Time Machine: Remembering Joe Stanka

This story originally ran in the Japanese newspaper Yukan Fuji in 2018.

TOKYO — Japan said goodbye to one of its baseball legends with the passing in mid-October of Joe Stanka at the age of 87. Most Americans have never heard of the name, but for a time in the early 1960’s, every Japanese baseball fan in the land knew who he was.

In 1964, Joe Stanka became first gaijin pitcher to win a Most Valuable Player award in the history of the NPB, leading the Pacific League’s Nankai Hawks of Osaka to a Japan Championship. He was so popular that he was featured in a best-selling book by Masaru Ikei entitled “Hello Stanka, Genki kai?” (Hello, Stanka, How Are You?)” inspired by the way Japanese fans greeted Stanka at the park and on the streets.)

Stanka was a 6’6” 200-pound, right-handed pitcher from Oklahoma who had spent 10 years bouncing around the U.S. minor leagues, pitching a grand total five and a third innings in MLB for the Chicago White Sox, before realizing he had no future in the North American majors. So, at age 28, he opted to accept an offer to play with Nankai in 1960, one that was arranged by well-known scout Cappy Harada.