Токио Якулт Сваловс: Жапон бейсболының тарихы мен жетістіктері

Professional baseball team in Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League

The Tokyo Yakult Swallows (東京ヤクルトスワローズ) are a Japanese professional baseball team competing in Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Based in Shinjuku, Tokyo, they are one of two professional baseball teams in Tokyo, the other being the Yomiuri Giants. They have won nine Central League championships and six Japan Series championships. Since 1964, they have played their home games at Meiji Jingu Stadium. The Swallows are named after their corporate owners, Yakult Honsha. From 1950 to 1965, the team was owned by the former Japanese National Railways (known as Kokutetsu (国鉄) in Japanese) and called the Kokutetsu Swallows; the team was then owned by the newspaper Sankei Shimbun from 1965 to 1968 and called the Sankei Atoms. Yakult purchased the team in 1970 and renamed it the Yakult Atoms, before renaming it again as the Yakult Swallows in 1974, and then the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in 2006.

The franchise was established for the first time in 1950 when the team was created by the owners of what was then Japanese National Railways (now the privatized Japan Railways Group). The team name was made the Kokutetsu Swallows. The team never finished with a winning record in their entire first decade of the 1950s. In 1961, the team ended up being third in the league for first time in their team history. Konkutetsu chose "Swallows" as JNR had an express railway, which at the time, was the fastest in Japan, which was named Tsubame (or swallow in English). Other name ideas were railway themed, such as "Service" or "Whistles".

In 1970, Sankei Shimbun offloaded the team to Yakult Honsha, and Yakult kept the Atoms name for 3 seasons before bringing back the original "Swallows" name due to petitions from fans. This was majorly due to the league secretly introducing a more juiced ball that allowed more home runs to be scored, which caused three term NPB commissioner Ryozo Kato to resign when the juiced ball was found about. The Swallows finished the 2015 regular season with the Central League's best record and defeated the Yomiuri Giants in the Climax Series to advance to the Japan Series, where they lost to the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in five games. The Swallows clinched the 2021 Central League pennant on 26 October 2021 with a 5–1 victory over Yokohama DeNA BayStars, coupled with Hanshin Tigers losing 4 0 to Chunichi Dragons on the same night. The victory clinched the pennant with two games to spare in the regular season. This allowed them to advance to the final stage of the Climax Series, sweeping the Yomiuri Giants, 3 0, to advance to the Japan Series. They eventually won the series against the Orix Buffaloes in six games to win the Japan Series, their first since 2001. They backed it up in 2022 with an 80 59 4 record, winning the 2022 Central League pennant and returning to the Japan Series by sweeping the Hanshin Tigers in the 2022 Central League Climax Series, once again facing the Orix Buffaloes. This time however, the Buffaloes would exact revenge on the Swallows, beating them in the Japan Series in seven games, 4–2–1. Third baseman Munetaka Murakami broke the Japanese born single season home run record in 2022 with 56 home runs, surpassing Sadaharu Oh's record of 55 set in 1964.

The team's mascot is a black swallow with a red face named Tsubakuro (つば九郎). He is known for his feuds with the Orix Buffaloes mascots. He always wears a batting helmet. Whenever the Swallows wear special home unis, Tsubakuro also wears the same. The number on the back of his uniform is "2896" as opposed to 111/222 used by Buffalo Bull and Buffalo Bell, the Buffaloes' mascots. There is also a female swallow mascot named Tsubami. She wears a skirt and may be intended as Tsubakuro's little sister, just as Bell is Bull's little sister. Unlike her brother, she wears a sports visor. Before Tsubakuro was created, the teams mascots were Yabo and Sue Chan (ヤー坊 & スーちゃん), who were the team mascots from 1979 to 1994. The team also had a former third mascot named Torcuya(トルクーヤ), a swallow who resembles a luchador. He always carries around a parasol and a bottle of Yakult that he carries on his back. He were the team mascot from 2014 to 2023. The team also had a former mascot named Entaro (燕太郎), a swallow who wore a jersey and his jersey number is 8960. He was replaced by Torcuya in 2014.

The Swallows farm team plays in the Eastern League. The team was founded in 1950.