Nankai Hawks

Japan Series Titles: 2 (1959, 1964)

Japan Professional Baseball League Pennants 1 (1948)

Pacific League Pennants: 9 (1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1959, 1961, 1964, 1966, 1973) - also won the one-league format in 1946

Franchise Players: Katsuya Nomura, Mutsuo Minagawa, Hiromitsu Kadota, Chusuke Kizuka, Kohei Sugiyama, Yoshinori Hirose

On June 1, 1947, Kinki Great Ring changed their name to the Nankai Hawks after Nankai Electric Railway was reformed from Kinki Nippon Railroad. The Hawks were the top team in the first twenty years of the Pacific League under the leadership of Kazuto Tsuruoka, but fell on hard times and finished in the second division every year from 1978 to 1988, at which point the team was sold to the Daiei corporation to become the Daiei Hawks. They begun to rebound after that and re-established themselves as one of the top Pacific League teams in the late 1990s.

Managers

• 1947-1968: Kazuto Tsuruoka (Kazuo Kageyama was appointed manager in 1965 but died before he guided the club in a game)
• 1969: Tokuji Iida
• 1970-1977: Katsuya Nomura
• 1978-1980: Yoshinori Hirose
• 1981-1982: Don Blasingame
• 1983-1985: Yoshio Anabuki
• 1986-1988: Tadashi Sugiura

Preceded by Kinki Great Ring

Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks 1947 (midseason) - 1988

Succeeded by Fukuoka Daiei Hawks