Who Is Shohei Ohtani?

Who Is Shohei Ohtani?

On July 27, 2023, the Los Angeles Angels’ starting pitcher threw a great game. He allowed only one hit and no runs in nine innings. He also struck out eight Detroit Tigers, and his team won, 6–0. It was one of the best games he had thrown since joining the team.

It was also the first game of a doubleheader. In the second game, the Angels’ designated hitter (DH) had two home runs and three runs batted in (RBI). The Angels won that game 11–4.

But the big news of the day was that the pitcher and the DH were the same player—the very talented Shohei Ohtani (say: SHOW-hay oh-TAHN-ee). It was the first time in baseball history that a player pitched a complete-game shutout in one game, then hit two homers in the second game.

Breaking barriers in baseball was nothing new for Shohei.

Not only was he one of the best hitters in the sport, he was also a dominant pitcher. Few players had ever been both of those things, and none of them had achieved as much as Shohei. He also was a terrific base stealer! Wherever Shohei played, fans, teammates, and opponents were amazed at how he could be so good at so many different skills.

Even as he became one of the most famous athletes on the planet, he remained humble, focused, and dedicated. He cared only about baseball and his family, letting his play do the talking for him.

When he moved to the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB) for the 2024 season, his star grew even brighter. Sports has never seen an athlete like Shohei who can do it all. Let’s find out how he got to the top of the baseball world.

Chapter 1
The Future Superstar
Shohei Ohtani was born on July 5, 1994, in the farming town of Mizusawa, Japan (today, the town is called Oshu). It is about three hundred miles north of the capital, Tokyo.

Shohei was born into a sports-loving family. His father, Toru, played baseball for a team at the machine parts company where he worked. His mother, Kayoko, had been a top badminton player when she was younger. Shohei’s older brother, Ryuta, loved baseball, while his older sister, Yuka, played volleyball.

Shohei soon picked baseball as his favorite sport.

“I watched baseball players and they looked so cool,” he said. “I was always anxiously waiting for the weekend so I could play.”

Toru gave Shohei his first baseball glove, a red-and-black Spalding, when Shohei was five or six years old. When Ryuta was growing up, Toru had felt bad that he did not spend enough time with him. So when Shohei was young, Toru took a new job that allowed him enough free time to teach Shohei to play baseball—how to hit, field, and pitch. Shohei became a yakyu shonen—a kid who does nothing but play and think about baseball. When Shohei was eight, he joined his first baseball team. But he was not sure how well he would do. “I grew up in the countryside of Japan, where there were few baseball teams, where most of the teams had never been to big tournaments,” he remembered. “I was sure many players outshined me in talent.”

Also, his new league did not allow multicolored gloves. Shohei loved the glove his father had given him, so he got a marker and colored the red areas black!

Toru also gave Shohei a notebook. He would write notes about how Shohei did after every game and practice. Shohei would read the notes, and then add his own. Toru taught Shohei to focus on communicating with his teammates and to always hustle on the field.

Shohei’s life was not all baseball. He sometimes played badminton with his mom, and in the winter there was often enough snow to go sledding. He also loved taking swimming lessons. And he enjoyed spending time with the family dog, a golden retriever named Ace.
Baseball soon became number one, though. He played on youth teams for several years, always working on improving his skills. He was both a hitter who played outfield and a pitcher, which is not unusual on younger teams.

By middle school, Shohei says, he was “way larger than average.” Toru helped coach Shohei’s junior high team, the Ichinoseki Little Seniors.

In one game Shohei pitched, he struck out seventeen of eighteen batters. Shohei moved on to Hanamaki Higashi High School for baseball . . . and more writing! The coach there asked the team to write down their goals as players. Shohei still has the paper he wrote. He divided his goals into eight main areas, including fitness, mental attitude, hitting, and pitching.

“I think it helps to put it in writing,” he said later of his goals chart. “Writing and posting notes where you can see them is a simple act, but I think it’s effective. As you continue what you’ve written, the things you need to do will eventually become second nature.”

Hanamaki was a boarding school, so Shohei lived on campus most of the year. His high school coach, Hiroshi Sasaki, gave the players jobs in the dorms. Pitchers like Shohei always cleaned the bathrooms.
Shohei also began watching videos of professional stars in the Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan and MLB in the United States and Canada. He looked for tips on
hitting and pitching. Because Shohei hit left-handed, he watched MLB star outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. The very tall left-handed pitcher Randy Johnson became a model for Shohei, too. He also loved watching Hideki Matsui, a strong hitter who had gone from Japan to the US Major Leagues.

“Even as a child, it was clear to me that MLB was the place for top-tier baseball,” said Shohei.

Shohei was soon an all-around star in high school baseball, which is a much bigger sport in Japan than in the United States. The annual high school tournament, called the Koshien, is one of Japan’s biggest sports events. In 2012, Shohei pitched in the Koshien and threw a fastball at almost a hundred miles per hour! It shocked fans and put him on the national baseball map. By the time he graduated, he stood six feet, four inches tall and weighed more than two hundred pounds. Every Japanese pro team wanted to choose him in the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) draft. Shohei had other ideas.

“I agonized over the decision,” he announced before the draft in 2013. “But I have decided to play in America. It’s been my dream to play in the majors since I started school. I want to play over there as early as possible. I will learn the hard way. I understand the risks. It’s not about the money. It’s about following my dream.”

Baseball in Japan

Baseball has been played in Japan since the 1870s, when an American professor named Horace Wilson first showed his Japanese students how to play. The game quickly grew in popularity, and is now the country’s favorite sport to play and to watch.

After a team of MLB All-Stars toured Japan in 1934, baseball became big enough to start a professional league two years later. Today, it’s called Nippon Professional Baseball. (Nippon is the name of the nation in the Japanese language.) NPB includes the Central League and the Pacific League. Twelve teams play 143 games each per NPB season. The league champions meet in the Japan Series to determine an overall winner.

Thousands of young people play baseball in Japan, from youth leagues to high schools. The annual Koshien high school tournament is watched by millions, and teams from Japan have won eleven Little League World Series. Japan’s national team has won the World Baseball Classic (WBC) three out of five times, as well as winning two Olympic baseball tournaments.