Ohtani named AP Male Athlete of the Year for second time in three years
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Before Shohei Ohtani stepped into the bright lights of Hollywood and signed the most lucrative contract in professional sports history, baseball’s two-way superstar put together yet another season of unparalleled brilliance from Tokyo to Anaheim.
What can this singular talent possibly do next? The Los Angeles Dodgers are eagerly paying $700 million to see for themselves.
But what Ohtani already did in 2023 — both for the Los Angeles Angels and for Japan’s team in the World Baseball Classic — is the reason he was selected as
The Associated Press’ Male Athlete of the Year for the second time in three years.
“Shohei is arguably the most talented player who’s ever played this game,” said Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, after signing Ohtani to a 10-year contract last week.
Ohtani edged Inter Miami superstar Lionel Messi and tennis great Novak Djokovic for the AP honor in voting by a panel of sports media professionals.
Ohtani received 20 of 87 votes, while Messi and Djokovic got 16 apiece. Nikola Jokic, the Denver Nuggets’ NBA Finals MVP, got 12 votes.
After winning his first AP Male Athlete of the Year award in 2021, Ohtani has joined an impressive list of two-time winners of the honor, which was first handed out in 1931.
Multiple-time winners include Don Budge, Byron Nelson, Carl Lewis, Joe Montana, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps and fourtime honorees Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong. Four-time winner LeBron James is another generational superstar who chose Los Angeles as a free agent, while two-time honoree Sandy Koufax remains one of the greatest players to wear Dodger Blue.
Ohtani has upended decades of conventional wisdom during his six years in the majors, even surpassing most achievements of Babe Ruth while playing in an infinitely more difficult era. Most new frontiers in sports are crossed incrementally and gradually, but Ohtani has toppled barriers that stood for a century with peerless skills, confidence and hard work.
Ohtani unanimously won the AL MVP award in 2021, and he repeated the feat in 2023 after finishing second in 2022 to Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, last year’s AP
Male Athlete of the Year.
This year began with Ohtani’s dazzling MVP performance for Japan’s championship team in the World Baseball Classic — complete with a clinching strikeout of Angels teammate Mike Trout. He then turned in his third consecutive spectacular season both on the mound and at the plate in Anaheim despite an early end after he injured his pitching elbow in August.
Ohtani led the AL with 44 homers, 78 extra-base hits, 325 total bases and a 1.066 OPS as the Halos’ designated hitter. He also held hitters to an AL-best .184 batting average while ranking second in the league with 11.39
strikeouts per nine innings and third with a 3.14 ERA at the time of his injury.
“There’s nobody like him, and there’s nothing that you would say he can’t do,” former Angels manager Phil Nevin said late in the season. “Anything is possible with Sho. I don’t know who else you could say that about in baseball history.”
While Ohtani has redefined what’s possible in modern baseball, he accomplished another unprecedented feat by signing his record-setting contract. The deep-pocketed Dodgers eagerly invested in the 29-year-old Ohtani’s next decade while knowing his worldwide fame generates revenue no other baseball player can touch.
For Ohtani, winning seemed to be the biggest factor in choosing his future home.
Ohtani did nearly everything except win with the Angels, who haven’t had a winning season since 2015. When he hit free agency this winter, he eventually chose the nearby club that has had only two losing seasons in the 21st century, none since 2010.
“I can’t wait to join the Dodgers,” Ohtani said through his translator, Ippei Mizuhara. “They share the same passion as me. They have a vision and history all about winning. I share the same values.”