Ohtani in His Own Words: Book Sheds Light on the Superstar’s Story

Swinging for the Fences Every Time

Ohtani Shōhei was something of a legend on the Japanese baseball diamond before he made his move to the Major Leagues to take his fame to the next level as the first genuine two-way player since Babe Ruth. Ishida Yūta, a baseball journalist who has followed him for years as a writer for the Japanese sports journal Number, has produced two volumes of an illuminating look at Ohtani’s career based on in-depth interviews with the star.

Ōtani Shōhei rongu intabyū (Long Interviews with Ohtani Shōhei) covered the years 2013–18, when he played pro ball in Japan, in the first volume, published in 2022. In the second volume, which appeared in 2024, Ishida explores Ohtani’s time in the Major Leagues. This book is chock full of Ohtani wisdom, but I would like to offer a glimpse at his true essence. The great charm of Ohtani as a batter has to be his boldness. Every time he steps into the batter’s box, he is swinging for the fences.

“What my offensive position calls for,” says Ohtani—at the time of the interviews, batting third in the lineup as designated hitter while also pitching for the Los Angeles Angels—“is to hit a long ball once some players are on base. If the option is ending up with an infield grounder or a single, it’s better to swing hard, even if I strike out.”

In Japan, we tend to view every strikeout as a minus, but he seems not to mind them. The fun of watching Ohtani is seeing him send balls flying out of the park with his massive cuts. The man himself is far more focused on distance than most.

“I think that’s the most important thing—to the point that I think kids should focus only on that when batting. I think it’s fun to send the ball flying, and isn’t it fun for the audience to watch and try to guess how far it will go?”

Ohtani uses the word “fun” a lot when talking about baseball. For him, that’s the foundation.

The 170 KPH Man?

Of course, his road has not always been easy. In 2018, his first season with the Angels, he went 4–2 in 10 games as starting pitcher. As a batter, he hit 22 home runs in 104 games and won the Rookie of the Year award, but his year on the mound did not go well. He himself commented: “I’m not good enough as a pitcher.”

Ohtani worked on his four fundamental pitches, the four-seam fastball, slider, fork, and curveball, saying, “If I can get the four pitches down solid, 90 percent to nearly 100 percent, I can get real results.” But just as he was making progress, he noticed something wrong with his right elbow.

During the off-season, he overcame the worries of those around him and decided to have surgery despite the risk that it could end his pitching career. At his last game on the mound on September 2, he threw a 99 MPH (159 KPH) fastball. Did he really need that surgery? His answer is pure Shōhei.

“I might have had solid results even without the surgery. But as for whether it would have been fun or not, it didn’t look like much fun.” And later, he adds: “When I think about it, if I hadn’t gotten injured, I might have reached around 170 kilometers.”

Pitching as the “Greatest Pleasure”

According to Ohtani, pitching in peak condition is what he enjoys more than anything else. Not being able to pitch in the 2019 season, he says, “was like losing my greatest pleasure.” He adds, “The batter’s box is plenty of fun, but . . . I realized that the mound is something special.” So, he pushed through physical rehabilitation.

He spent every day working on his core and inner muscles. Surprisingly, he expresses little unhappiness about that. “I couldn’t do much technical training due to the surgery, so I did more physical training. So, it didn’t frustrate me all that much,” he reflects.

There is no room to describe it all here, but the greatest appeal of this book is the in depth look at how Ohtani’s own thoughts on his approach to rehabilitation while throwing himself at pitching and batting techniques to succeed in the Major Leagues. He says that even during rehab, “I visualized becoming better at baseball.”

The Art of the Steal

The 2021 season became a critical one for Ohtani. He says there was a sense of danger, that “the year might be my last chance” to play as a pitching/batting double threat. “I had a sense that the team was giving up on the policy of me doing both.”

Still, that year he got results. As a pitcher he went 9–2 and as a batter he hit 46 home runs, winning the season MVP crown for the American League in a unanimous vote. Ohtani says, “I think those numbers became a personal benchmark for my future,” indicating the heights he was aiming for.

But even as Ohtani kept playing both as pitcher and slugger, he also set himself up as a voracious base stealer, unafraid of the injury risks. Why is that?

He explains, “Driving up my stolen base count let me put pressure on the opposing pitcher as someone who keeps advancing once I get on base. If I get the pitcher to think that a walk could put me on second, it could get him to really throw down. That’s why I think it’s important to run.” It seems he thinks of it as a contribution to his team winning, rather than any kind of personal success.

He has this to say about his stats: “It’s important to be first, and that does make me happy. I want to be the best in the world, the best player there is. But keeping that feeling up every day and taking on practice with the goal of being the best is important, and that’s what keeps it interesting.”

Coming Into His Prime?

Ohtani says that for Major Leaguers, “Age thirty or so is the peak. Physical ability comes to match skill from age thirty to thirty-five or so.” In his 2022 season, when he turned 28, he had another stellar season, pitching 10–5 and hitting 44 homers for his second MVP crown, despite another elbow surgery.

This time, he says, “I could throw up to around 150 kilometers per hour as per usual, without any pain . . . But that’s just not much fun. I’m not thirty yet, so I wanted to keep looking forward to my peak.”

He adds, “If I go on pitching in ways I’m not happy with, is that all right for me, for the team, and for fans? It can’t be.”

As he turns 30 this year, Ohtani has transferred to the Dodgers and reached all new highs in his career. His devastating performance at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, when he guided Japan to a championship over a powerful US team, is still on everyone’s lips, but I hope everyone digs into this book to learn about the path he has taken so far and the views of the man himself. It is a true pleasure to read about how he spends the off-season, his “flavor comes third” nutritional regimen, his marriage, and his dog Dekopin, or “Decoy” to American fans.

This book overflows with Ohtani’s pure humanity.

“I think it’s as a pitcher that I still have real room for growth,” he says of his own skills. “As a batter . . . I think I’ve grown a big, solid branch on that side . . . I’m going to keep my eyes open during the post-season to see for myself.”

(Originally written in Japanese. Banner photo © Bungei Shunjū.)