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
Bill Yoshida Bill Yoshida William Saburo Yoshida (, December 1921- February 17, 2005), better known as Bill Yoshida, was a long time letterer for Archie Comics. He was sometimes credited as Bill Yosh or Saburo Yoshida. Born in the United States in 1921, Bill and his family were placed in an internment camp for the Japanese during World War II. In the post-war years, Bill was a guitarist and night club singer who also worked as a chef. While bowling in an all-Japanese league in New York City, one of his teammates was leading comics letterer Ben Oda. He learned comic book