Shohei Ohtani is the unquestioned king of the baseball world.
What other reasonable conclusion could there be after the mega-star led Japan to the 2023 World Baseball Classic title? He even struck out fellow mega-star and his Los Angeles Angels teammate Mike Trout to reach the top of the WBC summit!
If anyone deserved $1 billion for being the face of baseball, it’d be Ohtani.
But if you think Ohtani is beyond popular stateside, he’s unquestionably royalty in his native Japan. After Ohtani helped close out the WBC title, the Brooklyn Nets’ Yuta Watanabe summed up how beloved the baseball titan is in Japan.
And honestly: It’s very easy to believe him.
Yuta was beaming walking out of the Nets’ locker room after Ohtani struck out Trout and closed out WBC for Japan. He said he is friends with Ohtani and looks up to him.
“He’s like God in Japan right now. Everybody looks up to him.” pic.twitter.com/kLeTD6m6UG
— Nick Friedell (@NickFriedell) March 22, 2023
If Ohtani is “like God” in Japan after winning the WBC, what happens when he wins a World Series? Because following some intriguing postgame comments from Trout on Tuesday, it certainly seems like that reality will also be possible very soon.