The greatest Sho on earth
Met with a chorus of boos from fans, Dodgers superstar responds in signature style
Shohei Inc. has landed. For real this time.
You may have heard the boos and jeers emanating from the Rogers Centre Friday night — first when Shohei Ohtani’s photo mug appeared on the Jumbotron, more thunderous when he came to the plate in the first inning. Just about the kind of bitterness you’d expect from a rebuffed suitor. Then the crowd went catcall wild, rather than silenced, as Ohtani cranked a 1-and-1 slider over the wall.
Loved the Dodgers, loved-me-not the Jays. Hate you forever Sho-off, says Toronto.
It would be incorrect to call it the Shohei three-ring circus that pulled into town. That would suggest dancing bears and prancing ponies and beautiful trapeze artists. You know, exotic performers.
Ohtani is a one-man, one-marquee, one-tent-pole phenomenon — even amidst the glitterati Los Angeles Dodgers, who arrived in Toronto with the third-highest batting average in baseball, leading the majors in doubles and extra-base hits, third in on-base plus slugging — and a few nights ago crushed a home run that was the hardest hit ball by a Dodger since at least 2018.
The big whale that swam away from the Jays.
Of course Ohtani is a consummate performer and exotica in the dimension of baseball, an icon in Japan — they act like he hung the moon — and arguably the most famous athlete right now in North America, too. And not just because he’s a two-way superstar compared to Babe Ruth as both splendiferous position player (DH) and pitcher (but not this year after surgery last September to repair a tear in his throwing elbow, not to be confused with the Tommy John surgery he underwent in 2018).
But if there is some residual confusion, it’s because nobody in the Ohtani camp has ever entirely clarified the nature of his surgery or put a name to it. So much about the 29-year-old is don’t ask, don’t tell and none of your business.
This is part and parcel of the mystery and mystique of Ohtani, an enigma of many layers.
He is notoriously private, works assiduously to limit media access, shies away from contact with anybody outside of his bubble. So, extremely discomfiting it must have been to crack himself open — to federal investigators and his teammates, then at a very un-Shoheilike, rip-off-the-cellophane press conference a month ago, wherein he gave his side of the story (adamant denial) in the biggest sports gambling scandal of this millennium, five days after the Dodgers fired his long-time interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara.
The confidante and de facto manager — major domo of Ohtani’s near monklike existence (albeit pulling a new bride out of the hat at the end of spring training) — who allegedly embezzled $16 million (U.S.) from his close pal and meal ticket to cover his own gambling-frenzy debts.
With Major League Baseball aswoon on the fainting couch across a dizzying three weeks of conjecture, clashing narratives and did-he-didn’t-he anguish about Ohtani’s involvement in the gambling (didn’t), the Grand Guignol ended with fraud charges against Mizuhara and complete exoneration of the ballplayer.
Ohtani didn’t bet on baseball or anything else, got blindsided by Mizuhara’s treachery, was a victim. But hoo-boy, not the smartest knife in the drawer, eh? So dimwittedly unaware of his buddy’s gobsmacking scamming. A monumental naif.
Yet the Ohtani brand — Shohei Inc. — seems not to have been dent
ed at all. Earlier this week, he signed a multi-year endorsement deal with Rapsodo (it makes tracking devices for baseball) adding yet another cha-ching to a portfolio that includes New Balance, Fanatics, BOSS, Seiko and Porsche, raking in more money as a blue-chip shill than even the historic $700-million contract he signed with L.A. as a free agent.
While Toronto fans, who really believed the Jays were in with a chance, waited with a wilting posy for that chimerical private plane to arrive. As if.
“It was pretty elaborate,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider was recalled pre-game about the comehither seduction Toronto laid on for Ohtani at their Dunedin, Fla. complex in December. “I think his impressions of us were pretty good.” He had inquired about team resources, the farm system, roster plans, had discussed in-depth how this organization could help him become a better player. “He was pretty meticulous about everything.”
Except it was all an elaborate con, wasn’t it, whetting Toronto’s lips just enough for Ohtani’s agent to extract a juicier deal from the Dodgers.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts begs to differ. “I do know that Shohei was really considering Toronto,” he was saying in the dugout Friday evening. “That’s not something that Shohei brought on himself as far as spurning Toronto, which he didn’t do.”
I would have asked Ohtani myself about that whole shemozzle, except the Dodgers’ PR person made it clear Ohtani wouldn’t be talking. But Shohei Ink — see what I did there? — never runs dry. Thus the hacks were left eyeballing Ohtani in the cramped visitors clubhouse as the unicorn ate his light pre-game meal (Japanese fare with chopsticks) then laughed heartily at some story a teammate was telling (in English), acknowledging only in a polite, fleeting greeting a horde of Japanese reporters.
He is always on display. He is always the Sho Show. Strike a pose — vogue.