The Pacific League (パシフィック・リーグ, Pashifikku Rīgu?) or Pa League (パリーグ, Pa Rīgu?) is one of the two professional baseball leagues constituting Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship competes against the winner in the Central League for the annual Japan Series. It currently consists of six teams from around Japan.
The circuit was founded as the Taiheiyo Baseball Union in 1949 with seven teams, the name changing to its current form in 1980. Designated hitters are used in Pacific League teams' home games, as in the American League in Major League Baseball.
Read more about Pacific League: Current Teams, PL Pennant Winners, Climax Series Winners, Most Valuable Pitcher
Famous quotes containing the words pacific and/or league:
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)