Behold the price of being an Ohtani fan in Japan
SEOUL, South Korea — Mai Fukuo was gift-shopping for a friend. Hideki Chiba was in the same sports store in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo looking for something for his father-in-law.
They each picked up items in blue – Los Angeles Dodgers Blue, of course. This reflects the colour revolution that’s evident all over Tokyo in the last few months since Shohei Ohtani moved from the Los Angeles Angels – base colour, red – to sign a $700-million, 10-year contract with the Dodgers.
Angels caps have almost vanished in Tokyo. A Dodgers lid is the fashion item – a bit like designer-label goods.
“Ohtani just changed our store,” said Takuto Yamashita, a part-time worker at a shop called Selection, which boasts Japan’s largest array of MLB gear for all 30 teams, and the 12 Japanese pro teams, too.
But there’s one team that matters more than the rest in Japan. And only one player, which is why the Dodgers invested so heavily in Ohtani; not just for his pitching and hitting, but for his celebrity status to market the Dodgers as Japan’s team.
“The place is completely different. It went from all red to to all blue,” Yamashita added. “Without Ohtani in these last few months, the sales in this store would be so different.”
Fukuo eyed a traditional white jersey with “Dodgers” in script across the front. She lifted it off the rack – a quilt of Dodgers and Ohtani garb – and admired it for looks, size and texture.
“I’m thinking of buy this t-shirt for my co-worker because Ohtani is very famous – of course in Japan – and also all over the world,” she explained. “He likes baseball and he likes Ohtani so I’m thinking of this.”
In another shopping aisle, Chiba dropped a traditional Dodgers cap into his hand-held shopping basket.
“He (Ohtani) is like a hero to us, at least to me as a baseball fan,” Chiba said.
“Everybody knows him, even if they are not baseball fans. To me, he’s a Japanese icon. I think people expected him to be a good player, but he is more than anyone expected.”
Store manager Hayato Daido estimated that 60% of the sales come from Dodgers gear, or Ohtani specific t-shirts, jerseys, key chains, etc. Assistant store manager Takato Suzuki suggested it might be as high as 70%. Daido said about 10% of sales were linked to local teams like the Tokyo Giants.
Daido said Ohtani-related sales are “four or five times” more than they were prior to the Dodgers announcing in December they’d signed him. He said gear has yet to arrive for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who joined the Dodgers on a $325-million, 12year contract – reported to be the highest in money and longest in duration for any pitcher.
“There is no doubt there will be demand for it,” Daido said. “We’re just waiting.”
Surprisingly, what’s still selling are
Ohtani caps and jerseys from his six years with the Angels.
“That’s because they are not being produced any more and have become collector’s items,” Suzuki, the assistant manager, said.
The store resembles a museum to Ohtani, filled with posters, memorabilia and “Sho-time” emblazoned on myriad items. A few Ichiro Suzuki shirts hang for sale, reminders of the certain first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Shirts with Ohtani’s dog are a big item – Dekopin in Japanese, but known as Decoy in English. The next big seller could be anything related to his surprise marriage.
Being an Ohtani fan comes with a price – and it can be steep. The ordinary Dodgers cap, like other MLB caps, sells for about 6,300 yen – about $42.
However, Ohtani-specific items are much higher. A traditional blue Dodgers cap with the interlocking L.A. on the front, which also features No. 17 on the side and a replica of Ohtani’s signature goes for 22,400 yen – about $150.
If you want a baseball that Ohtani threw in a game on April 27, 2023 – brace yourself. The price tag is a whopping 3.3 millon yen – about $22,000. An Ohtani-used glove sells for almost 2 million yen – $13,400.
Taiwanese Torben Lin offered a contrarian view. In town shopping, his interest was in buying a Masataka Yoshida jersey, the Japanese outfielder who wears No. 7 for the Boston Red Sox. He bypassed the Ohtani gear – intentionally.
“Ohtani is a good player. He’s really good,” Lin said. “He has two or three skills. But to be honest, I think he’s not perfect. You know, it’s not like we all need to buy his stuff. His souvenirs. His shirts. I think we need to support other players.”
That perspective didn’t deter Hina Kishi. She works as a waitress in a Japanese restaruant, admired a blue Dodgers jersey on the rack and said she intended to buy it. Even after she looked at the price of 77,000 yen – about $510.
“Very expenisve,” she said, muttering about how she’d work the spending around her payday. She said she works wearing a kimono, a wrap-around garment and Japan’s traditional dress. She said the jersey would offer a “different look.”
“I saw baseball in person for the first time at the World Baseball Classic last year at the Tokyo Dome,” she said. “I respect Ohtani so much for being the best and also such a good person.”
She said she was so taken that she flew to Los Angeles shortly thereafter to see Ohtani play with Angels.
Fans seem willing to pay to be outfitted like Ohtani with demand soaring and profits to divvy up. A store employee said a blue Dodgers cap with a script “D” above the bill – being worn frequently in spring training – nearly sold out in a few days.
“They talk about Ohtani on Japanese news every day,” Suzuki, the assistant manager, said.
“We can’t think of what business would be like without him.”
Ditto for MLB and the Dodgers.
DEAR DR. ROACH: I am a 103-year-old woman with a medical problem that I hope you can help me with. I cough up a lot of mucus every day, which is clear with no discoloration. The cough can start at anytime, but it is more prevalent at night. The mucus starts with the cough and can last anywhere from 15-30 minutes or more.
I don’t know where the mucus is coming from and was wondering if you had any suggestions. My chest X-ray was normal, and my doctor said everything is clear.
– R.S. ANSWER: The mucus has to be coming from above (such as the nose and sinuses) or below (usually the lungs and rarely the digestive tract). If you had other symptoms pointing one way or the other, that could help.
For example, if you had a lot of nasal discharge, this would make post-nasal drip more likely. However, if you had a history of smoking or wheezing, this would make the lungs a likely cause, even with a normal chest X-ray. Finally, symptoms of heartburn would make reflux disease a strong suspect for mucus production.
There are tests – such as CT scans, pulmonary function tests and endoscopies – that can help make the diagnosis, but often in older people, we try medications as a diagnostic challenge. An antihistamine for a week is pretty safe, and if it helps greatly, the post-nasal drip becomes the likely culprit. Similarly, an inhaler or a medicine to stop acid secretion might lead to improvement right away.
I’d recommend another visit with your doctor, since the X-ray didn’t lead to the diagnosis. It’s time to try something new.
DEAR DR. ROACH: I am a 68-year-old man in good health. Last year, the chronic numbness in my left thigh turned into a debilitating pain almost overnight. I could not walk 10 feet. An MRI showed a disc protrusion, likely an extruded disc fragment at the L3-L4 level, and a diskectomy was scheduled.
Since the pain went away, I sought a second opinion instead of surgery. A second MRI six months later showed that the fragment was gone, apparently absorbed by the body. The pain is largely gone. However, the numbness in my left thigh and leg remains. Is there any way to cure this numbness without surgery?
– O.V. ANSWER: I’m not sure if the original chronic numbness was part of the herniated disk or not. If the numbness has been due to compression on the nerve, then relieving the pressure on the nerve tends to relieve the numbness. Unfortunately, if the pressure was present on the nerve for a long time, there is a chance of long-lasting or even permanent nerve damage.
I have certainly seen numbness that doesn’t go away after the pressure has been relieved, whether by surgery or by the body reabsorbing the disk material, which is common. My experience is that after a year, it’s unlikely to get much better.
However, you might have had a different reason for chronic numbness that had nothing to do with the disks. Chronic thigh numbness gives me suspiciouns about a condition called meralgia paresthetica, which is caused by pressure on a peripheral nerve. A neurologist or pain medicine specialist can help sort this out. An electromyography might also be diagnostic.
Readers may email questions to: toyourgoodhealth@med.cornell.edu