The Orix Buffaloes are a Nippon Professional Baseball team in the Pacific League, formed in 2004 from the merger of the Orix BlueWave and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes, and owned by the financial services company Orix. The franchise traces its roots to 1936 as the Hankyu Braves, making it the oldest surviving team in the Pacific League, and it notably pioneered the integration of American talent in the 1950s by recruiting African-American Negro league veterans like Jimmy Newberry and Larry Raines. The team dominated Japanese baseball in the late 1960s and 1970s, winning five Pacific League pennants from 1967 (though losing each Japan Series to the Yomiuri Giants) before capturing three consecutive Japan Series titles from 1975 under manager Toshiharu Ueda, featuring legends like pitcher Hisashi Yamada and outfielder Yutaka Fukumoto. In a surprising 1988 sale—which occurred on the famous "10.19" day of the Pacific League—Hankyu sold the franchise to Orix (then Orient Lease), breaking founder Ichizo Kobayashi's decree to never sell the team in order to keep the Takarazuka Revue afloat. Since beginning play as the merged Buffaloes in 2005, the team has split its home games between Kyocera Dome Osaka and Kobe Sports Park Baseball Stadium, and through 2022 holds an all-time record of 5,543–5,297–410 (.511).