Baseball: Tigers’ title ends 38-year journey through wilderness

Manager Akinobu Okada, a key player on the Tigers’ 1985 Japan Series championship team, returned for his second stint as the team’s manager this season, and 38 years after contributing to Hanshin’s sole Japan title, led them to its second.

The Tigers trailed in the series, the first between teams from western Japan’s Kansai region since the Tigers lost to the Osaka-based Nankai Hawks in 1964, 2-1 before breaking a ninth-inning tie with a Yusuke Oyama walk-off single in Wednesday’s Game 4 to even the best-of-seven series at iconic Koshien Stadium.

On Thursday, the Tigers looked doomed but came ...