Eastern League (Japanese baseball) Eastern League (Japanese baseball) The is one of the two minor leagues ("ni-gun") of Japanese professional baseball. The league is owned and managed by the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). Teams in the Eastern League generally play an 80-game schedule every year. In 1954 the six teams of NPB's Central League agreed to form their own minor league — the Shin Nippon League (or "New Japan League") — as a complement to the already extant Kansai Farm League, which had begun play in 1952. The minor league affiliates of the Chunichi Dragons and Hanshin Tigers moved over from
Eri-Aaroni grew to be a handsome and noble-looking horse who differed from the contemporary ideals of Finnhorse breeding, which favored a stockier, work horse look. Ahlqvist raced Eri-Aaroni occasionally at Turku. Eri-Aaroni was noticed there, and horse dealer Matti Takanen bought him from Ahlqvist for 75 000 Finnish marks. Then, in 1937, the well-known horseman Fritz Buttenhoff bought the now 5-year-old Eri-Aaroni from Takanen for 100 000 marks, corresponding to c. 34 000 Euros, and took the stallion to his estate in Vyborg. In Vyborg Eri-Aaroni was groomed, trained and raced by Arvi Räikkönen. In 1939 Eri-Aaroni, now 7 years old,