Jeff Fletcher - Sho-Time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played

More Praise for Sho-time

OK, Ill admit it. Im obsessed with Shohei Ohtani. I missed out on watching that Babe Ruth guy, but I feel lucky to have watched this guy. I even thought I knew a lot about him until I opened my copy of Jeff Fletchers brilliant new book. Sho-Time taught me so much I didnt know about the most unique baseball player of our lifetimes. From the moment I read that phrase, 10-tool player, I was hooked!

Jayson Stark , The Athletic

This is one the best baseball books ever published relevant to Japan-US relations. Jeff Fletcher is the most experienced of the Angels beat writers, and usually the first one to ask Shohei Ohtani questions after the game. I admire the way he has exchanged information with Japanese writers for four years. This book is the fruit of his efforts. I always follow Jeffs work in order to find new information relevant to Ohtani or Major League Baseball.

Hideki Okuda , Sports Nippon

I thought I knew everything about Shohei Ohtani because I had seen all of his games and interviewed him for the first time in Tempe in 2018, but I didnt quite know the extent of everything he did to redesign himself on the physical and mental side until after I read Sho-Time by Jeff Fletcher. I really appreciated learning about Ohtanis dedication to be the best, starting from his days in Japan. I realized how much it took for him to get to this point, to have the best year in baseball history.

Mark Gubicza , Angels television analyst

Copyright 2022 by Jeff Fletcher

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For more information, email

Diversion Books

A division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

www.diversionbooks.com

First Diversion Books edition, July 2022

Hardcover ISBN: 9781635767971

eBook ISBN: 9781635767766

Printed in The United States of America

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Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication data is available on file

Interior design by Neuwirth & Associates

Cover Design by Michel Vrana
Front cover, interior, and dust-jacket flap photos: Associated Press

For Marvin Fletcher.

Thank you for being a great dad and introducing me to baseball.

Contents

Foreword

by Joe Maddon

A t the end of the 2021 season, we were playing Oakland. Shohei was pitching and it was a really hot afternoon. I signaled to our catcher to walk Matt Olson, the As first baseman. When Shohei got the sign, he looked at me with a grin and started wagging his finger back and forth. He didnt want to do that. He didnt need to do that. I understood and smiled back. Later in the game Olson came up and the count went to 2-and-0. I did it again, and again he gave me the same treatment. He knew what he wanted to do with Olson. He felt very confident in getting him out. He didnt need any interference. Olsons numbers against him? Theyre horrible. He struggles against Shohei and Shohei knows that. I got finger-wagged, but with a smile. Although I overruled him and walked Olson both times, I appreciated Shoheis confidence.

Shohei is unique, obviously, someone we have never seen before. What he does and how he does it so easily is just different. But such a big part of who he is was evident that afternoon: the joy he derives from the game itself and the competition. He does not like to lose. At the same time, he is humble, polite, and kind. There is an old-school component to him. He may listen to a hitting coach talk about another pitcher. He may listen to a scouting report about how to pitch to hitters, but when it comes down to it, this guy is pretty much out there with a brush in his hand and hes painting all the way. He knows what he wants. He reacts to the situation. You dont have to tell him. Hes just better than most everybody else. And hes able to adjust on the fly and react to what is working for him or what he sees is necessary to beat his opponent in that game.

My first year with the Angels was 2020, which was of course the pandemic year. I didnt know much about Shohei. I was really following everyone elses cues there. It was eyes and ears open, mouth shut. But going into 2021, I knew that I needed to talk to Perry Minasian, our new general manager, about what kind of leash we were going to put on him. We decided that there would be no leash. I give Perry a lot of credit for not trying to restrict him. Taking the shackles off of him was a big part of his success. Much of that success occurred because nobody got in the way of it.

What really surprised me was Shoheis durability as a pitcher. I thought he would answer the bell offensively, but I didnt know what it would look like if we pushed him to the number of innings we did. He handled it extremely well and could have pitched more. As we move forward, we have to be aware that this guy wants to be out there all the time, because when hes out there he believes he is going to impact the game in a way to help us win.

When hes pitching, he wants to be able to hit because he badly wants to contribute to the win. When hes hitting, he wants to steal bases and do other things to help us win games. When he hits a routine groundball to second base and knows hes got a shot at beating it out, he switches to another gear and here we go. Its pretty spectacular. Hes like a big wide receiver. Big, lanky, strong, and fast. Really fast.

Again, his joy for the game cannot be overstated. With all of the success hes had, he still has that joy. Thats where I draw the parallels with Cal Ripken Jr. Its not a physical comparison. Its what I perceive to be a pure joy for the game and the competition. From a distance, I always thought that was Cals greatest asset. He loved to play and he loved to compete. I believe Shohei is the same way. Shohei also reminds me of Cal in his competitive nature. Shohei doesnt want to lose. He is always competing and I think that is what drove Cal. Shohei is the same. We have a little bumper pool table near his locker and sometimes when Im leaving the ballpark an hour after the game, hes still there playing. Thats Shohei: always competing and having fun doing it.

PROLOGUE

T hree years after The Babe Ruth of Japan made his debut in the major leagues, the baseball world was focused on Angel Stadium on April 4, 2021, to see if he had finally returned. Shohei Ohtani had come from Japan to join the Los Angeles Angels for the 2018 season, and he amazed fans and fellow players with his ability to hit and pitch at a high level, something no major leaguer had done since Ruth a hundred years earlier. At that point Ohtani was just twenty-three years old and seemed to be destined for greatness. Unfortunately, a fantastic ten-week start to his career would be followed by two surgeries and a series of on-field disappointments, leaving serious doubts in the minds of even his most fervent supporters that he would ever meet that potential.

When the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball crew put the Angels and Chicago White Sox on the sports ultimate regular season stage for its first broadcast of 2021, announcers Matt Vasgersian and Alex Rodriguez spent the segment leading into the first pitch talking about Ohtani. Were in store for a good one, Vasgersian said. Its The Shohei Show.