By Robert Whiting – October 28, 2024
It’s impossible to live in Japan and not know who Shohei Ohtani is. The baseball star of the Los Angeles Dodgers dominates the media. His in-game exploits usually occupy the front page of Japan’s ubiquitous sports dailies, whose combined circulation runs in the millions. Most of the time he is the lead story on the TV sports news shows, especially the widely watched 7 p.m. NHK flagship news program. His face is plastered on billboards all over Tokyo, endorsing the Mitsubishi MUFG banking group, Japan Airlines, Seiko Watches and others.
He is said to make $100 million a year from his endorsements, including those in North America, which, in addition to the 10-year $700 million contract he signed with the Dodgers last year, makes him one of the richest professional athletes in the world — up there with Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and LeBron James.
After leading the Dodgers into the World Series against the New York Yankees, his wealth is only bound to go up.
Ohtani is an anomaly in the world of professional baseball. He is the first player since Babe Ruth to pitch as well as hit. And do both well. He hits 500-foot (about 150-meter) home runs and throws the ball 100 miles per hour (about 160 kph).
He played five years for the Nippon Ham Fighters of Japan’s Pacific League before going to the U.S. in 2018. In 2021, in his fourth season in the major leagues, then with the Los Angeles Angels, he compiled a pitching record of nine wins and two losses in 23 games on the mound with an impressive ERA of 3.18, and 46 home runs as a batter.
The following year he had a record of 15-9 with a 2.33 ERA in 28 games as a starting pitcher, and hit 34 home runs. No MLB player in history had ever put up such numbers in one season. The 6’4″ (193cm) and 225-pound (102 kg) Ohtani could arguably be called the best player in the history of the major leagues.
Japanese baseball has long measured itself against the Americans. The dream of Yomiuri Shimbun and Yomiuri Giants founder Matsutaro Shoriki was to one day have a “Real World Series” between the respective U.S. and Japan champions. The closest Japan ever came was victory in the World Baseball Classic, most notably in the 2023 tournament when Ohtani struck out Mike Trout — considered by many to be America’s best player — to end the final. That strike, witnessed on TV in Japan by one out of every two Japanese, sent the nation into paroxysms of joy.
Ohtani beat the Americans on their own terms. Cynics had downplayed the achievements of other Japanese in MLB, dismissing 5′ 9″ (175cm) and thin-as-a-pencil Ichiro Suzuki, for example, as an infield singles hitter. Moon-faced pitcher Hideo Nomo succeeded in America, many said, because of a gimmicky tornado-style windup. But Ohtani is bigger and more powerful than most of his fellow major leaguers. He is as big as an NFL Linebacker. As a hitter or a pitcher, he has tremendous power. His swing velocity has hit a remarkable 119 miles per hour (about 192 kph).
Sidelined as a pitcher in 2024 because of tissue damage and arm surgery, Ohtani focused on stealing bases in preseason training. He finished with 59 stolen bases and 54 home runs. No one had ever put together such a 50-50 season before. The home run ball that put Ohtani at the 50-50 mark was recently auctioned off for over $4 million.
Surveys regularly show Ohtani as Japan’s most beloved athlete. A recent poll by Tokyo Weekender ranked him as the most famous living Japanese, ahead of the prime minister, film legends Takeshi Kitano and Hayao Miyazaki and novelist Haruki Murakami. Also on the list were actor Ken Watanabe, baseball star Ichiro Suzuki and Yoko Ono.
According to Major League Baseball, Game 5 of the Dodgers-Padres National League Division Series, starring Ohtani plus a starting pitching matchup of L.A.’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto against San Diego’s Yu Darvish — one of Ohtani’s boyhood idols — was the most-watched postseason game ever in Japan, with 12.9 million viewers.
An indication of Ohtani’s mass appeal is the fact that even people who don’t like baseball are fans — like my wife, Machiko, a well-educated Japanese lady who had a long career with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In all the years we have been married, through all the books I have written about Japanese baseball, not once had she ever expressed an interest in the subject — until one day this year when out of the blue she asked me how many home runs Ohtani had, and whether he was going to win the home run title.
I almost fell out of my chair.
These days the question, “How did Ohtani do?” passes from her lips at least once a day. When NHK replays an Ohtani home run on the 7 p.m. news, she beams with pride. “He must be having fun,” she says, with a big smile. “It’s really great.”
It’s quite a transformation.
Ohtani makes people here proud to be Japanese
At the age of 30, and at the midway point of his pro career, he stands to do much more.
He had already earned himself a spot in the U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York, with his accomplishments. He has already shattered a belief — taken as fact — that nobody could hit and pitch at a high enough level to warrant doing both.
Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman recently said that Ohtani “is arguably the most talented player who’s ever played this game.”
What’s next? 20 wins as a starting pitcher and 60 home runs?
An All-Ohtani TV channel?
With Shohei Ohtani there don’t seem to be any limits.
Tokyo Junkie 