Kinugasa Stadium (衣笠球場)
Kinugasa Stadium
A baseball stadium that used to be in Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture. This section describes the details of this stadium.
A baseball stadium in Motomiya Park in Nagasaki City (former Miwa-cho), Nagasaki Prefecture. The stadium was named after Sachio KINUGASA.
The Kinugasa Stadium was a baseball stadium that used to be in Kamigyo Ward (the ward was later divided, and the area where the stadium once stood is in today's Kita Ward, Kyoto City), Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture.
Construction of the stadium began in 1946 on a cleared site that had been part of the Department of Engineering, Ritsumeikan Vocational School (a predecessor of the College of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University) and a horse riding school of the Ritsumeikan Vocational School. On August 31, 1948, the stadium was opened as a stadium for Ritsumeikan University's baseball team. The Ritsumeikan 100-year History Compilation Office told the Asahi Shinbun that the stadium was called Ritsumeikan Kinugasa Stadium at its inception (November 16, 2008).
The Kinugasa Stadium, as well as the Nishikyogoku Baseball Stadium, is a main stadium in Kyoto Prefecture in early postwar period after 1945, and the stadium was also used for official games of professional baseball teams such as Taiyo Robins from the year following its construction. After the Shochiku Co., Ltd., a film company that originated in Kyoto City, became the sponsor of Taiyo Robins in 1950, the team changed its name to Shochiku Robins and was based at Kinugasa Stadium.
However, Osaka Stadium was completed in September of the same year, was fully equipped for night games in 1951, and hosted more games. For this reason, the Kinugasa Stadium was used by professional baseball teams only for several years. When Shochiku Robins was taken over by the YOKOHAMA BayStars to become Yosho Robins from 1953 to 1954, the team used the Kinugasa Stadium, in effect, as a second home field.
From 1955 to around 1969, grass bleachers, first-base stands, the stands behind the backstop, and the field itself were gradually demolished, and later replaced by physical-education grounds, university buildings, yards and passageways. The site is now maintained as part of the Ritsumeikan University Kinugasa Campus. The Kinugasa Stadium used to stand near where the Gymnasium 1, Student Center, Zonshinkan Hall, Central Square, and other facilities are located today, and the home plate is thought to have been placed somewhere to the southeast of Gymnasium 1. Telephone poles around the site are labeled 'Kinugasa Stadium' even today.