Ohtani makes South Korean fans forget about the rivalry with Japan

Shohei Ohtani is a soft-spoken 6-foot-2. He’s a unicorn: one of baseball’s best players and pitchers, the first to dominate both in nearly a century. He could one day be considered the best to ever play the game.

He is also from Japan, the former colonizer of South Korea. Relations between nations are still characterized by tension and intense rivalry. But that hasn’t stopped South Korean baseball fans from idolizing a fellow East Asian player whose feats are so rare they almost defy imagination.

Fans say they admire his mix of understated charm and tremendous athletic skill, which earned him a record $700 million to play with the Los Angeles Dodgers for a decade.

When he landed in Seoul on Friday for a series of games that will open the Major League Baseball season, so was he greets at the airport by a crowd that looks like one that might arrive for a K-pop idol.

“It doesn’t matter if he’s from Japan,” said Yoo Jee-ho, a veteran South Korean sports journalist. “If you’re a baseball fan, you appreciate that kind of talent.”

For what is billed as the Seoul Series at Gocheok Sky Dome, tickets quickly sold out to see the 29-year-old phenom play for his new team, the Dodgers. The series includes the first MLB regular-season games in South Korea, with the Dodgers playing the San Diego Padres on Wednesday and Thursday.

When Kim Sohye, a 15-year-old from Busan, arrived in Seoul on Sunday for the Dodgers’ exhibition game against a South Korean team, the first thing she did before entering the stadium was to buy a Shohei Ohtani jersey.

“He’s handsome,” she said, laughing shyly and blushing a little. “He’s tall and he’s really good at baseball.”

Ohtani’s 2023 season was one for the ages. He struck out his then MLB teammate Mike Trout and led Japan to victory at the World Baseball Classic.

A fan on Reddit described Ohtani as “not a human being” after his performance at the tournament, which included crushing a double 118 miles per houra feat of incredible strength, and stealing third base, which requires remarkable speed.

“What he can do seems impossible,” the fan wrote.

His season ended early due to a injury to his throwing elbow. Still, he became the first player to win baseball unanimously Most valuable player Awarded twicewhich he celebrated in typically low-key fashion by high-fiving his dog on camera and not speaking to the media.

When Ohtani played in his new team colors against the Kiwoom Heroes on Sunday, Lee Suhyeon, 41, was there.

“I barely got a ticket after someone else canceled,” said Lee, a longtime baseball fan from Daegu, a city about two hours from Seoul, who had never cheered for a Japanese athlete before. He managed to secure a seat for $45.

“It’s not just about his skills,” Lee said, “but also about his personality, his attitude, his mind control, his professionalism.”

The South Koreans’ embrace of Ohtani coincides with the thawing of diplomatic relations with Japan. President Yoon Suk Yeol announced last year that South Korea would stop demanding reparations from Japan for wartime forced labor. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida then traveled to Seoul for a bilateral meeting, the first visit in twelve years.

And perhaps the pain is finally starting to fade after South Korea’s loss to Japan in the 2009 World Baseball Classic championship.

“Japan and Korea have always had a great rivalry,” Ohtani acknowledged at a press conference in Seoul on Saturday. “I always watched the Japan-Korea matches,” he added, “and always respected, I looked up to Team Korea and the Korean players.”

Ohtani was previously in the South Korean capital as part of Japan’s 18-and-under team when the country competed in the 2012 World Cup. South Korea was “one of my favorite countries” at the time, he said, and he was happy to see returns.

At least some of the demand for tickets for the games in Seoul is being fueled by fans of the South Korean players returning home, such as the Padres’ Ha-Seong Kim, who won the championship last year.He was the first Asian-born infielder to win a Gold Glove, given to the best field player at any position in any competition. Many South Koreans are also fans of the Dodgers, for which Chan Ho Park, the star pitcher, once played.

But South Korean passion for the Japanese star is real. a YouTube short about Ohtani on a South Korean fan’s account was viewed at least 5.9 million times.

South Korean players have also praised him. “What sets Ohtani apart is his mental strength,” said Park, the former Dodger The Japan Times. “Now we have some great young players in Korea who aspire to be like Ohtani.”

The rivalry between the national baseball teams of Japan and South Korea is one of the fiercest in any sport. South Korean fans have long seen Japan as a target to be surpassed.

The attitude towards Ohtani is in stark contrast to how fans might remember Japan’s Ichiro Suzuki, a star player 20 years ago who was often booed by South Korean fans.

“Ichiro said some things that the Korean fans didn’t like,” said Yoo, the South Korean sports journalist. By contrast, Ohtani has been “quite respectful,” he said. “I think Korean fans appreciate the kind of talent he is. I don’t think there is much hatred for this man.”

Aspiring South Korean baseball players have also seen Ohtani as a hero who defied Western stereotypes of Asian athletes, said Barney Yoo, director of international operations at the Korea Baseball Organization, which governs South Korea’s top brass.

“There is a stereotype, which may be partly based on truth, that there is a certain barrier that Asian players cannot overcome,” Yoo said. “But Ohtani is writing new history,” he added. “He has given a lot of motivation and hope.”