I Walked on Hallowed Baseball Grounds in Osaka Without Knowing it

During our Japan vacation, our hotel in Osaka was adjacent to Namba Parks. Little did I know about the baseball history of that shopping mall.

Namba Parks shopping center is built on the site of the former Osaka Stadium, home of the former Nankai Hawks. I walked through this shopping center several times. If I only had known about the history, perhaps I would have noticed the reminders that serve as a nod to the history of the Nankai Hawks.

The Nankai Hawks were founded in 1938 by the Nankai Railway. It is said that the Hawks came to life because competitors of the Nankai Railway, Hanshin Railway and Hankyu Railway founded their own baseball teams, the Hanshin Tigers and the Hankyu Braves (later the Orix Blue Wave).

For the newly founded NPB, the Nankai Hawks needed a new ballpark, which was constructed in 1950 on the site of a former tobacco plant, which was destroyed during the bombing of Osaka in WWII. The ballpark had a capacity of 32,000.

The ballpark was primally used for baseball and was the home of the Hawks until their move to Fukuoka in 1988. After the departure of the Hawks, the ballpark was leased for a large housing exhibition.

In 2000, the ballpark was demolished to make room for the Namba Parks shopping center and office complex.

As a tribute to the Nankai Hawks, a home plate and a pitchers plate has been placed in the tiles of the shopping centers second floor (first floor for Dutch readers) at the exact locations of the home plate and the mound of Osaka Stadium. At the ninth floor (eighth for Dutch readers) there is a small exposition of the Nankai Hawks history with items, caps, uniforms, trophies, and a pennant. It shows how baseball is an integrated part of Japanese life.