Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim walks off the field after warming up during batting practice before Wednesday’s game against the Blue Jays.Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images
Mike Scioscia rumbled into the Los Angeles Angels dugout before Tuesday’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays and the long-tenured manager immediately recognized something was amiss.
“Yoi,” he called out in a booming voice, “Come here. I feel naked unless you’re right here by my side.”
Yoi is Yoichi Terada, the team’s massage therapist who also happens to speak Japanese. He is a valuable asset for the Angels these days where everybody wants a piece of Shohei Ohtani, their Japanese sensation.
Terada acts as a translator, usually pregame when the Angels are on the road.
That’s when Scioscia gets regularly inundated by questions, from both the large contingent of Japanese media that now trails L.A. from city to city, recording every nuance of Ohtani’s rookie campaign, and local reporters.
Only after Terada comes over and sits next to Scioscia in the dugout is the 19-year managing veteran willing to call the pregame meeting with reporters to order.
“Mike’s been great with all this,” said Tim Mead, the Angels’ vice-president of communications, now in his 39th season working with the club. “We translate [into Japanese] whenever there’s a Shohei-related question. For anything else, we don’t translate.
“I mean, who has training in this?”
Ohtani is the Angels’ coveted rookie, a left-handed pitcher from Japan who can crank his fastball up to triple figures. The 23-year-old also doubles as a hitter, as a .321 average and six home runs heading into Wednesday’s game against the Jays would attest.
Ohtani is hoping to make his mark as the game’s first substantial two-way player since the days of Babe Ruth back in the early 20th century.
His presence on the U.S. West Coast has created quite a stir, especially among the Japanese news media, which are affording Ohtani the same blanket coverage that countrymen Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui and Yu Darvish all received when breaking into Major League Baseball.
Currently, there are about 25 members of the Japanese press corps who are travelling regularly to all 81 of the Angels’ road games this year for the express purpose of reporting specifically on Ohtani.
According to Mead, that number swells to upward of 50 when the Angels are back playing at home in Anaheim.
“Right from the get-go, the interest level in Shohei has been phenomenal,” Mead said. “We had something like 270 people I believe at the press conference when he was first brought into town.”
Every move Ohtani makes, every twist and turn on the baseball diamond, falls under the scrutiny of the Japanese contingent, cameras always at the ready.
When Ohtani finally emerged from the Angels clubhouse to the Rogers Centre field for batting practice on Wednesday afternoon, one of his teammates playfully walked in front of him in a futile attempt to try to divert media attention.
As he sprinted in right field, his regular translator, Ippei Mizuhara, was always within hailing distance and armed with a baseball glove to make his presence on the field somehow seem more authentic.
After he finished warming up, Ohtani created a bit of a fuss when he sauntered over to the seats down the right-field foul line and started to sign autographs for those lucky enough to have arrived early.
As he signed whatever was thrust his way – including balls, shirts, posters and caps – two steely-eyed Rogers security guards stood right behind Ohtani to make sure the excited fans accorded themselves in a proper fashion.
Sam Onoda is a veteran of the Japanese media contingent that has covered the exploits of Japanese baseball players in North America. He followed Daisuke Matsuzaka when he broke in with the Boston Red Sox, and Darvish when he was with the Texas Rangers.
A television broadcaster, Onoda is now doing the same with Ohtani and sending his reports back to Japan on a daily basis.
“With Ohtani, it is so unique what he is trying to do,” Onoda said. “And to be honest with you, I’m pretty amazed at how well he is doing. During spring training, he wasn’t that great. Since the season has started, he’s pulled the switch.”
Onada said the public appetite back home in Japan for anything to do with Ohtani is all consuming.
“He’s very big right now,” he said. “I would still say Ichiro is probably the most recognized baseball player in Japan. But Ohtani is probably No. 2 and moving closer.”
After the Blue Jays series, the Angels head into New York where in Sunday’s game the Yankees will start Masahiro Tanaka. Ohtani is pencilled in to pitch for L.A.
“It’s going to be crazy,” Onoda said. “Seeing your countrymen on the mound in a foreign country kind of makes you proud.”