It was moments before Game 3 was set to begin, and the city where Shohei Ohtani was born breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“I almost cried when I saw the injury,” 50-year-old resident Ayako Oyama said, referring to a partial shoulder dislocation the Dodgers superstar had suffered on a base-stealing attempt two days earlier.
Despite fears that the designated hitter would be out for the rest of this series, he had bounced back, and Oyama, dressed in a blue Ohtani jersey, had come to the local auditorium where the city was holding a World Series watching party.
Her employer — the city of Oshu — had given her the morning off to attend. (Oshu is 16 hours ahead of Los Angeles.) She had gotten up early to mark her place in the long line that wrapped around the building with around 200 other residents and Mayor Jun Kuranari, who earlier this month traveled to California to sign a friendship city agreement with his counterpart in Torrance. A camera team from Fox was livestreaming the scene to U.S. audiences.
“I’ve never seen Oshu at the center of attention like this,” Oyama said, clutching two blue bambams.
Ohtani is, of course, a national hero in all of Japan, his image plastered over billboards, green tea advertisements and newspaper pages.
But there is something else to Oshu’s love for its native son. He is more than just a celebrity from their city, or a rare baseball talent, but someone truly one of their own.
“The people in this region are known for having a serious, diligent and persevering character,” Tomonori Toriumi, an official in Oshu’s sports promotion department, said.
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“That is Ohtani. Even when he is under such pressure, he doesn’t show it.”
A colleague from the “Shohei Ohtani Hometown Cheering Team,” the city’s fan club that Toriumi leads, took the stage to rehearse several chants with the crowd: “Let’s go Shohei!”
The first inning started out strong: The Yankees walked Ohtani. Freddie Freeman followed up with a homer…