◆ Farm Championship Final Stage: The Giants 2-5 Nippon-Ham (4th, Shizuoka)

Nippon-Ham achieved their second farm championship title, their first in 29 years since 1997.

The 1997 Farm Championship was held on October 10th in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, which was the host site for the fall educational league at the time, and the Eastern League's first-place Nippon-Ham won a 1-0 walk-off victory over the Western League's first-place Orix Buffaloes.

That same year was the first year that the Nippon-Ham second team moved its home base to the current Kamagaya City, Chiba. Until then, their training base was the Tamagawa ground in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa, and many of the players at that time were those who had honed their skills covered in sweat and mud at the riverbed ground.

◆ 1997 Farm Japan Championship (October 10, Ginowan)

Orix Buffaloes

０００００００００＝０

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Nippon-Ham

(e) Ebisu - Nao Sugimoto

(Nippon Ham) Imai, Takahashi Ken, Kuroki - Komaki

*The MVP is Nippon-Ham's Ogai, who hit a walk-off home run.

[Nippon-Ham's starting lineup]

1 (Left) Ogawa

2 (Center) Ogai

3 (Three) West

4 (1) Nishiura

5 (fingers) base

6 (RF) Nakamura

7 (2) Akira Arai

8 (C) Komaki

9 (SS) Shiroishi