Tim KeownMar 18, 2025, 05:29 PM ET
Shut
- Senior Author for ESPN The Mag
- Columnist for ESPN.com
- Writer of 5 books (3 NYT best-sellers)
TOKYO — I’ve noticed a picture of Shohei Ohtani, dressed in denims and a white T-shirt, looking at out from a merchandising system whilst status in a box of inexperienced tea leaves, a bottle of Ito En iced tea in his left hand, and I’ve noticed it more or less 4 million occasions. I’ve noticed Ohtani — two Ohtanis, possibly each the similar legendarily indulgent sleeper — sitting on a Sleeptech bed pad. One Ohtani wears a short-sleeved blouse and holds a baseball bat like a right-handed hitter, the opposite wears a long-sleeved blouse however holds no bat. Each Ohtanis, whose eyes appear to practice me from the wall of the Tokyo Dome, put on the similar expression, which is identical expression discovered within the box of tea, which is able to simplest be described because the glance of a person who’s dreaming of having again within the batting cage.
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Digital-billboard Ohtani has seemed down upon me from 3 other instructions above the well-known Shibuya Crossing, the busiest pedestrian intersection on the planet, representing New Steadiness, DIP (a human assets and recruitment company that stands for Desires, Concepts, Interest) and a males’s perfume known as Kosé. He is 100 ft tall at the aspect of a construction in Shinjuku, dressed in the similar glance subsequent to a few Seiko watches. There are lots of Ohtanis, and such a lot of of them endure the very same glance that it sort of feels believable that it’s one inventory symbol reconstituted to serve an unending selection of functions.
Comfort retailer Ohtani is draped on a banner around the entrance of just about each and every FamilyMart retailer, selling the MLB International Excursion: Tokyo Collection whilst conserving up onigiri (a Jap rice ball) and almost definitely questioning how lengthy that is going to take.
A display outdoor the Tokyo Dome performs probably the most many inescapable commercials that includes Shohei Ohtani across the town. FRANCK ROBICHON/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
I’ve noticed tv Ohtani, dressed in an apron, get ready and consume a bowl of ramen — slicing his personal onion — on a business promoting one thing meals similar that has blurred into the entire others. At ease but exact, it’s a few of his ideal paintings. I’ve noticed him status on a seashore kicking a football ball for the fairway tea folks, smiling like he is unaware he is being filmed. I’ve noticed him morph from Dodger Ohtani to samurai Ohtani on a place for Fortnite, and it is laborious to inform which one is extra implementing. Tv Ohtani is an unstated presence on an advert for T-shirts that includes an artist’s symbol of his canine, Decoy. (Any person in the market, it will appear, is intent on pushing the limits of popularity.)
Tv Ohtani isn’t to be puzzled with taxi TV Ohtani, who turns out to run on an unending backseat loop. At the first day the groups labored out in Tokyo, a large display in entrance of the Tokyo Dome performed a mashup of advertisements starring Ohtani interspersed with some promotional spots for the collection, and a protracted line of folks stood subsequent to it, pointing their telephones on the display.
“Shohei’s affect in Japan is unattainable to overstate,” Dodgers president Andrew Friedman says. “We concept we understood it, however till you spot it and are living it, you’ll be able to’t totally take hold of it.”
Ohtani carries himself like he is mindful that each and every eye in each and every room is hyperfocused on him, and him by myself. Right here, in his house nation, is the place that reality exceeds the limits of exaggeration. He has existed right here for seven years as not anything greater than a determine on a display — many, many monitors — and but his presence isn’t greater than a boulevard nook away. Baseball lovers plan their summer time days round Dodgers video games, maximum of which get started within the past due morning. It appears like extra popularity than anyone human turns out able to containing.
“Each time I am going to Japan,” Friedman says, “I feel, ‘Smartly, Shohei, I did not pass over you in any respect. I see you far and wide.'”
Ohtani’s enchantment proved to be ageless right through the Tokyo Collection. Darren Yamashita-Imagn Pictures
Ohtani’s mom, Kayoko, handles his industry dealings in Japan, and he or she is obviously killing it. The phrase is he’s even handed together with his alternatives for endorsement offers, however it is laborious to believe he is turning a lot down.
It all emphasizes Ohtani’s price, no longer simply to himself however to baseball usually and the Dodgers particularly. For 6 days, Tokyo used to be one huge ATM. MLB arrange a 30,000-square-foot retailer on the Tokyo Dome to promote Dodgers and Cubs products, the whole thing from logo-printed cookies to Ohtani towels, and it used to be 10 deep simply to get shut sufficient to test the dimensions on an Ohtani jersey. (You might want to have parked your automotive in entrance of the Cubs tools.) Topps put in combination a remarkably cool four-story baseball card show off in Shibuya, correct across the nook from the 3 looming Ohtanis. It incorporated two donations from Ohtani: the bottom he stole to finish his 50/50 season remaining yr, and a bat he used right through the International Collection. His handle Topps netted more or less $7 million for the corporate remaining season by myself, an organization supply mentioned, even if card gathering is rather new in Japan. Stamp rallies, then again, are tried-and-true crowd-pleasers, so Topps made positive to incorporate one within the show off.
Japan Airways has an Ohtani-themed aircraft, his face in triplicate on each side of the fuselage, and trip companies right through Japan perform excursions for lovers to trip to Los Angeles to observe Ohtani play. Concession stands and signage at Dodger Stadium glance hugely other than they did two seasons in the past. And Ohtani’s estimated $65 million in annual endorsement source of revenue in 2024 — essentially the most of any baseball participant, and about $58 million greater than the second-place participant, Bryce Harper — made it a lot more palatable for him to defer the vast majority of his $700 million contract, which is partially chargeable for Friedman’s skill to spend no matter he desires (greater than $300 million this season) on whomever he desires.
Ohtani’s popularity is such that it may be imprisoning. He has a operating feud with Fuji TV in Japan after it flew a drone over the home he purchased in Los Angeles and aired the photos. He refused an interview with the community after the Dodgers received the International Collection. However hardly has his popularity been so stark and unforgiving because it used to be when the Dodgers’ aircraft arrived at Haneda Airport on March 13. More or less 1,000 Jap lovers crowded outdoor customs to get a glimpse of Ohtani, however the airport had put in white partitions that served as a tunnel to split the avid gamers from the general public, leaving Ohtani’s lovers to settle with respiring the similar air.
“It is too unhealthy, however it is a safety factor,” says Atsushi Ihara, an govt and previous director of Nippon Skilled Baseball. “If Ohtani walked out of his resort and down the road, it will finally end up a police topic.”
The scene in and across the Tokyo Dome for the 4 exhibition video games and the 2 regular-season video games is almost definitely ideal described as managed, civil mayhem. 4 hours ahead of the primary pitch on Opening Day, the crowds have been so thick within the buying groceries spaces outdoor the ballpark that it used to be tough to transport, which used to be effective with most of the people since they have been satisfied to face in clumps and lift their telephones to take movies of the newest Ohtani business enjoying at the huge monitors throughout them.
Vacationers in Bunkyo, Tokyo, are greeted via an Ohtani advert as they go out a teach. Darren Yamashita-Imagn Pictures
(Throughout the Dodgers’ clubhouse, an area with the entire attraction of a center college locker room, essentially the most outstanding function used to be a smoking pill that resembled a telephone sales space and incorporated a bull’s-eye at the wall appearing people who smoke the place to try for max air flow. No Dodgers gave the impression to be excited by the use of it.)
Sooner than each and every pitch to Ohtani, it felt as though all of the construction held its breath ahead of liberating it in a single huge exhale. The outcome used to be immaterial — foul ball, swing and a pass over, take — the reaction used to be the similar. And when Ohtani hit a homer in his moment plate look in Tokyo, sending the ball midway up the bleachers in correct towards the Tokyo Giants, a bunch of mothers with their tiny daughters, all dressed in Ohtani jerseys, danced within the concourse in the back of the decrease deck.
After the sport, Giants supervisor Shinnosuke Abe used to be requested if he had an opportunity to talk with Ohtani. “Sure,” he mentioned. “I noticed him within the batting cage.” He paused for a second, as though deciding whether or not to plow ahead. “Some folks may no longer like this,” he mentioned, “however I requested if I may get an image with him.”
There have been 5 Jap avid gamers within the Tokyo Collection, nevertheless it used to be on occasion laborious to inform. Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto turns up at the occasional teach station commercial for an power drink that resources at the floor say used to be to start with focused towards Japan’s middle-aged salarymen and their rigorous schedules. Yamamoto’s activity, together with sidekick Ichiro Suzuki, is it appears to recruit the more youthful Jap shopper to enjoy the thrill of concentrated caffeine.
However in reality, there’s Ohtani, all the time Ohtani and apparently simplest Ohtani. “It is laborious to believe him being extra well-known than he’s in The united states,” Dodgers rookie reliever Jack Dreyer says, “however that is without a doubt the case.” In Ohtani’s house prefecture of Iwate, within the a long way northeastern segment of Honshu, I handed a fuel station with a row of tire racks lined via tarps emblazoned with Ohtani’s picture. An indication within sight declared, “Greater than 300,000 tires bought.” It used to be unclear whether or not the vendor used to be Ohtani or the station.
“What he’s reaching and what he is already completed is one thing out of a comic book guide,” Ihara says. “Like a comic book guide superhero, you possibly can assume that no person may do such issues in actual lifestyles. He is appearing us that there is no limits for us as human beings, and that is the reason the muse that he’s regularly offering for us.”
Ohtani performed 4 video games in Tokyo, two that counted and two that did not, a difference that did not appear to topic. He used to be right here, within the flesh, enjoying baseball in Japan for the primary time in 8 seasons, and he equipped sufficient reminiscences — his booming homer within the 5th inning Wednesday is the primary that involves thoughts — to remind everybody why they got here. After which he headed again to his new lifestyles, again to being a picture on a display or a merchandising system or above a comfort retailer, again to being nowhere and far and wide, someway each immediately.
