CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It's not just Chicago with baseball fever right now. Let's take an extended road trip to find another team on the rise. CNN's Rebecca MacKinnon reports from Tokyo.</s>REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's about passion, boundless enthusiasm, fans of Osaka's Hanshin Tigers, based on southwestern Japan, are considered unique for their undying loyalty and faith in their team. Faith that doesn't waver, whether the Tigers win or lose. You might even call it a religion. Now, with Japan's best manager and a former pitcher from the U.S. major leagues, the Tigers are poised to win their league for the first time in 18 years. Fans, of course, are in a nationwide frenzy. Tokyo bar owner Ioji Inalui (ph) started life as a Yomiuri Giants fan, but then he as saw the light and converted to Hanshin Tigerism at age 18. Business at his Tiger fan bar is booming. But what's really priceless, he believes, is the team's one word motto -- dream. (on camera): The last time the Hanshin Tigers won the Japan series was back in 1985, when Japan's economic power was on the rise. So many people here feel that the comeback of the Hanshin Tigers this year is an omen of the comeback of Japan.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Japan is Hanshin country.</s>MACKINNON (voice-over): These college kids are too young to remember the last Tigers victory and came of age in the middle of Japan's decade long economic slump. "A strong Japan will return," says this economics student. Call it Tiger economics, the belief that anything is possible if you have the right attitude. Rebecca MacKinnon, CNN, Tokyo.
Look at Osaka's Hanshin Tigers