Last Original Giants Player and Defensive Icon Hisanori Karita Dead at 90

Hisanori Karita, a Yokohama native who is generally considered to be one of the best shortstops to ever take a glove out to that position in Japanese college history when he played for Tokyo's Hosei University, and then who went on to become an icon of fielding
excellence as a second baseman for the original Yomiuri Giants and other ballclubs, died on Tuesday, August 3rd at 90 from old age. However, Karita's family apparently held off announcing it to the press until this past Monday.

After leading Hosei (which also was the school attended by the great Hiroshima Carp slugger Koji Yamamoto) in its Tokyo Big Six League campaigns, Karita took a job with NHK. In 1934, Karita was invited to be a member of an all star club that faced a major
league all star aggregation headlined by Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, who had been invited over to Japan by the Yomiuri media concern, in a 16 game tour. The big leaguers won every contest.

The Japanese team also included Eiji Sawamura, the Hall of Fame inductee for whom Japan's equivalent of the Cy Young Award is named, and the Russian emigre Victor Starfin, the first pro pitcher in Japan to win 300 games. This squad ended up forming the core of what became the Yomiuri Giants, who remain their country's most popular baseballers.

The following year, since there was yet no pro league in Japan, the all star squad, known by the cumbersome monicker of the Great Japan Tokyo Baseball Club, headed off to America and played against Pacific Coast League teams as well as semi-pro and university nines. The AAA-level PCL ultimately prevailed as a whole, allowing the Japanese just six wins in 21 tries.

During the tour, the manager of the Japanese all star club, a man named Suzuki, had a talk with San Francisco Seals manager Lefty O'Doul about changing their unwieldy name. O'Doul inquired as to who were the most well known U.S. teams by the Japanese. Suzuki answered, "the Yankees and Giants". O'Doul reportedly replied, "that settles it,
then, it's the Giants!" O'Doul had played for both of those New York teams as well as the Phillies and the Browns, but it was the Giants who gave him his first shot at some regular playing time, so he may have been prejudiced in that matter. In any event, for the last 70
games or so of that U.S. tour and from there on in, the team used the name Giants.

Karita may have been the first Japanese player ever thrown out of a pro game when, on the way back to Japan, the Giants stopped off in Hawaii for some games there. Not liking an umpire's call, he reportedly called the official an S.O.B in english and was promptly asked to leave the field. However, since injuries and fatigue had left the Giants with no substitutes, team manager Suzuki intervened and promised the umpire that Karita would keep his mouth shut the rest of the game, refraining from saying anything even in Japanese. This mollified the insulted arbiter and Karita stayed on the field.

Karita and his teammates returned home and machinations began for a full fledged Japanese pro baseball league, the Giants being joined in that organization by the Hanshin Tigers, the Eagles (boasting former Washington Senators second baseman Bucky Harris),
the Hankyu Braves, and the Tokyo Senators. But in a twist of fate, it wasn't with the Giants he played his first pro league season with; after getting sick he was let go and went over to the Senators and became part of what was then called "The Million Dollar Infield"
for its excellent defensive ability, though the Senators were unfortunately poor offensively.

Karita was so good with the leather, though, that it was said that, "there was no Karita before Karita nor a Karita after Karita." He was so quick and smooth while turning double plays that it was told that the ball hardly seemed to touch his hands before it was
sent winging toward first. He also used to put on a show for fans by making no look throws during pre-game infield practice. He was such a legendary defensive genius that many players today say that their ambition is to meet Karita's purported standard.

Karita thrived initially with the Senators (the club got its name from the fact that its formation was spearheaded by a member of one of Japan's then legislative bodies, the House of Peers, and that person, knowing of the MLB club in Washington, thought that Senators would be a fitting apellation for his team), winning a stolen base crown in 1936 and an MVP in 1938 while being beat out for a home run title by one longball by Harris. Karita was a player-manager of the Senators starting that season until they were dissolved in 1943 in the wake of several team name changes and lots of internecine battles between the various partners who comprised the Senators ownership. Sometime during all this, Karita also got tossed out of a game with Nagoya (later the Chunichi Dragons) to become the first person to be ejected by an umpire in a Japanese pro game.

Karita was shipped off to China as part of the war effort later that year and fortunately, unlike his onetime compatriot Sawamura, survived to play ball again. In 1946, Karita put together an industrial league team for Isuzu before returning as a player-manager with the Tokyu Flyers (who became the Nippon Ham Fighters) in
1947-48, and then moved on as a player only for the Mainichi Orions (today the Chiba Lotte Marines) and the Kintetsu Buffaloes before retiring in 1951. In all, he was in 804 games, hitting 37 homers and driving in 202 runs with a lifetime batting average of .219. As a field boss his record was 322-342 with 42 ties.

He worked as an umpire (this is not an uncommon second career for retired Japanese players), did some coaching, became a baseball commentator for the Japanese daily, Nikkan Sports, and, in 1969, was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. Karita was the last surviving member of that original Giants lineup. Truly, an era has
ended with his passing.