Lion (DaiTokyo 1937, Lion 1937-1940)
I am not sure if I can say this is a nickname
or not. On March 1937, the sponsor, Kokumin
Shinbun withdrew from the team because of
internal trouble. As a result, DaiTokyo team
had a financial difficulty. They looked for
a new sponsor and found four candidates for
that. They were Mentholatum, Ajinomoto, Wakamoto,
and the Lion toothpaste company Kobayashi
Shoten. All the companies were keen to be
a sponsor, but Mentholatum and Ajinomoto
held to the condition that their company
name be on the chest of the uniform. The
Lion Toothpaste Company said they wanted
only their name on the uniform, so they signed
the contract with 800 yen for a year. 800
yen covered about half of the labor cost
at that time. On August 31 in 1937, the DaiTokyo
team was renamed "Lion". On September
12, 1940, the Japan Professional Baseball
association voluntary outlawed English nicknames.
Mr. Komajiro Tamura, the owner, was strongly
against this decision. He could not change
the team name because of the sponsor contract.
He insisted that the Lion is Japanese and
kept the team name.
In 1941, they didn't renew the contract
and
moved the team from Tokyo to Osaka.
They
also changed their name to Asahi (Rising
Sun). It is said that the name came
from
their parent company Taiyo Rayon.
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