By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer
TOKYO (AP) — “Ohtani. Home run. Awesome. Ohtani. Home run.”
Cocochan Hayakawa, a chatty parrot with nearly 48,000 followers on Instagram, is one of millions of admirers of Shohei Ohtani, the baseball superstar starring again for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.
“He is the greatest,” said Hideyuki Kamimura, who heads a dental clinic in a town north of Tokyo and goes to Los Angeles every year to watch a Dodgers game.
Although the Dodgers are trailing Toronto 3-2 in the World Series, Kamimura still believes Ohtani and the Dodgers will prevail.
He adores Ohtani so much that he has an Ohtani memorabilia collection including three of the player’s helmets, one of which he bought for $10 million at auction.
“Ohtani has always delivered dramatic victorious endings from totally critical situations,” Kamimura said.
It is hard to escape Ohtani in Japan, even while the country is glued to its own World Series equivalent, the ongoing Japan Series. The SoftBank Hawks are vying for their 12th championship versus the Hanshin Tigers, one of Japan’s oldest clubs dating to the 1930s.
While being able to watch Ohtani’s games live — after breakfast in Tokyo time — he’s also popular in advertisements and his face is all over billboards and merchandise and TV.
He’s seemingly everywhere in Tokyo, pitching everything from watches to bottled water to noodles to omusubi (rice balls). He reportedly earns around $100 million annually from endorsements, beside a $2 million salary from the Dodgers.
In one ad for a home security company, Ohtani even faces a legend in Japanese baseball who died this year at 89. A computer-graphics dream faceoff has Ohtani pitching to a young Shigeo Nagashima. The ad ends before the ball reaches the plate.
His Dodgers teammates have made viral fun of Ohtani’s gesture in a sunscreen ad in which he draws the bottle across his face and replicates it while rounding the bases.
To Japanese fans, Ohtani is just about perfect: He hits home runs, pitches great, steals bases and has a reputation for being kind and humble.
Max Bedding, a chemist from Sydney, was visibly happy after he bought an Ohtani cap during a vacation in Japan. Baseball isn’t that big in Australia but Bedding is moving to the U.S. and wanted proof he’s up with the times.
“Being in Japan, I’ve seen how much of a cultural phenomenon he is,” Bedding said of Ohtani. “He is a tremendous athlete.”
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Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama
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