Illustration by team illustrator Sakura Siegel.
Baseball holds a special place in the heart of Jersey City.
To give some context — on April 18, 1946, Jackie Robinson, of the minor league team Montreal Royals, broke the color barrier when he debuted in his first game of organized baseball at Jersey City’s Roosevelt Stadium, which used to stand where Society Hill is now. Aside from being the first Black man to play in the modern major league, Robinson was arguably the best player of his time because of his completeness: from hitting, speed and fielding, he seemed to have it all.
Now, nearly eight decades later, Los Angeles Dodgers’ two-way player Shohei Ohtani has captivated the world in a similar way, but this time for Asians and Asian Americans.
Over the last few years, the Japanese-born designated hitter has become the face of Major League Baseball as well as the highest paid Asian athlete in the world.
“Ohtani is truly in a league of his own, a two-way superstar and once-in-a-lifetime talent that’s deserving of a record-setting contract,” Max Goodman, a reporter for NJ Advance Media wrote.
Becoming The Face of Baseball
Ohtani is considered to be one of the best players in all of baseball and is one of the faces of the sport.
Ohtani spent five years with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japan before signing with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018 to team up with one of the best MLB players, Mike Trout. The duo, however, never made a playoff appearance together due to injuries. Ohtani and Trout would both miss significant time because of this during their tenure as teammates.
Ohtani’s 2018 win as AL Rookie of the Year would help begin his ascension into becoming the star that he is now. 2021 marked Ohtani’s breakout season, which would lead to his first MVP award.
Ohtani’s historic 2021 season would captivate the entire sports world, from die hard baseball fans, to casual fans, and even individuals that have never shown interest in baseball previously. The Japanese star showcased his batting and pitching prowess not seen since the days of legendary Red Sox and Yankees player Babe Ruth who played a century ago.
All-Star weekend 2021 put Ohtani at the center of the sports world as he would compete in the Home Run Derby, then be named the starting pitcher for the American League in that year’s All-Star game.
Today, Ohtani is in the next phase of his career.
In December 2023, he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers for a record 10 years, $700 million. It is the largest contract in MLB history, as well as the largest in North American sports history.
At 29, and in the prime of his career, Ohtani has earned a $680 million contract that will be deferred until 2033, meaning the Japanese star will get the majority of the payment after his contract is over.
Gambling Controversy
Ohtani has been a model MLB player for the majority of his career, but found himself in some controversy due to his former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara.
While Ohtani has been cleared, his name being attached to gambling at a time when sports betting is at an all-time high in popularity, has casted some suspicion from the public.
Mizuhara is expected to plead guilty to bank fraud as well as tax fraud after admitting to stealing as much as $16 million from an unaware Ohtani.
This caught the public by complete surprise considering Ohtani and Mizuhara also seemed to be close friends to most people in MLB circles. In Ohtani’s historic Dodgers contract, there is a clause that has Ippei Mizuhara remaining as his interpreter.
This comes at a time when the NBA recently banned Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter, brother of Denver Nuggets player Michael Porter Jr., for betting on NBA games.
All-time MLB hits leader, Pete Rose, is banned from the MLB because he bet on MLB games during his tenure as Cincinnati Reds manager.
Ohtani has been cleared of any wrongdoing and faced no disciplinary action, able to continue his inaugural Dodger season without interruption.
The SHO-TIME Effect on Asian Americans
There have been other Japanese players in MLB, both in the past and present, but the stardom and aura of Ohtani may bring in even more Japanese stars in the future.
Some past Japanese players include Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners, one of the best hitters of all-time with 4,367 combined hits between his time in MLB and in Japan and is considered the best Japanese player of all-time. Suzuki won the AL MVP and AL Rookie of the Year in his first MLB year in 2001.
Hideki Matsui, nicknamed “Godzilla,” played for the New York Yankees in the 2000s and was one of the best home run hitters in baseball and helped the Yankees win the World Series in 2009, with Matsui being named World Series MVP for his 6 RBI game in the series, clinching game 6 versus the Philadelphia Phillies.
Current Japanese players in the MLB include Yu Darvish of the San Diego Padres, Kodai Senga of the New York Mets and Ohtani’s new Dodger teammate, Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
These players before Ohtani arguably paved the way for him, who has since become an idol for Asians and Asian Americans and the literal face of baseball. Ohtani was featured on the cover of “MLB The Show 2022,” becoming the first Asian on the front cover of a U.S. sports video game, giving satisfaction to Japan, whose No. 1 sport in the country is baseball.
The MLB has worked on increasing viewership and attendance over the last few years by implementing changes like a pitch timer and a digital strike zone, but when Ohtani is playing, he automatically doubles attendance. The number of Asian baseball fans has also grown by 8.2% from 2021 to 2023, according to the MLB; online subscriptions in Japan have also doubled since 2018, which was his rookie season.
Emil Guillermo, a writer for the Inquirer.net, explained the phenomenon when Ohtani signed his record deal in December of 2023.
“And it’s Shohei Ohtani. The name means ‘new era in American race history,’ or at least, that’s what I’m calling it,” Guillermo, a Filipino American wrote.
“You doubt that? Ohtani’s ascendence is not unlike what happened when Jackie Robinson broke a color barrier in baseball.”
When Robinson, who played as second baseman, entered the MLB, he not only opened the door for people of color to join the sport, but he also gave them courage to fight for equal rights, which was not alive during the 1950s.
And while Ohtani is not fighting for equal rights on the same level, he is arguably giving power to an ethnic group that is historically underrepresented in sports overall. Asian underrepresentation in sports stems from a number of factors including restrictive immigration laws, xenophobia–like the “Yellow Peril” and Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic–and Asian males being “feminized.”
But Asians and Asian Americans say that Ohtani’s giving them a new narrative.
Evan-Thomas May and Zeph Wong wrote about their lifelong obsession with baseball–starting with Suzuki of the Mariners–and how Ohtani has solidified it.
“So when I watch the MLB roll an Ohtani commercial, or hear the taiko drums boom as I load my game, Shotime’s prominence feels like so much more than just marketing. Seeing him is a representation of my own identity, my own community, and all those who have afforded me the life I have today.”
Ohtani continues his seventh season with the Dodgers who defeated the New York Mets 5-2 on Tuesday at their 4:10 p.m. game; they’re currently playing a 7:40 p.m. doubleheader where they lead 2-0 at the top of the fifth at the time of this writing. They play the Mets one more time on Wednesday.
Ohtani told TIME magazine that his best is “yet to come.”
