Shohei Ohtani gives hope to young baseball players in Japan, and the rest of the country as well

TOKYO (AP) — Shin Uebori coaches the Fukagawa Hawks youth baseball team in Tokyo, and he is keenly aware of how Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani inspires his players.

“With Ohtani, the kids think anything is possible,” Uebori said as he wrapped up practice Sunday on a dirt field next to a local Buddhist temple, under an elevated highway and in the shadow of tall apartment buildings in central Tokyo.

“With him, nothing is impossible. A dream is not a dream,” Uebori said as he left the fenced practice field that keeps balls from ending up on the temple grounds. None of the young players playing sponge-soft baseball have made it to the highway yet.

Ohtani mania comes and goes in Japan, although blue Dodgers caps have replaced Yankees caps as the country’s go-to sports fashion item.

Japan has other big names on the world stage: golfer Hideki Matsuyama, boxer Naoya Inoue and tennis player Naomi Osaka. And Japan left the Paris Olympics with a record 20 gold medals, a record for the country for a Games on foreign soil.

But no one can match Ohtani, not even teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who outwitted fellow countryman Yu Darvish to beat the San Diego Padres in the best-of-five NLDS.

The mania peaked when Japan won the World Baseball Classic, beating the United States, about 20 months ago. And it reached a new high when Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million contract and moved from the Angels to the Dodgers to start the 2024 season.

The only valley came in March, when Ohtani was involved in a gambling scandal. Prosecutors ultimately found no evidence that Ohtani was involved.

The next peak is slowly building with Ohtani and teammate Yamamoto in the NLCS against the New York Mets. If the Dodgers reach the World Series, public viewing areas will almost certainly be set up all over Japan to watch the games – most of them shown in the country in the early morning.

The time difference between New York and Tokyo is 13 hours. It’s 16 between Tokyo and Los Angeles.

Yukako Takahashi watched her 10-year-old son Haruka during Sunday’s practice and she was clear about Ohtani’s influence on her son and his teammates.

“Everyone is inspired by him,” she said. “Children wonder how he got his ghost. For children he is just a big idol. He’s perfect.”

She said she doesn’t regularly watch Ohtani’s games from the United States, but she follows him on the local news. Many days he is the top story – and not just the top sports story. She suggested that interest would certainly increase if the Dodgers reached the World Series later this month.

She also said Ohtani was inspiring to the rest of Japan, in part because he can beat the Americans – and Latin Americans – at their own game.

“The economy today is in Japan,” she said. “It’s very difficult these days. But now that Ohtani is successful, he is our hope.”