The Odyssey of Carlton Hanta

With the recent success of Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, and other Japanese nationals in the major leagues, American fans are becoming curious about the history of baseball in Japan. There are several good histories of Japanese baseball published in English, but little compares to listening to a player talk about his own experiences. Oral histories give readers insight on aspects of the game that narrative histories rarely provide. In this article Carlton Ranta, a Hawaiian-born Nisei (second-generation Japanese immigrant) tells about his baseball career in the States and in the Japanese professional leagues during the 1950s through early 1970s.

Born on the island of Oahu in 1931, Carlton Hanta was a standout pitcher and hitter at the Mid-Pacific Institute in Honolulu. Moving to shortstop, Ranta led the University of Houston to the College World Series in 1953 and became the first Japanese American to be named to the All-American College Baseball team. After a stint in the minors, in 1958 Ranta signed with the Nankai Hawks of the Pacific League in Japan. In 1960 he was the only foreigner elected by the Japanese fans to the All-Star teams. He rewarded the fans with a two-run inside-the-park home run. He played five years in Japan and coached for an additional seven seasons.

CARLTON HANTA REMEMBERS

I was born in Hawaii and attended the Mid-Pacific Institute, a boarding school in Honolulu, where I was a pitcher. After graduation, I couldn’t find a job. My parents wanted me to go to school, but I rebelled and bummed around for about a year and a half. Then somebody asked me if I wanted to go to Alaska and make some money. So, I begged my mother relentlessly and she finally gave in. I went to San Francisco and met up with the person who was supposed to take me to Alaska, but it didn’t work out. Eventually, I met a Nisei boy from San Fernando Valley who took care of me and helped me become a fruit tramp. We started out in Watsonville in March picking lettuce. That was harsh work! Then we went and picked strawberries. That was harsher! In Watsonville they had a Nisei baseball team. I hooked up with them and pitched a couple games. One game was in Monterey against an all-Nisei team from Fresno. I impressed their coach, Mr. Kenichi Zenimura, whose sons played professionally in Japan. He invited me to come to Fresno if I needed a job. So, this Nisei boy and I went to Fresno to prune vines and pick grapes for a winery. This was during the Korean conflict, and the FBI was looking for my friend because he had not fulfilled his military commitment. They caught up with him and took him to the disembarkation center at Fort Lewis, Washington, and shipped him directly to Korea. I never saw him again.

That got me scared, so I decided to go to school. I went to the library, looked up colleges, and picked the University of Houston. I wrote them and, lo and behold, they accepted me. I boarded the Southern Pacific in San Francisco and left for Houston in September 1954.

One day I was playing intramural football, and the football team was practicing across the way. The freshman coach saw me and asked if I wanted to play football. It was like a movie script! I said no because I had never played organized football. But the kids around me said that I might be able to get a scholarship, so I turned out. I didn’t even know how to put on the football equipment! But the kids were really nice, and they taught me. I missed the fall season, so I went to the freshman Spring drills.

The football coach also introduced me to the baseball coach, Lovette Hill. I told him that all I did was pitch, but he said, “You’re too little to be a pitcher. Why don’t you play second base?” Well, I looked at the roster and noticed that the shortstop was a senior, but the second baseman was only a junior. So, I told him that I wanted to play shortstop even though I had never played the infield. One of my new teammates, named Foy Boyd, spent 20-30 minutes every day after practice hitting ground balls to me at shortstop. Oh, I got bruises! But I had to learn how to play the spot.

My sophomore year I played JV football. When we were freshman, I could run rings around the other guys-they weren’t that fast. But when they came back as sophomores, they were much bigger! I played three-fourths of the season on JV. And boy, I got beaten up so badly! Well, that convinced me to leave football and concentrate on my studies and baseball.

Coach Hill let me play shortstop my sophomore year. I must have really disappointed him, making so many errors and not being able to hit, but he stuck with me. In the summer, I met some Mexican boys and played semi-pro baseball with them. That helped me a lot. When I came back for my junior year in 1953, I ended up being an All-American shortstop. It was a great season, and we became the first University of Houston team to go to the College World Series. I also joined the ROTC because if you did, you’d stay out of the service until you graduated.

In 1954, I signed professionally with the AA Beaumont Exporters in the Texas League. They had a working agreement with the Chicago Cubs. So, I played with them that summer before I went back to school in September to get my ROTC commission. I returned for spring training with Beaumont in 1955, but they said that I wasn’t going to fit into their plans because I was going into the service. So, I was optioned to Amarillo in the West Texas-New Mexico League. I played there until May, when I reported to Fort Lee, Virginia, to serve my two-year commitment with the United States Army.

As soon as I got out of the Army, I came back to Houston. The owner of the Beaumont team, Mr. Russell, contacted me and asked, ”What kind of shape are you in?” I said, “I just got out of the Army, sir.” He said, “Well, join them in San Antonio on Sunday for a doubleheader.” So, I reported to the stadium.

Ryne Duren, later a relief pitcher for the Yankees, was pitching for San Antonio. I remember him because he wore thick glasses. My teammates tried to scare me by saying that when he pulled his glasses down to wipe his face that he couldn’t find them again. He was so fast. I had never seen anything like that.

In the second game, the manager put me in, and I got a base hit. After the game, he said, “You lied to me!” I said, “No sir, I haven’t had any training because I’ve been in the service.” I followed the team back to Austin and I started practicing by myself. I had the clubhouse boy come out early and hit me ground balls. In those days they didn’t have pitching machines, so I couldn’t take batting practice. Well, I didn’t have confidence in my fielding, so after 30 days I went to the manager and said, “I still have two more options left, could you please option me out?” They shipped me out to El Paso in the West Texas-New Mexico League. I stayed there until June, when El Paso was going to fold. I was hitting a little over .300, and Mr. Russell called and said to join the team in Tulsa. I said, ”I’m going to need a raise.” He said no. So, I said, “Well, I’m not going up there.” I drove all the way back to Houston, got my things, and drove back to San Francisco. I have a secondary education degree, so I started teaching. Then I got a letter from the minor league director, saying that I was suspended from Organized Baseball because I had jumped.

At the end of February, I got a phone call from Mr. Angel Maehara. He said, “Do you want to go to Japan and play baseball?” I said, “Wait a minute, who am I talking to? I’m still suspended from Organized Baseball.” I called Hawaii and asked my brother about Mr. Maehara. My brother said, “Oh, he was my classmate at the University of Hawaii, and he owns an express company here in Honolulu.” He also owned a semi-pro Nisei team in Honolulu called the Asahi. So, I called him back, and I asked him about the deal. He said, “I’ll pay your way to Honolulu and from Honolulu to Tokyo.” I asked him, “What happens if I don’t get signed up in Japan?” He said, “I’ll give you a job in my company while you look for a teaching job.” So, I resigned my teaching position and came back to Honolulu, met the boys, and practiced a week. Of course, I didn’t know anyone. In those days it took 17 hours to get to Japan, and nobody would talk to me! I spoke like a Texan with a Southern accent, and the boys stayed away from me. We landed in Tokyo and were supposed to play about 10 games. The first game was in Yokohama, and sliding into second base, I sprained my ankle. Well, I was a spectator until the last three or four games.

I came back and started working for Mr. Maehara at his Express shop. Then one day he got word from the Nankai Hawks of the Pacific League that they might sign me. I said, ”How come? I only played two or three games.” Well, being a businessman, Mr. Maehara knew how to talk to people. I joined the Hawks during the All-Star break and God, I never practiced so hard! They had me taking batting practice for about 30 minutes. I was getting jammed, and I ended up with a swollen right thumb. I found out later that they used their farm team boys to pitch batting practice and the kids threw hard because they wanted to impress the pitching coach.

I didn’t get to play the first week because of my thumb, but they expected me to be at the ballpark every night. We were playing the team from Fukuoka called the Nishitetsu Lions, and they had a pitcher named Kazuhisa Inao. My God, he pitched one night and then came back the next night and started again, and then the third night he came in to relieve. I was thinking, how can this guy pitch a full nine-inning game, then a nine-inning game, and then relieve on the third day? That was the way they played baseball. Inao could thread the outside corner with a slider or fastball. He would make you chase a slider outside, come back with a fastball on the corner, then wake you up with a screwball on the inside. He was one of

the smartest pitchers I’ve ever seen. I roomed with the Japanese players, and that helped me get accustomed to their culture. I didn’t have much trouble with the food, but the culture, sleeping on the floor, and using the Japanese-style toilet-that was harsh! In Japan, you had to show respect to the older players, coaches, and managers. For example, when the team went to eat, the older players went in first. I didn’t know about these things at the beginning, and I called an older person by his first name. Boy, did I get a scolding! You’re not supposed to do that. You’re supposed to put “san” after the last name.

By talking with the boys, I picked up the language. I learned all the bad words first and eventually I could carry on a conversation. Actually, that’s how I met my wife. She was an usherette at the stadium and had gone to Catholic school in Japan, so she spoke a little English. One of the ballplayers said that he knew somebody who could speak English, so we got hooked up. She helped me get by in the beginning, and we’ve been together for 43 years.

Although I was the first American on the Nankai Hawks after World War II, they accepted me pretty well. I don’t care where you are, or who you are, if you produce nobody says anything. In my first at-bat. I dropped a drag bunt down third base because the third baseman was playing so deep and got on. They thought that it was the most impressive thing. Then in the second or third game, I got lucky. I got fooled on a curveball and hit a home run to right field. That was a big thing because they wanted you to hit to the opposite field.

In those days, they used to say, “American Baseball.” Anything I did, like breaking up double plays, sliding hard, or hook sliding, was called ”American Baseball” because at that time the Japanese didn’t do those things. They played a more passive game. For example, if they hit a ground ball to the pitcher or right at an infielder, they never ran hard to first base. They probably thought I was nuts, running as hard as I could.

During my first year I slid into second base to break up a double play against the Daimai Orions, and I broke the second baseman’s left shin. I heard the damn thing crack! I didn’t mean to do that. The center fielder and the shortstop came charging in and they were going to hang me out to dry! They said it was dirty baseball. That’s when my manager. Kazuto Tsuruoka, stepped in. He was like God. Tsuruoka said, ”This is American baseball!” And that ended it.

Tsuruoka was one of the smartest managers, bar none. He had a sixth sense. Later, when I was a defensive coach for him, we’d be sitting in the dugout and he’d be picking on his nose and all of a sudden, he would say, “Carl, move the third baseman to his left.” So, I would yell and move him to the left and by God, the batter would hit the ball right there. Once when we were playing Wally Yonamine’s Chunichi Dragons in an exhibition game, in the first inning with nobody out and a runner on third, Tsuruoka moved the infield in. I was kind of embarrassed moving in, but the fans didn’t understand that you don’t do that in the first inning. Then the batter dribbled the ball to the second baseman and the runner on third couldn’t score. Wally came to me after the game and said, “Why’d you move your infield in?” I said, “I didn’t. The old man did.” So, I asked Mr. Tsuruoka. “Why did you do that?” He said, “Well, our pitcher was a screwball pitcher.” It never dawned on me. He knew all those things without a computer. His mind was a computer! That was exactly what had happened. The screwball came in; the batter got jammed and hit a slow roller to the second baseman. If he was back, the guy on third could have walked home.

Mr. Tsuruoka managed with his feelings and hunches. He never went with the percentage. I distinctly remember one time; the opposing team had a left-handed pitcher and Tsuruoka called time, took out his right-handed hitter and brought in a left-handed pinch-hitter. Joe Stanka looked at me and said, “Boy, this damn old man is something else!” You never do that in American baseball. And lo and behold. this guy comes in and gets a single over shortstop and we won the ballgame. This shut Stanka and me up forever! We felt that this man knew something that we didn’t. He was amazing.

The Hawks had a great team, and we won the Japan Series in 1959 and the Pacific League championship in 1961. We had one of the best pitchers in Japan: Tadashi Sugiura. He was a submariner with an easy motion and a good wrist. I tried to hit against him during our inter-squad games and no way! In those days they didn’t measure speed like they do today, but I would say that he was sneaky fast. The St. Louis Cardinals came to Japan during my first year there (1958). They had Stan Musial, Ken Boyer, and Don Blasingame. I had played in the Texas League with two of the Cardinals players, and Jim Brosnan had been my roommate. The Cardinals were impressed with Sugiura. He beat them at our stadium 9-to-2 and gave up only six hits in nine innings. I heard that they wanted to sign him for $100,000-at that time that was big money. But Sugiura declined because of his loyalty to Mr. Tsuruoka. I tried to tell him that in the majors you don’t have to pitch every day. If you won 10-12 games a year, that was good enough and you could play for 10 years and make a lot of money. But he didn’t think like that. He would give the ball team everything he had: whether it was for one, two, or three years, it didn’t matter. Then he would have fulfilled his obligation to the manager and the team. That was the way they thought, whereas we Americans think of longevity.

Our catcher was Katsuya Nomura, the best catcher in the history of Japanese baseball. Boy, he could hit! He ended up with 657 home runs. second only to Sadaharu Oh. He was also one of the smartest catchers—he could read every hitter. He always looked half asleep, but he’d go out and catch every game of the season-including doubleheaders. He was a magnificent specimen!

Hirose, the center fielder, was one of the fastest runners I’ve ever seen. This guy could score from first base on a hit-and-run single if the right fielder dallied the throw. Our third baseman, Shigeyoshi Morishita, was the Ty Cobh of Japan. He’d do anything. If a pitch was close enough, he’d pinch himself to redden his skin and show the umpire to convince him that he was hit. Boy, he was a mean guy! But he was for winning. Then we had lsami Okamoto at second base. I used to call him “ninja” because he was a magician! He would jump up in the air and the ball would be stuck in his glove. At first base was Yosuke Terada. He was the greatest first baseman I’ve seen. He caught one-handed. In those days the Japanese didn’t allow you to catch one-handed. but they didn’t say anything to him.

After my first season a few other Americans joined me. In 1959, John Sardina came over from Maui. He was a submarine pitcher. This was his first fling at professional baseball. He had a good year in 1959, but he didn’t know how to pace himself. Japanese pitchers threw every day. They could do it because they had been practicing that way since they were yay high to a grasshopper, through elementary, high school, and college. John tried to keep up with the Japanese pitchers, and he overworked himself. He started out like on a house on fire, but then just before midseason he started tapering down.

In 1960, Joe Stanka and Buddy Peterson came over. In those days we were able to play three foreigners on a team. Pete was at third base, I played shortstop and second base, and Joe pitched. I was also an interpreter for Joe and Buddy. On the road, we stayed at Western-style hotels, while the rest of the team stayed in a Japanese-style inn. Those were great times! The Hawks were a partying team. There was no curfew, but when it came to playing ball, everybody was in there playing hard. I think that this had a lot to do with Joe Stanka. When he pitched, he’d challenge you, and this caught on with everybody.

Joe Stanka really wanted to win. After I retired, the Hawks faced the Hanshin Tigers in the 1964 Japan Series. Stanka won the first game, pitched in the third game, and then pitched a complete game and won the sixth. We didn’t have a rested front-line starter for the seventh and final game, so Joe went to Mr. Tsuruoka and volunteered to start with no rest-after pitching a complete game the day before! That popped the eyes of the Japanese. They never believed that an American pitcher would do that. The Japanese pitchers would do it, but they thought that Americans were softies and needed their four days off. So when he volunteered to pitch the following day, I think it changed the minds of many Japanese. Stanka pitched a complete-game shutout and won the Series! That was how much this man was willing to sacrifice to win.

Both times I played in the Japan Series, we faced the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, who had Sadaharu Oh and Shigeo Nagashima. In 1959, I got hurt in the first inning of the first game. I was stuck in the hospital for the rest of the Series. That was the year that Tadashi Sugiura won all four games in the Series and we swept the Giants! That was an amazing feat.

In 1961, our scouts came up with ways to contain Oh and Nagashima. We did the Ted Williams shift on Oh. The shortstop moved over to second base and the third baseman covered the hole. Also, because he lifted up his front leg, we thought that we could throw him off-speed stuff. But he had a lot of discipline. He would wait on a pitch, and he was fast enough to come around anyway. He still hit over .300 against us. During the scouting process on Nagashima, we noticed that he was stepping into the bucket with his left foot. So, we thought that we could pitch him outside. But we didn’t realize that he waited on the ball long enough to pick up the outside pitch and would hit it to right-center.

But the thing that I remember most was the fourth game at Korakuen Stadium. We were up 3-2 in the ninth, and a pop fly was hit near the pitcher’s mound and Terada called for it. He came underneath it and the ball hits his glove and bounces out! This man had caught thousands of balls one-handed, but he booted it and the Giants turned the game over. We went back to Osaka and the Giants took the Series.

After the 1961 Series, Terada, Shigeo Hasegawa, and I were traded to the Chunichi Dragons. It didn’t bother me because in the States your home is where your suitcase is. But the other two players felt insulted because this was just after we had won the pennant. One of the things that I was told before I left was “Go out and taste the food of somebody else.” I had eaten Nankai’s food—got used to their way. Mr. Tsuruoka said, “Go see what other teams do.”

When I was with the Dragons, I decided to quit baseball. God, the way they practiced! It was really different from the Hawks. They got us up about 6:00 to 6:30 in the morning to do calisthenics and run up a mountain. Then we’d come back, have breakfast, rest a little while, and go to the ballpark. At the park, we had our regular practice, but before we finished, we had to field 100 ground balls. They just credited you with balls that you got in your glove, so after about 40 or 50, you don’t care what you do. I wouldn’t bother going after balls hit to the side, and balls that we should have charged, we’d back up on because we didn’t want to get hit. There were no fundamentals. So, I said, “You guys are teaching us all these bad habits.” But the Japanese players had done the drill since elementary school, so they could close their eyes and pick up balls.

At the end of the 1962 season, the Dragons manager asked me, “Why don’t you stay another year and help break in this new second baseman?” But I said, “No, thank you. I don’t want any part of baseball anymore.” Then on a road trip to Tokyo, I got a phone call at the hotel saying that Mr. Tsuruoka wanted to talk to me. So, I secretly went out and met him at a restaurant. He asked me if I wanted to come back and coach Nankai’s farm team. He said, “We can’t pay you much.” But he said that there was a future in Japan for me.

So that’s how I started my coaching career. I coached for seven seasons. I stayed with the Nankai Hawks for a few years. I was planning to go back to the States and start my teaching career, but then Chunichi asked me to coach. I coached there for two years, but nothing had changed. It was still practice, practice, practice. I got fed up, came back, and taught half a year of school in Hawaii. Then the Toei Flyers manager, Kenjiro Tamiya, called me from Japan in 1969 and asked me if I wanted to coach. I said, “No, I don’t think so.” But he called back, and I finally said, “Yes, under the condition that you let me run spring training.” So, I signed a two­-year contract. The first year I cut practice sessions shorter. The Japanese thought that if you practice eight hours you accomplish a lot, but the front office and management didn’t understand that a player who puts in eight hours on the field is going to pace himself. It’s not full force like in a game. I said that those who wanted extra hitting could stay later, but I was surprised that not too many stayed. I think we ended up in fifth place.

The following year at spring training the kids understood that the harder they worked, the shorter practice was going to be. On May 25, 1972, we were a game and a half out of first place. Slowly the kids understood. They were having fun because they didn’t have to practice hours and hours. To make a long story short, I got a lymph node growth on my groin, and it turned out to be Hodgkins Disease. I went to the International Cancer Center in Tokyo, and the doctor looked at me and said, “I’ll give you six months to live.” The doctor tried an experimental medicine. Today it’s known as chemotherapy. By September, my hair was falling out and my skin was getting dark. They were experimenting with the dosage. The doctor would give it to me on Thursday and I’d go home and not wake up until Saturday. I sort of recovered, and in December the Orions said they were willing to renew my contract if I was strong enough. The doctor said that I could coach but that I couldn’t do any physical work. So, I explained that to Tamiya-san, and he said, “Okay, don’t worry.” But he didn’t know how to run spring training, and I just didn’t have the strength to start it again. So, the team didn’t hit at all, and we were fired in July or August.

So, I came back to Hawaii in 1973. My sister was working at a luau and asked me if I wanted to be a bartender. After a few years the owner asked me to be the manager. I said that I didn’t have any experience, but she said that I played professional baseball and that you manage and coach people the same way. I stayed there for the next 20 years.

I’m really thankful that I had the opportunity to play in Japan. I don’t think I could go over there and play in their leagues today. The players are much bigger now. Forty years ago, they were little. Now they are six footers and they keep up with the modern training tactics. I’m glad to see that they have improved, but at the same time I’m sad that they’re losing their good players to the major leagues. It’s diminishing the caliber of Japanese baseball. Hopefully, someday they’ll have a global World Series and the Japanese stars will stay in Japan.

ROBERT K. FITTS, PH.D., is a historian of Japanese baseball and runs RobsJapaneseCards.com. His book, Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game, is now available from Southern Illinois University Press.