team be disbanded, or merge with the Taiyo Whales team, which was based in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi at the time. Hiroshima citizens strongly protested against disbanding the team, and raised the money needed to keep the team through donations. Next to these donations, the players did everything to keep the club alive, selling Carp pencils for example.

The Central League had seven teams, which made it hard for the NPB to create a coherent schedule. As a result, the governing baseball body decided that every team that a team finishing below .300 in 1952, would be disbanded. Apparently this sparked the Carp, who had finished dead last in 1950 and 1952, as they finished the 1952 season with a .316 percentage. The Shochiku Robins ended the season in last place with a .288 winning percentage, and was “merged” with the Taiyo Whales. But technically, the Robins folded and this left most of their star players as free agents; Hiroshima signed most of them as a result.

The financial woes continued, even this bad that the club could only issue one uniform per player. Eventually, in 1960, the team finished above .500 for the first time.

In 1968, Toyo Kogyo (now Mazda) became the clubs main sponsor. Since then the club has a more stable financial foundation. The founders of the Toyo Kogyo car factory, the Matsuda family, sold the car brand to Ford in 1984 but kept about 60% of the shares of the club. About 34% of the shares in the Toyo Carp is owned by Mazda. The Toyo Carp are the only baseball club in Asia that doesn’t have a big company as major shareholder. Even though the car company isn’t called Toyo Kogyo, the name Toyo is still part of the Carps moniker.

After Hajime Matsuda took over as owner of the club, a period of prosperity started, leading to the team’s first Central League Pennant in 1975. Four years later, the club would win their first NPB championship, followed by two more in 1980 and 1984. Since then, the club has the longest championship drought in the NPB.

When free agency was introduced, in 1991 this was a disaster for the Toyo Carp. The team couldn’t keep their talented players who were bought away by financial stronger teams. Nevertheless, the club kept producing talented players like Akira Eto (to the Yomiuri Giants), Tomoaki Kanemoto (to the Hanshin Tigers), Takahiro Arai (to the Hanshin Tigers, but returned to the Carp), and Hiroku Kuroda (to MLB but returned). Since the Toyo Carp cannot compete with the high salaries that clubs like the Yomiuri Giants or SoftBank Hawks can offer, they were hardly capable to acquire a big name free agent.

Because the Carp cannot acquire big stars, for decades, the focus has been on their own scouting, youth development (including their own academies in the Dominican Republic) and to acquire (without spending much) and to develop foreign or young talented players.

The Toyo Carp are playing in Mazda stadium, a city owned ballpark.

The aforementioned involvement of the fans in the past, hasn’t skipped a generation. When I arrived in Hiroshima in June of this year, a game between the Toyo Carp and the Orix Buffaloes would be played later that day. The hall of Hiroshima Station was filled with fans from both sides. What caught my eye was how proud the fans in Hiroshima are of their team. Not only did the fans wear jerseys of the home team, also personnel of local restaurants did. Everywhere in Hiroshima, you see advertisements, merch (which is not solely something for Hiroshima of course) and other signs of support. Even in the hotel I stayed at, the desk employees showed their support with small plush.

In 2013, the club managed something unusual. Despite finishing with a losing record, the team made it to the playoffs, where they beat the Hanshin Tigers in the first stage of the Climax Series. In the following years, the Carp made it to the Japan Series twice (2016 and 2018) but didn’t stand a chance in both years.

Despite the fact that the club cannot compete financially with other NPB clubs, the Carp has proven that it is not the punching bag of the NPB at times. Perhaps, soon, the day will come that the Carp will win another NPB championship.