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The Hiroshima Toyo Carp baseball team was founded in 1949 and joined the central league.
At that time, without having a sponsor company, the team was run with capital from citizens
of Hiroshima Prefecture and City, a situation that shortly led to management troubles.
Without recruitment of enforcement players the team faced dissolution crises twice.
Yet, the local financial world lend a hand and built a stadium with facilities for night
games. But even after the completion of the Hiroshima Baseball Stadium the management
remained in the red.
In 1970 the current owner, Kouda Matsuda, then president of Toyo Industries
(the present day Matsuda), took his position. Later the management of the baseball team
was rationalized, young players recruited and trained and, earlier than in any other teams,
players send into the American major leagues for training. Also, the cooperation of the
Keio University was obtained for the conduction of scientific training programs, thorough
medical care and health control. This was something that attracted much attention in Japan
from other professional baseball teams.
Since the team won the central league first in 1975, it did so 6 times so far. It also
has been three times Japan's No. 1 and thus built its position as an invincible team.
Other than the homes of the Giants or the Hanshin team Hiroshima is not a major capital,
but only a regional city with a population of 1.1 million. In spite its regional handicap,
owner Matsuda led and managed the team always thinking ahead of his time.
The Carps later established in the Dominican Republic the baseball academy "The Hiroshima
Toyo Carp Academy of Baseball" that opened in November 1990. Since then young, suitable
foreign players from the Dominican Republic were scouted and trained to relieve the
friction between Japan and American caused by the reliance on American major league players.
This was a move that did not only attract much attention from the American and Japanese
professional baseball world, but also played an important role for the survival of the
Carps.
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