The Chiba Lotte Marines (千葉ロッテマリーンズ, Chiba Rotte Marīnzu) are a professional baseball team in the Pacific League based in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture in the Kantō region of Japan and owned by Lotte Holdings Co., Ltd. The Marines were a founding member of the Pacific League in 1950 as the then-known Mainichi Orions when the Japanese Baseball League reorganized into Nippon Professional Baseball, where they won the inaugural 1950 Japan Series. Since 1992, the Marines' home ballpark has been the ZOZO Marine Stadium, located in the Mihama Ward of Chiba, with seats for up to 30,118 people.
The "Marines" name originates from the name of the ballpark, also officially named the Chiba Marine Stadium, because it is located at the seaside. Six players have won the Nippon Professional Baseball Most Valuable Player Award with the team; the last member to win the MVP was in 1985, the longest current drought for all twelve teams.
As of the end of the 2025 season, the franchise's all-time record is 4930-4928-408 (.500).
Contents
History
The franchise began in 1950 as the Mainichi Orions (毎日オリオンズ, Mainichi Orionzu), an inaugural member of the Pacific League, and were owned by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper. The Orions were named after the constellation of the same name. The Marines won the inaugural Japan Series in 1950.
In 1958, the team was merged with the Daiei Unions and renamed the Mainichi Daiei Orions (毎日大映オリオンズ, Mainichi Daiei Orionzu), to reflect that both Daiei and Mainichi had a 50% stake in the team, with control being given to Daiei Film president Masaichi Nagata. In 1964 they became the Tokyo Orions (東京オリオンズ, Tokyō Orionzu), and then the Lotte Orions in 1969. The franchise was slow to replicate its initial success: the Orions made the Japan Series in 1960 and 1970, only to lose both years.
The team played in central Tokyo until 1972. From 1973 to 1977 the Lotte Orions (ロッテオリオンズ, Rotte Orionzu) played in the northern Japanese city of Sendai. In 1974, they beat the Chunichi Dragons, becoming the first Pacific League team to win the Series in ten years, as the Yomiuri Giants had claimed the prior nine titles behind the Oh–Nagashima attack. After beating the Dragons, their owners, Lotte Holdings, decided to hold their victory parade in Tokyo, which surprised fans in Sendai. This eventually caused their attendance there to dwindle, going from sold-out games in 1973, to only about 2,000–3,000 attendees for their last few years in Sendai.
In 1977, the Orions signed Major League Baseball player Leron Lee, who ended up playing for the team for eleven seasons, compiling a .320 career batting average and slugging 283 home runs with 912 career RBI. From his retirement to early 2018 (when surpassed by Norichika Aoki), Lee held the Japanese record for career batting average (players with more than 4,000 at bats). In 1978, Lee invited younger brother Leon Lee to play in Japan, and the brothers formed a feared cleanup for the Orions for five seasons — in 1980, Leron had 33 home runs, 90 RBI, and a batting average of .358; while Leon slugged 41 home runs and drove in 116 runs, with a batting average of .340.
In 1978 the team returned to the Tokyo area, settling in the Kawasaki Stadium, at one time home to the Taiyo Whales (now Yokohama DeNA Baystars).
In 1992, the team moved to Chiba City's Chiba Marine Stadium on the eastern shore of Tokyo Bay. They held a fan vote for a new name for the team; the name "Dolphins" won, while another popular choice was "Pirates". However, the name "Dolphins" was thrown out because though an unrelated team named the Nagoya Golden Dolphins (later known as Nagoya Kinko) was long defunct, the letter "D" in broadcasts was already taken by the Dragons; while "Pirates" was disregarded because the Chiba Pirates name was used by a team in a baseball manga. Executives didn't want the team to be associated by a team that they think was supposed to be awful, supported by the fact that by then the Orions had finished their 6th consecutive losing season, finishing in 6th in three of the last four seasons, alongside the fact that they were unsure if they could even use it to begin with, due to Japanese copyright laws. "Marines" was ultimately chosen because the team believed it meant "heroes of the sea" (and because the letter "M" was available), yielding the current club name Chiba Lotte Marines.
Current roster
MLB players
Active:
Roki Sasaki (2025–present)
Dallas Keuchel (2012–2024)
Former:
Hirokazu Sawamura (2021–2022)
Retired:
Hideki Irabu (1997–2002)
Masato Yoshii (1998–2002)
Satoru Komiyama (2002)
Tadahito Iguchi (2005–2008)
Masahide Kobayashi (2008–2009)
Tsuyoshi Nishioka (2011–2012)
Ryohei Tanaka (2009–2011)
Yasuhiko Yabuta (2008–2009)
Shunsuke Watanabe (2014)
Yuhei Nakaushiro (2016–2018)
Honored number
26 – This number was retired in honor of the Marines' fans in 2005. It was inspired by some teams in other sports (such as football, which retires "12" for the "12th man", or basketball, which retires "6" for the "6th man"). The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles has the No. 10 retired in similar fashion. Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Angels has retired No. 26, in same fashion, for the founder Gene Autry.
Managers
Statistics current through the end of the 2025 season.
Cheer dancers
The Marines' cheer dancing squad is known as M☆Splash!!. They were formed in 2004. Alongside the team's mascots Mar-kun, Rine-chan and Zu-chan, they entertain the crowd during Marines games, with 27 members.
Mascots
Mar-kun (マーくん, Maa-kun) is the main mascot character of the Marines. With his girlfriend Rine-chan (リーンちゃん, Riin-chan) and his young brother Zu-chan (ズーちゃん, Zuu-chan), he entertains spectators at team games. Their names remain separate from the team name. Originally Rine-chan wore a pink sports visor cap until the 2022 season when she wore the same baseball cap as her boyfriend while retaining the skirt, while Zu-chan wears the cap backwards and wears an apron instead of the jersey beginning 2022, before that he wore a shirt unless all three wear their team's special home uniforms.
Mysterious fish (謎の魚, Nazo-no-sakana) was a mascot character that was introduced in May 2017. He is a weird fish with legs. He has collaborated with Hawaiian Airlines that former Marines' player Benny Agbayani works for since 2018. However, the person playing the mascot announced after the 2021 season that he would retire, which also meant the mascot was officially retired.
Back when the team were known as the "Lotte Orions", their mascot was a character known simply as Bubble-Boy (バブル坊や, Bable-Boya) who only appeared as a logo.
In 2005, the Marines introduced a mascot named Cool-kun ( かっこいいくん, Kakkoi-kun), a penguin who was known for his acrobatic stunts and would often challenge mascots like Doala and B.B to acrobatic stunt contests at rival games. He also would be stuck up and rude at times, but he would burst to tears or show great emotion at the right time. Despite being friends with Mar-kun, they do not get along very well. In 2016, he was retired by the team.
Minor League team
The Marines farm team plays in the Eastern League. The team was founded as the Mainichi Glitter Orions in 1950.