The Hiroshima Toyo Carp is a professional baseball team based in Hiroshima, Japan. They compete in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball. The team is primarily owned by the Matsuda family, led by Hajime Matsuda , who is a descendant of Mazda founder Jujiro Matsuda. Mazda is the largest single shareholder (34.2%), which is less than the portion owned by the Matsuda family. Because of that, Mazda is not considered the owner firm. However, the company connection is highlighted in the club name; until 1984, Mazda's official name was Toyo Kogyo Co., Ltd. . The Carp are the only one of the 28 Asian professional baseball teams to be majority privately owned. As the Carp was founded only four years after the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and had risen to the Central League champion along with the reconstruction of Hiroshima, the team is often referred to as "the symbol of the post-war reconstruction of Hiroshima".
A memorial plaque listing the team's Central League championships located next to old Hiroshima Municipal Stadium.
View from Hiroshima Municipal Stadium on March 14, 2004.
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Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. As of June 1, 2019, the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has been the city's mayor since April 2011. The Hiroshima metropolitan area is the second largest urban area in the Chugoku Region of Japan, following the Okayama metropolitan area.
Image: Atomic Bomb Dome and Motoyaso River, Hiroshima, Northwest view 20190417 1
Image: Keep tower, Hiroshima Castle, Southwest remote view 20190417 1
Image: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum 20170310 4
Image: Hiroshima Tramways