Hernández: How Japan media track down Ohtanis | College News

Shohei Ohtani was about midway through his home-run trot when Taro Abe stood up from his second-row seat in the Vin Scully Press Box and tucked his inexperienced scorebook under his proper arm.

“Let’s go,” Abe mentioned in Japanese.

Abe, a author for Japan’s Chunichi Sports newspaper, was adopted into the concourse of Dodger Stadium’s suite degree by 4 different reporters from his nation. They had been on a mission: Find the individual who caught Ohtani’s home-run ball.

There was nothing particular about this blast, which was Ohtani’s second on Friday in an eventual 8-5 victory over the New York Yankees. The homer was Ohtani’s twenty second of the season and lowered the Dodgers’ deficit at the time from three to two.

“We have to do this every time,” Abe mentioned.

This observe began a couple of years in the past, when Ohtani was still taking part in for the Angels. The urge for food for Ohtani content material was insatiable in Japan, but the two-way participant began talking to reporters only after video games in which he pitched. Naoyuki Yanagihara of Sports Nippon and Masaya Kotani of Full Count discovered a resolution for their drawback: They began interviewing the followers who caught his home-run balls.

The function was obtained properly by their readers and progressively unfold to different publications. Now, moreover the homers that land in bullpens or any different place inaccessible to followers, a group of Japanese reporters will probably be there to interview the individual who snagged the prized memento.

Neither Yanagihara nor Kotani was on this explicit journey into the right-field pavilion, as Yanagihara was briefly back in Japan and Kotani remained in the press box. Both of their publications had been represented by different reporters. I used to be there too.

One of the reporters, Michi Murayama of Sports Hochi, regarded at me curiously.

“You’re coming?” she requested.

Abe joked: “He’s coming to write how ridiculous the Japanese media is.”

As we walked down a carpeted hallway by the suites down the first-base line, Abe turned around and requested if anybody had seen who caught the ball.

No one had.

Before departing from the press box, reporters often research replays of the homer to discover figuring out options of the ballhawk. But in this case, the scramble for the ball was obscured by a short barrier that divided a tv cameraman from the group.

Abe led the pack out of an exit close to the Stadium Club. When we re-entered the ballpark at the loge degree, we heard a acquainted chant: “Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie!”

The reporters stopped to watch the sport from behind the final row of seats. Freeman doubled in a run to scale back the Dodgers’ deficit to one, and pandemonium ensued. A younger girl clutching a beer danced. Strangers exchanged high-fives. Others carried out the Freddie Dance.

Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone eliminated Max Fried from the sport, and referred to as Jonathan Loáisiga from the bullpen. It was time for us to transfer on.

Seniority closely influences skilled and personal interactions in Japanese tradition, which was why when we reached the highest of the right-field pavilion, the two-most-junior reporters had been advised to discover the ball-catching fan and return with him. Iori Kobayashi of Sports Nippon, 25, and Akihiro Ueno of Full Count, 27, accepted their fates without query.

However, the veteran Murayama seen they weren’t making any progress, and soon she was in the center of the pavilion with them. She got here back soon after to inform us we had been in the flawed place.

“We have to go down to the Home Run Seats,” she mentioned, referring to seats straight behind the right-field wall that are in a separate part as the remainder of the pavilion.

The ushers there have been useful, describing how the ball struck the transportable plastic wall behind the cameraman, rolled under the barrier, and was taken by a boy in a grey jersey. Murayama discovered the boy and mentioned he would communicate to the group when the inning was over.

“They usually come after the inning because they want to watch the game too,” Abe mentioned.

While we waited, Eriko Takehama of Sankei Sports approached Abe and confirmed him a image of a fan holding up a piece of the plastic wall that was struck by Ohtani’s homer. The piece had damaged off, and the fan advised Takehama that he was taking it home.

“Do you want to talk to him?” Takehama requested Abe. “He said he caught a ball three years ago.”

Abe declined.

While watching Max Muncy taking first base on an intentional stroll, Abe mentioned, “Everyone has a story. You ask them where they live, where they work and there’s usually something interesting. We’re writing human-interest stories with Ohtani as a cover.”

This story can be about a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Monrovia named Fisher Luginvuhl. With his mom standing close by, the Little League catcher gushed, “It’s like the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

The reporters circled the boy and photographed him holding up the ball. They exchanged numbers with Luginvuhl’s father so they may ship him hyperlinks to the tales they produced.

While the reporters labored collectively to find Luginvuhl, they had been also in competitors with each different to post the story first. Murayama wrote hers on her cellphone as she walked. Ueno despatched audio of the six-minute interview to the Full Count workplaces in Japan, where the recording was transcribed by an English-speaking reporter, who then used the quotes to write a story.

Walking to the right-field pavilion and back was exhausting. I discussed this to Abe, and he jogged my memory, “This was my second time doing this today.”

Abe wrote 13 tales on Friday night time, 10 of them about Ohtani, including two on followers who caught his homers.

Just as we returned to the press box, the next hitter was introduced over the public-address system: “Shohei Ohtani!”

Abe laughed and braced for one other long stroll.