Why Do Asian Baseball Teams Have English Nicknames?

[@GaijinBaseball]

Corrections: 1. The Rakuten Monkeys played as FFH Agan in the Taiwan Major League before they were absorbed into the CPBL when it won the split. The CPBL let them keep the name for a year before forcing them to change it, but by then La New had bought the team from FFH anyways. They became the La New Bears. 2. 9:15. The B's played in Nishinomiya until 1990.

[@superninja252]

7:43 - the heroes are not owned by Kiwoon, kiwoon sponsors the team but the team is largely independent

[@ralphiemcdingus2075]

I would love a video talking more about the indigenous Taiwanese baseball players and teams. Thanks for the research you put in! A real gem on my recommended page!

[@kunheelee88]

The amount of research and attention to detail in your videos really shines through! I'm Korean so I wanted to see how accurate your information on the KBO was, and there's really nothing I could add. One thing though about company names in teams, the Kiwoom Heroes were briefly just the 'Seoul Heroes' in 2008 because their sponsor at the time dropped the deal. They also had to play regular season games in training uniforms during this time.

[@luuk3731]

7:42 A little fun fact, Kiwoon Heroes is not owned by Kiwoom. They are their own company just like most of American teams, and they have a naming sponsor deal with Kiwoom so their team name is Kiwoom Heroes. They were called Nexen Heroes before this naming deal with Kiwoom was made(You may recognize this name since it's Byungho Park and Jung ho Kang's former team). Interestingly, because of this weird nature of having to make profit solely through naming rights and team revenues, Heroes are the only team in KBO that has more profit than cost. That's partly why there's so many former Hero in MLB(since posting gives money to the club and can avoid giving their stars a huge contract without too much backlash from fans).

[@RunningInSquares]

TBH you did better than you might think on pronouncing the Korean names! A note also on the Korean names around the 14-minute mark, Hangeul actually also satisfies the "clearly legible at a distance" hence also why they likely use Hangeul names. Didn't catch that point so just wanted to throw that in, in case.

[@kaijudirector5336]

4:54 - Sidenote there’s a part of me that thinks they could have gone with Tokyo Yamatos if they wanted to invoke the Yankees. After all, Yamato is an old name for Japan and I’ve seen it used to refer to mainland Japanese the same way “Yankee” is used to call some Americans. And of course, “Yomiuri Yamatos” just rolls well off the tounge.

[@GaijinBaseball]

Funnily enough, a team attempted to do just that. In 1946 and 1947 the Hawks were called "Kinki Great Ring". Kinki referred to Kinki-Nippon Railways, the wartime merger of Nankai and Kintetsu, and "Great Ring" is the literal translation of Yamato. Nankai ditched the nickname for Hawks when they extracated themselves from the merger, mainly because Americans made fun of it.

[@turtlemanforeva]

@@GaijinBaseball wonder why the Swallows kept their name, cuz the Americans are def making fun that one XD

[@taiwan1895]

There was a professional league in Taiwan, the Taiwan Major League (TML), that rivaled the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) from 1997 until it was absorbed into the CPBL in 2003. The TML clubs' nicknames were derived from Taiwanese aboriginal symbols and most of the clubs only used Chinese characters on their uniforms.

[@logia6]

Love the league!

[@alexbatchelor8285]

13:40 Fun fact: The Korean version of the saying "finding a needle in a hay stack" is "finding a Mr. Kim in Seoul".

[@supersasukemaniac]

Ok that's hilarious.

[@sun6262-]

Lefty odul is practically a founding father of japanese baseball as we know it

[@khaikhuc1432]

13:39 replace them with Nguyen, Tran and Le and you have the situation with Vietnamese family names, with even more extreme proportions. Btw how we deal with displaying with names on jerseys is as follows if y'all interested: Roman characters (since Vietnamese is Romanized in writing). Intonation marks encouraged for clarity. Family name and given name displayed in full (occasionally, Nguyen abbreviated to NG.). Middle names in initials.

[@GreenHornet553]

Excellent video that actually answered some questions that I had thought about but hadn't had the curiosity to fully look into. Thank you for making this video, GB. Can't wait for the next one.

[@kj9093]

Thanks, I really like the insight. I am a big baseball fan and just discovered NPB last year and love any and all info about the league and players!

[@juanjosesanchezbracamontes]

You always being better. Amazing job

[@yukissubmarine]

Great video!

[@ballisstrife]

It's so insane that this channel barely has 6000 subs

[@ChrisD123]

Fantastic video - really helped explain a lot of things I was curious about regarding baseball in Asia. 👍

[@Satoshi3014]

Hi there, what a great video. The algorithm help you gained another subscriber, nice. Point of information though, 8:45 when you described the origin for Hanshin being reference to Osaka and Kobe, you used the word "Chinese pronunciation". While I personally know what you meant (as it's the on-yomi for the to Kanji of "Saka" and "Kami"), it's feel a bit confusing for people who don't understand. Or maybe it's just me nitpicking on something that doesn't really affect the whole picture? lol And I don't even have a right answer for you either, so....... good luck? ww

[@Satoshi3014]

Disclaimer,: as someone that speak both Chinese, English, and Japanese, I'll assure you I was just feeling weird in the English sense, and have no other meaning(wink-wink) so don't worry.

[@Hogtownboy1]

Very illuminating thanks

[@RundasTheGreat]

Fascinating answer to a question I didn’t k is existed until now.

[@gabriellopez8902]

Keep up the good work

[@turtlemanforeva]

Love your videos. Can you make one on possible NPB expansion cities, why it hasn't happened, and geopolitical factors? That would be a banger!

[@saulspeaks2557]

Babe, wake up. New Gaijin Baseball just dropped

[@N_g_er]

I'm gay too buddy lol

[@sandysmokes655]

more vids about other leagues or some of the things you mentioned "being a story for another time"

[@jayschafer1760]

I've binged on your videos in rhe past, but didn't know that you also cover Korean & Taiwanese baseball; I got the impression you were only focused on Japan. I'd love to see a lot more videos on Korea & Taiwan.

[@zkiiffs9]

I heard 3 different “stories for another time”. You planning on making full videos for any of them? I’d be very interested in learning more.

[@GaijinBaseball]

They're all on the list lol NPB lore often sends me down tangents when I'm researching things, it's more to keep myself focused than anything else

[@LEF3133]

Have had 3 Mr Lee's from Hyundai onsite to overview the assembly of HV transformers in Australia. When no 2 arrived, hey that's funny. No 3 we were wtf. But seeing as nearly 15% is Lee it makes sense now.

[@shaytepes7351]

Love Korean baseball. And for your lineup today: Yung, kim, kim, kim, lee, kim kim, and park!

[@ffenixrising]

This is awesome work! This is not just a history lesson, but also a language lesson as well. lol

[@supersasukemaniac]

Anytime i see it, Kinki Great Ring never fails to make me giggle.

[@ShadowWizard123]

15:24 Why are your Patreon supporters written in English?

[@ktwoa]

Terrific!!

[@josephhouk6703]

Random idea for a future video: Kazuhisa Inao, aka "Iron Man Inao".

[@vitameat]

Isao Harimoto deserves one as well.

[@Playboigerm]

Please make a video about NPB video games

[@SIGuy7480]

Great explanation

[@ramuelcruzada3207]

Wait, Binggrae the Ice Cream? The truth is all of the sports here in Asia, that's the norm too.

[@LupineTendencies]

Commenting because I liked what I saw and am new here!

[@HoshizakiYoshimasa]

Hopefully Taiwans league expands by 2 teams and brings back the Tigers and Whales names. Same with Korea with the Raiders and Unicorns name. While we are at it Japan should have 4 more teams. Kyoto, Niigata, Shizuoka City or Hamamatsu and a team in Shikoku or Okayama

[@vitameat]

What about Nagasaki's chance of a team? Kyoto and Niigata are good, but would Nagasaki and another southern team with Okinawa in its territory work also?

[@HoshizakiYoshimasa]

​@@vitameat Too small of a metropolitan area. Shikoku arguably is too. But it's odd that 1 of the 4 main islands doesn't have a team in NPB. Also the SoftBank Hawks are the pride of all Kyushu Island where Nagasaki also is.

[@44song]

When you suggest expansion in the Asian Leagues, please research the cities with population over one million still yet to have a team first.

[@Ballin4Vengeance]

Tradition with american sports in different countries. European american football teams are the same. Steelers, 49ers, Lions and even if the name is not directly linked to a NFL team it’s still in English f.e. Knights, Enthroners etc.

[@supersasukemaniac]

Galaxy Fire and SeaDevils are German but use English names.

[@HoshizakiYoshimasa]

Why is there American Football in Europe? Don't they already have better Rugby?

[@MatthiaGryffine]

This is a really cool story

[@44song]

Fun fact: Technically CTBC Brothers doesn't have nickname. The club started out as Brother Hotel Baseball Club back in 1984. It is common practice for Asian teams to play under the name of the parent company. In 1990 the club have chosen Elephants as the nickname. So the full name of the club is Brother Elephants. In 2014 the owner of the Elephants decided to sell the club and CTBC made the bid. But CTBC wanted to keep the Name "Brother" as they fear that dropping the historic team name like Brother might result in loss of fans. As the fans can't related the team with new ownership to the past legacies. So the takeover was like CTBC funded a subsidiary company CTBC Entertainment, who purchased the Brother Elephants Baseball Club. CTBC then pay for naming rights and sponsorship of the Brothers Baseball Club Limited. Despite Elephants have been dropped from the team name, but the team still use Elephant as mascot. So Unlike the conventional Asian team names consist of parent company name + nickname. CTBC is actually sponsor of naming right, Brothers is the name of baseball club.

[@edmunddickinson6470]

Any idea why the Giants are the only team in Japan whose name is commonly referenced as the translation of the English nickname (巨人 = 'kyojin'), rather than the company name or actual English nickname (pronounced / written JP-style)?

[@kitanotatsu]

Well, I don't know for sure but: it's the most popular team in Japan and also happens to be owned by one of the largest media companies in Japan (Yomiuri's not just a newspaper - they're part of a huge news media conglomerate). That means that the team can essentially decide how the media reports on the team, and thus how it's called. However, it's important to note that some Yomiuri anti-fans are decidedly against referring to the team as "kyojin", and use the company name instead, as is standard for all other teams in Japan (except Hiroshima).

[@edmunddickinson6470]

@@kitanotatsu Thanks! I'm a Tigers fan and I think I see 巨人 pretty often in Tigers fan contexts - so "anti-fandom" is selective I guess!

[@HoshizakiYoshimasa]

It's marketing. Because Yomiyuri is Japan's team. And being Japan's team, naturally they should be referred to in Kanji.

[@markfischer1778]

Why do the LG Twins have that name? Is Seoul part of a twin cities complex, or did they just pick an english name out of random?

[@GaijinBaseball]

LG's corporate headquarters are called the "LG Twin Towers". That and they're the only team in the KBO to share a stadium.

[@markfischer1778]

@@GaijinBaseball Interesting. Thanks for answering.

[@kingnicholas6790]

are you kidding me trolling or what?

[@1rwjwith]

Asian baseball is fantastic!

[@mentazmic]

Otsukaresama!

[@Mosesblah]

21% of Koreans are named Kim? I'm surprised it's that low

[@specialk9999]

The Japanese language has a whole “alphabet” called katakana that’s used just for writing English words.

[@taiwan1895]

Actually it's called "Katakana" and one of its uses is for foreign names and words in general, not just English

[@specialk9999]

@@taiwan1895 oops yeah I miss spelled it. I know, just mentioned English cause a big portion of his audience are English speakers. I’m half Japanese and lived in Tokyo for 13 years and went to Japanese school k-2.

[@robertewalt7789]

“Kurabu” is the Japanese pronunciation of the English word “club.”

[@nickfury8973]

Japan also has Spanish, and Italian sounding names for their football teams (J league).

[@GaijinBaseball]

Yep, sometimes when I'm listing off the football teams I support, I forget to add "Hiroshima" when I say Sanfrecce and people go "wow, two Italian clubs?"

[@nickfury8973]

@@GaijinBaseball Reysol, Jubilo, Cerezo, Frontale, Bellmare, Consadole 😂

[@ggbetz]

I know the Kyoto purple sanga

[@ringo3911]

​@@nickfury8973don't forget Avispa!

[@jamesmckeon9139]

Kt wiz?

[@Zzyzx_2112]

👍👍

[@termin8953]

For the same reason North American MSL teams adopt European style monikers (United, FC, Real)

[@thomasroth1198]

:/

[@guyfaux3978]

"Why do Asian baseball teams have English nicknames?" Why do MLS teams call their teams "FC's"? It's just a convention that honors the source of the sport, I would have guessed.

[@TheBrainSpecialist]

"I didn't watch the video and I'm going to make a blanket assumption before I even watched the video"