Formed in 1950 as the Nishitetsu Clippers and joining the Pacific League the same year, the franchise that later became the Seibu Lions earned a respectable 51-67 record. Not bad for an expansion team. However, after their first season, the team faced a radical transition.

Merging with the Nishi-Nippon Pirates, the Clippers became the Nishitetsu Lions in 1951. Following the make-over, the team moved into Fukuoka's Heiwadia Stadium and hired Osamu Mihara as their new manager. A former Yomiuri second-baseman (1936-38) and manager (1948-49), Mihara had led the Giants to one league title and one second place finish.

With the addition of former Tokyu Flyers batting champion Hiroshi Oshita (whom author Robert Whiting describes as a "free-wheeling, boozing, whenching outfielder") and rookie slugger Futoshi Nakanishi in 1952, the Lions quickly evolved into a contender. Helped by the superb pitching of Masaaki Noguchi, Tokuji Kawasaki and Hidefumi Kawamura, Nishitetsu won its first Pacific League pennant in 1954 by posting a 90-47 record.

Evenly matched against their Central League opponents, the Chunichi Dragons outscored the Lions 1-0 in the seventh and deciding match of the 1954 Japan Series. Through all seven games, both teams scored fifteen runs and both shut out their opponents twice.

Despite ending the following season with 90 wins, the Lions fell to second place behind the 99-win Nankai Hawks. But in 1956 Nishitetsu took the first of three straight PL flags and Japan Series championships with a 96-51 record and a stunning 1.87 team ERA. Missing a triple crown by fewer than five hits, Nakanishi earned the league MVP. Meanwhile rising star Kazuhisa Inao took Rookie of the Year honors by posting an all-time Pacific League record 1.06 ERA.

With Nakanishi, Oshita and Yasumitsu Toyoda leading the offensive attack and Inao dominating batters, the Lions defeated the Yomiuri Giants in three straight Japan Series. Virtually sweeping the 1957 match (one game was a tie), the Lions dropped the first three games of the '58 series but came back to win the next four contests to take the championship.

Despite humbling Japan's favorite team, Lions players suffered from a widespread assumption that the Central League was the stronger of the two. The belief in the CL's superiority couldn't have been more misplaced as the Pacific League won thirteen all-star games during the 1950s while the CL only won nine.

Because Nishitetsu had relied so heavily on third baseman Nakanishi, when the slugger failed to lead the team in 1959, the Lions fell to fourth place. The following season, manager Mihara departed and led the Taiyo Whales to their first and only Japan Series championship in 1960.

With Mihara gone, Oshita retiring and Nakanishi losing his effectiveness, Nishitetsu drifted through the '60s in the middle of the standings. Aside from a single pennant in 1963, the Lions only finished twice above third place. When player-manager Nakanishi retired in 1969 after eight seasons at the Nishitetsu helm, Kazuhisa Inao put his pitchers glove in mothballs and took over as Lions skipper.

A future member of Japan's Hall of Fame, Inao was a disaster as manager. His first three years (1970-72), the Lions remained in the Pacific League cellar, setting the tone for the club's accomplishments for the remainder of the decade. Finishing only as high as third (1975), the Lions earned Japanese baseball's worst record six times throughout the 1970s.

A team in disarray, the Lions passed through the hands of several owners, becoming the Taiheiyo Club Lions from 1973-76 and the Crown Lighter Lions in 1978 and '79. Sold to the Seibu Corporation in 1979, the Lions began a rebuilding process that made them Japan's strongest franchise of the 1980s.

Listed in the late 1980s as the world's richest man, Yoshiaki Tsutsumi bought the Lions and integrated the team into the Seibu conglomeration of real estate, railroad lines and hotels.

Moving the team in 1979 from Fukuoka to Tokorozawa, a western Tokyo suburb, Tsutsumi built one of the finest Japanese ballparks for his team and surrounded it with an amusement park, tennis courts, an indoor ski slope and a golf course. Properly an amphitheater dug into the side of a hill, Seibu Lions Stadium is a gem of a ballpark, ringed by trees and offering a beautiful view of the rolling green hills around Tokorozawa. (In 1997, however, a roof will be constructed over the stadium.)

Not all the changes Tsutsumi had in mind were cosmetic. In 1982, Seibu hired Tatsuro Hirooka to manage the Lions. A strict disciplinarian who controlled virtually every aspect of his players lives, Hirooka had his greatest success in 1978 leading the perpetually mediocre Yakult Swallows to one second place finish and one Japan Series championship in three years. In his four years with Seibu (1982-85), Hirooka led the Lions to three pennants and two Japan Series titles.

Not sparing any expense to build a championship team, Seibu offered jobs to family members of players they wanted to sign, and acquired others for the Prince Hotel team (which plays in a company league) as a way of circumventing the annual draft. The Lions also paid top dollar for foreign athlete Steve Ontiveros, picked up Taiwanese fireballer Taigen Kaku, and acquired promising young players Kazuhiro Kiyohara, Kimiyasu Kudo, and Koji Akiyama.

Clearly the most dominant team of the 1980s, under manager Masaaki Mori (1986-94) the Lions won eight pennants and six Japan Series. A team of spark plugs, Seibu had many all-stars. From 1984-93, Akiyama stole 227 bases and pounded 328 home runs while Kiyohara belted 329 round-trippers in his ten years with the Lions. Orestes Destrade, the Cuban-American slugger, earned three straight home run crowns from 1990-92.

The Lions didn't win all those pennants with their bats, however. Featuring a 95 mph fastball, Kaku pitched a no-hitter in 1985, his first year in Japan, earned the 1991 Pacific League MVP and before retiring in 1997 compiled a 117-68 record. Kudo meanwhile earned a 113-52 record with the Lions while earning the 1990 MVP. Osamu Higashio, the Lions top pitcher in the 1970s, won two MVPs in the '80s while compiling a lifetime 251-247 record before he retired in '88.

Virtually an all-star team all by themselves, the Lions entered a period of transition in the mid-1990s. Manager Mori resigned during the 1994 Japan Series, while Akiyama and Kudo drifted to the Hawks in the following years. Kiyohara joined his high school teammate Masumi Kuwata and the Giants in 1997 and Kaku retired later the same year. With the exception of catcher Tsutomu Ito, virtually all the big Lions stars of the 1980s had moved to other teams, retired, or faded into the background.

Replacing Mori as Seibu manager, Osamu Higashio struggled in his first two years. Leading the 1996 Lions to their first losing season in fifteen years, the former pitching star finally found a winning combination a year later.

The new Lions, relying less on power-hitters, are one of the fastest teams in Japan. Led by shortstop Kazuo Matsui, Seibu topped both leagues with 200 stolen bases. With a young line-up, and a several strong pitching arms, the Lions have no need to dwell on past glories. Their history is not yet complete.