Sho-time
A few weeks back I was having a chat with a stranger in front of the Turner Farm farmstand in North Haven, Maine where my daughter and her best friend have summer jobs.
He asked me about the Japanese baseball cap I was wearing that has a 巨 symbol on it.
It's from the old-school Tokyo Giants, before they were using romaji on their uniforms.
He said something like 'Japan produces such great ball players, in fact the best player in baseball right now is Japanese.'
I didn't know who he was talking about because I'm a tennis fan and only have the Tokyo Giants cap because we lived in Tokyo for a long time.
I kind of forgot about that conversation until this morning when I was watching ESPN on the treadmill at Equinox. To be honest, I was also watching CNBC Squawk Box, NBC Morning Joe, and all of the other shows within view.
On the highlights reel, I saw a baseball player hit a massive home run, and when he crossed the plate his teammates crowned him with a giant samurai helmet!
Right there, the connection was made.
The guy at the farmstand was talking about Shohei Ohtani aka Sho-time.
Ohtani plays on the Los Angeles Angels and is one of the greatest two-way players in the history of baseball, best in his class on both offense and defense according to Wikipedia.
As a pitcher, he has an MLB record for strikeouts. As a batter, he has an MLB record for home runs.
Ohtani was a stand out player in high school where he played on the Hanamaki Higashi HS team (Iwate prefecture), and is remembered for many accomplishments including throwing a 99 mph pitch during the national championships (the Summer Koshien).
After high school Ohtani moved up to the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) league, playing for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. When we lived in Japan I always thought that was such a strange team name. The Ham Fighters? Ahahaha.
Anyway, after around five years in the NPB, playing numerous All Star games and winning league MVPs, Ohtani signed a deal with The Angels and has been there since the 2018 season.
In addition to being a great all-arounder, Ohtani seems to be a good sport too. I can imagine his reserved Japanese compatriots think the samurai helmet bit is over-the-top. Even perhaps, hena.
Ganbatte Shohei-sama!
