Frank Joseph Ortenzio Jr. (born February 24, 1951) is a former
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
first baseman. He played nine games for the
Kansas City Royals
The Kansas City Royals are an American professional baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Royals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team was founded as an expans ...
in . He also played two seasons ( and ) in Japan for the
Nankai Hawks
The are a Japanese professional baseball team based in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture. They compete in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) as a member of the Pacific League.
The team was formerly known as the Nankai Hawks and was based in Osaka. ...
.
During his time with the Nankai Hawks, he was given the registered name, "Ohtenjoh (王天上)", which translates into the king above heaven. You would see this on scoreboards and in the newspaper. Normally foreign players in Japan are given names in
katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...
, but because his last name appeared close to Japanese sounds, the team decided to give him a
kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
pictograph name.
Sources
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ortenzio, Frank
Major League Baseball first basemen
Kansas City Royals players
Nankai Hawks players
Corning Royals players
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Jacksonville Suns players
Omaha Royals players
Denver Bears players
Hawaii Islanders players
American expatriate baseball players in Japan
Baseball players from California
Sportspeople from Fresno, California
1951 births
Living people
American Association (1902–1997) MVP Award winners
Arizona Instructional League Royals players