User:Mikeross22/Sandbox/Shinano Grandserows

The Shinano Grandserows are a semi-professional baseball team in the Baseball Challenge League of Japan. The team was established in 2007. Their home is Nagano Olympic Stadium, but they also play a number of "home" games at ballparks throughout Nagano Prefecture.

The team name is an homage to the Japanese Serow, a goat-antelope native to northern and central Honshu (including Nagano). The team mascot is Grazie, an anthropomorphic Japanese Serow.

Franchise history
Historically, the Shinano Grandserows have been the doormat of the Baseball Challenge League, never coming in first in their division (not even during a half-term).

Masumi Hoshino pitched for Shinano in 2009 before joining Nippon Professional Baseball's Yomiuri Giants in 2010.

Former NPB and Major League Baseball pitcher Akinori Otsuka became the player-manager of the Grandserows in 2012. That year they finished in 2nd place in both half-terms, qualifying for a one-game divisional playoff game, which they lost.

American pitcher Brandon Mann, another NPB veteran, played for the Grandserows in the 2013 season. In 2013, the Grandserows were one of two Baseball Challenge League teams to play interleague games against the two Hawaii-based teams of the shirt-lived Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs.

Filipino catcher Alfredo Olivares played for the Grandserows in 2014.

In late July 2014, player-manager Akinori Otsuka was suspended for seven days and fined 50,000 yen for slapping three Grandserow players. He apologized to fans upon his return to the team in early August. Soon afterward, Otsuka announced he would retire from playing after the 2014 season; the team held a ceremony in his honor on September 15, 2014.

Current roster
The Grandserows' pitching staff includes lefty Shuhei Takada, who pitched for the Grandserows from 2008-2009 before joining the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). Takada returned to the Grandserows in 2012.