Dodger blue, Ohtani Days and World Collection mania in Shohei Ohtani's hometown

OSHU, Japan — 

It was moments earlier than Sport 3 was set to start, and town the place Shohei Ohtani was born breathed a collective sigh of reduction.

“I virtually cried after I noticed the damage,” 50-year-old resident Ayako Oyama stated, referring to a partial shoulder dislocation the Dodgers celebrity had suffered on a base-stealing try two days earlier.

Regardless of fears that the designated hitter can be out for the remainder of this collection, he had bounced again, and Oyama, wearing a blue Ohtani jersey, had come to the native auditorium the place town was holding a World Collection watching social gathering.

Her employer — town of Oshu — had given her the morning off to attend. (Oshu is 16 hours forward of Los Angeles.) She had gotten up early to mark her place within the lengthy line that wrapped across the constructing with round 200 different residents and Mayor Jun Kuranari, who earlier this month traveled to California to signal a friendship metropolis settlement together with his counterpart in Torrance. A digicam staff from Fox was livestreaming the scene to U.S. audiences.

“I’ve by no means seen Oshu on the focus like this,” Oyama stated, clutching two blue bambams.

Ohtani is, after all, a nationwide hero in all of Japan, his picture plastered over billboards, inexperienced tea commercials and newspaper pages.

However there’s something else to Oshu’s love for its native son. He’s greater than only a superstar from their metropolis, or a uncommon baseball expertise, however somebody really considered one of their very own.

“The individuals on this area are identified for having a critical, diligent and persevering character,” Tomonori Toriumi, an official in Oshu’s sports activities promotion division, stated.

“That’s Ohtani. Even when he’s beneath such strain, he doesn’t present it.”

A colleague from the “Shohei Ohtani Hometown Cheering Staff,” town’s fan membership that Toriumi leads, took the stage to rehearse a number of chants with the group: “Let’s go Shohei!”

The primary inning began out robust: The Yankees walked Ohtani. Freddie Freeman adopted up with a homer and drove him dwelling.

The gang whooped, furiously slapping collectively their bambams.

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Oshu, a semi-rural metropolis of round 114,000, is just not precisely a vacationer scorching spot.

The handful of resorts within the metropolis usually tend to be booked up by businesspeople from Taiwan and South Korea visiting the close by semiconductor factories. The streets are useless quiet and pitch darkish by 10 p.m.

Among the many main native sights is the Cattle Museum, a nod to the area’s high-quality beef. Different native specialties embody a type of conventional ironware often called Nambu Tekki, and apples.

“Only a few individuals come right here,” Hidetoshi Watanabe, a 68-year-old taxi driver, stated.

“For each 100 outsiders you see, possibly one or two are vacationers.”

Like most of the longtime locals, Watanabe affectionately remembers a time when Ohtani was simply one of many neighborhood children: the thin freshman who joined the baseball staff at close by Hanamaki Excessive College, the place Watanabe’s son was a senior outfielder.

“My son sorted Ohtani loads,” Watanabe stated.

Even then, Ohtani was already well-known as a “yakyu baka”: a boy obsessive about baseball.

“I knew he was destined to develop into huge,” Watanabe stated. “You would inform he had a a lot sharper sense for baseball. Everyone knew Ohtani was completely different.”

Within the years since he left dwelling — and went on to develop into who many say is probably the most gifted baseball participant of all time — Ohtani’s native presence has solely grown.

Arrive on the bullet prepare station close to the realm the place Ohtani grew up and you might be greeted by steel wind chimes engraved with messages of assist and a small glass-enclosed exhibit that includes signed memorabilia.

Native elementary colleges serve their college students Ohtani-themed lunches, together with menu gadgets like toast with “Dodgers 17” scribbled in blueberry jam. The town has designated the seventeenth of every month as Ohtani Day, which means financial institution staff, taxi drivers and civil servants go to work of their Dodgers garb. (Los Angeles adopted swimsuit, declaring Could 17 an annual Ohtani day.)

One among Oshu’s hottest occasions is an annual pageant that includes rice artwork, constituted of rising 5 completely different kinds of rice to kind huge pictures on the paddies. This 12 months’s providing: Ohtani in his Dodgers uniform, tossing apart his bat after considered one of his 54 regular-season dwelling runs.

In the meantime, almost each hint of Ohtani’s former staff has been mercilessly scrubbed from town. There isn’t any Angels pink in Oshu.

The Ohtani posters studying “The Pleasure of Oshu Metropolis” — plastered throughout town, in bars, prepare stations, authorities workplaces — at the moment are all blue.

“Properly, we assist Ohtani in the beginning, not the Angels,” Toshihide Oikawa, an official on the Oshu Chamber of Commerce and Trade, stated with a sheepish chuckle.

Although Oshu, a three-hour prepare journey from Tokyo, isn’t precisely drawing hordes, metropolis officers like Toriumi nonetheless area steady e mail inquiries from international and Japanese followers alike trying to make an Ohtani pilgrimage.

“No person can communicate English very nicely so it’s tough to correctly reply to them,” Toriumi stated apologetically.

Some discover their manner regardless.

Within the foyer of Oshu Metropolis Corridor is an iron duplicate of Ohtani’s hand, solid whereas he was taking part in for the Japanese league’s Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, his staff earlier than the Angels.

“Round 20 to 30 individuals from abroad have come within the final month,” Miyoko Ishikawa, whose seat on the info desk instantly faces the outstretched appendage.

“They arrive as a household, couple or associates — they arrive to shake the hand.”

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By the point the ninth inning got here round, it was obvious that Sport 3 can be one other win. Oyama, the civil servant, hurried off to go to lunch earlier than she needed to return to work.

The projector display displayed Yankees star Juan Soto trying defeated.

Ohtani had had a quiet outing, however the barely thinned-out crowd belted out one final chant for his ultimate at-bat, groaning loudly when the ball glanced off his left toe, resulting in a stroll. The Japanese broadcasters had crammed the dearth of motion by sampling a Wagyu burger from Yankee Stadium.

However Oshu doesn’t care if Ohtani wins or loses, whether or not he’s slumping or the clutch-time hero.

“The Dodgers profitable the World Collection would after all be an incredible factor as a result of we need to see Ohtani’s goals come true,” Toriumi stated.

“However even when Ohtani doesn’t win a World Collection, Oshu will all the time love him.”

Particular correspondent Momo Nagayama contributed to this report.