The Summer Shohei Ohtani Broke High School Baseball 

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His high school manager deserves a lot of credit. A lot of Japanese high school managers would burn out their players for the glory of winning. Shohei's coach had the long term perspective.

Honestly, props to that catcher for a high schooler being able to catch him…. Wonder where he went off to

as a japanese person I'm amazed by how incredibly well-researched this video is, given that there are very limited English sources on Japanese high school baseball

Man... I highly encourage all of y'all to go to 5:43 and read his goals. They always say if you reach all of your goals, you've set the bar too low for yourself. Reading his goals truly displays his mindset and dedication to baseball at such a young age.

Ohtani left Babe Ruth behind ages ago. He's in his own category now.

The Summer Koshien Tournament is Japan's March Madness.

I've lived in Japan since 2007. I remember watching Koshien that summer and the hype around Ohtani and his pitching. Most of the hype was around his pitching, but not much about his hitting.

This shows the deep passion Japan has for baseball. High school students sacrifice a lot to win games

Just one thing, the Koshien is the name for the Stadium, called the Hanshin Koshien Stadium, the home ground of the Hanshin Tigers. The Tigers lend out the Stadium for free for a 2 week span for the tournament while the team go out for a 2 weeks of visitor matches. The All Japan High School Baseball tournament was also originally held in a ball park in Toyonaka in Osaka prefecture (theres a memorial in a train station) and moved to Nishinomiya Hyogo prefecture when the Koshien was built in 1924. So basically the tourney is held in Hyogo, not Osaka. It gets mixed up a lot because Hanshin is super popular in the Kansai region, but ye i think thats about it.

Great video. ❤ Appreciate mentioning Coach Sasaki, who had such an important influence on Ohtani as a player and the person. Everybody talks of the obvious Kuriyama but the foundation to his discipline, mental focus, humility and strength that turned the baseball boy into the man he became is undoubtedly Coach Sasaki.

Ohtani is now looking at the biggest MLB contract ever: 500 to 600 million!

6:56 The team is not called the "Ham Fighters." The team's name is just "Fighters", they are owned by the food company Nippon-Ham and they play in Hokkaido.

Amazing video a great insight into Japanese baseball

That's a really nice retelling of the story. I'm impressed, as someone who has been watching Japanese baseball since 1975.

That Major reference... Respect!

The dedication that Ontani had and his coach is how real greatness is made. Bless the coach and bless the angels for keeping ontani. Amazing

Thank you for this knowledge! Anyone that wants to know more about how Shohei got started absolutely needs to watch this video

The Koshien brings out the type of heroism that blind poets used to write about in Ancient Greece. The legend that is Daisuke Matsuzaka began there. His stats from that tournament make even Sho-Time seem mortal.

KOSHIEN is not in Osaka but in Hyogo.😇

Next make a vid of Ohtani's insane season with the Ham fighters with numbers that are comparable to his 2021 season. Not many people know about it

That haircut was clean

It’s a shame that people who don’t watch baseball can’t understand how great Ohtani is. If baseball is a sport as global as soccer or basketball, Ohtani owns the world.

I think it’s safe to say “This kid’s gonna be alright at baseball” 👍😂😂

comparison to Babe has to stop... Babe played in a segregated league, against many part-time players: mechanics and insurance agents... at a level of competition that is not even a shadow of what it is today. An all star high school team today would kick ass over most teams during Babe's era.

3:47 Koshien Stadium is not in Osaka, but in Nishinomiya in the Hanshin region, thus giving the name for the Hanshin Tigers.

"Strikeout 15 and still lose..." Why does this sound so familiar...

As an athlete in Canada, I wish we would take baseball, let alone any sport as seriously as other countries do. When I see the facilities I play on versus these facilities it is night and day

striking out 15, hitting a home run or two, having superstar teammates and losing in high school and now, some things never change

Loved this one. PLEASE do a report on Shohei's massive impact on current Japanese culture from a baseball and business perspective. Shohei is live-streamed back to Japan in every moment he is visible in every MLS stadium. Would love to see the impact he is having over there from a Japanese point of view.

3:47 It may be a trivial matter, but Koshien Stadium is not in Osaka Prefecture. Located in Hyogo Prefecture

Dude, I like your videos. I've watched just about all of them. One suggestion, if I may, slow it down a beat or two. I have to click back to read the text you flash a lot. Maybe take a breath at the end of each sentence, lol. Other than that, you're doing good work. Keep it up.

Trevor Bauer and videos like this have really increased my admiration and enjoyment of Japanese baseball

A lot of research goes into videos like this, which makes me wonder why the people who make them don't take a second to see how to pronounce Japanese words and names like "Iwate" "Koshien" "manga" Or that Nippon-Ham is a company and the team is called the Fighters, as demonstrated in the team logo that is included in the video. Although there should be a team called the Ham Fighters, which is a vastly superior name in my opinion

mac suzuki was actually one of the first japanese high schoolers to forgo the npb draft and sign with an mlb team

Legendary cut up there with Ronaldo

Awesome video.

Now I understand where Diamond no Ace got their inspiration from. Kataoka (Seido's Coach) has the exact same mentality and way teaching as the coach that taught Ohtani

I-WA-TE! KO-SHI-EN! Dude really researched this story thoroughly and butchered the pronunciation that badly?!

The hidden MVP: Sasaki (The high school teacher)

Actually the tournament is not Osaka, but rather in Nishinomiya which is in Hyogo Prefecture. It is about a 15 minute train ride from Osaka.

Great video. Is it just my phone or is the BGM too loud and makes the narration hard to hear?

Nice video but..."eye-wait" lmao

one big thing I learned from this is wow, high school baseball is a huge deal in japan

Koshien Stadium is located in Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, not Osaka. It is about 11km west of Osaka.

The way the catcher caught that pitch was Hard as hell... Looks like a movie

Shohei Ohtani has become the real life version of Goro Shigeno from the “Major” manga and anime.

The first time i heard and watched Ohtani in some random sports highlights the first person or character came to my mind is Goro Shigeno. Now im a fan of both of them!

It’s so unselfish of Ohtani’s coach to not make him pitch as soon as he probably wanted to. He knew that throwing him out there to pitch AND hit from the time he was 14 was gonna be bad for his long-term development.

either the background music is too loud or your mic is too low, but audio levels need tweaking

Great video, just one additional comment, because I really like these facts. -Due to regulations/limitations, each player has exactly 5 chances to stand on the mound in Koshien stadium, starting with the summer Koshien in their first year (in which they rarely participate), the third years cannot participate in the spring Koshien due to regulations - the invitational works a bit different, but not quite like you made it seem. While it is an invitational, 26/32 available spots are more or less automatically given to the schools that win their respective regional tournament (e.g. while Tokyo has a West/east district in the summer, the regional tournament for Tokyo includes East and West schools), 3 additional spots are awarded to so called 21st century teams. These are teams that never appeared Koshien, lost in the qualifier (but reached at least the qf) and must have done something amazing/special, an additional invite is given to the region that wins the Meiji Jingu (the last official tournament of the year, where only the 10 schools that won their regional tournament compete in) and the last two are given to either an additional team in the tokyo/kanto region and the Chugoku,Shikoku region - the reason why the summer tournament is more prestigious is because it is the final tournament for the third years. Once it concludes, the third years HS baseball life is officially over and they retire. They are not allowed to play in the regional tournament due to them having to study for their finals, and spring Koshien starts when they have already graduated -that also means that the perfect season would be a triple crown season, winning the Meiji Jingu, the spring Koshien and the summer Koshien Now for some specific facts - The team that won it all in 2012, Osaka Toin (which is quite possibly one of the best schools in the countries history) almost achieved the near impossible triple crown win in 2022. They won the fall championship/Meiji Jingu as well as the spring Koshien while also qualifying for summer Koshien. They would absolutely annihilate the first three teams they would face, before losing in an upset walk off against a dark horse in the qf, thus ending the almost perfect season, the team that defeated them would lose in the final (I still cannot believe that they lost, that team was quite possibly the best team in years, with elite pitching AND batting) Also, winning spring and summer Koshien in one year is an incredibly rare feat that has only been done a few times -the 2018 Osaka Toin team is quite possibly the best team in Japanese history in terms of batting ability, it was sometimes described as the line up of the century. They were basically the equivalent of the murderous row in HS. Their pitching was lackluster and so was their defense, but they absolutely destroyed opposing pitching, winning the Koshien final 13-2 and absolutely demolishing every team on their way to the championship. The best HS pitcher in the country, who had to hard carry his team to the final, got destroyed in the 13-2 blow out and had to leave the game in the first inning -Everyone on the 18 man roster for Koshien scored several RBI and every main player had several HR to their name (excluding their ace) - from the 2018 Osaka Toin team, 3 players were drafted RIGHT OUT OF HS!! which includes their ace, the clean up hitter and their SS (who is also an occasional pitcher who could throw 150kph) - even the 8-hole of that team became the clean up batter for his university team

Dude this video was top notch. That Koeshein tournament looks bigger and more insane then even the NCAA March Madness. No wonder the Japanese are World Champs

Awesome research and detail! For future reference, you should pronounce the name of the tournament as Koshi-en

So, even in high school his team would lose despite him doing ridiculous things.

Yo love the vids but you should turn the music down

Look at Dylan Bundy’s high school career he hit 99 his junior year and 103 his senior year

Great content, it would help make it more enjoyable if you make the background music quieter

Koshien stadium is NOT in Osaka, it is located in Nishinomiya city, Hyogo prf.

I really have trouble keeping up with the fast pace narration of this.

5:43 Check out that life goals list.

甲子園を見るのが、夏の1番の楽しみなんだよ！！！ 今年も甲子園はめっちゃ面白かった！

Thanks for this. (I'll admit I had to play it @ 3/4 speed though)

And now Fujnami has a 10.50 era for Oakland.

His goals as a high schooler are why so many Japanese people are successful. The average American's list would look like this: Win the lottery

Almost identical whistle to one in OOTP @ 12:02

Well done

5:48 is the best

Dude is the main character bruh, pitching 99m in highschool 😂

Real life Goro Shigeno 😮

Joker: why so serious za Shohei: cause I’m laser focused

The team is called the "Fighters", owned by the company Nippon Ham. They're not the Ham Fighters, that would be ridiculous

I need to go to some baseball games in Japan

Ohtani has already surpassed Babe Ruth.

Koshien in Japan was held in 1915. Before the US-Japan war.

The goat 😊

Another reason to want to move to Japan.... baseball

The yellow gloves same as Goro

LMAO he said Ohtani was so thin he could barely bench press the bar.

He’s going to be worth 700 million dollars one day

So Ohtani is basically the Furuya (from Diamond no Ace) IRL version

GOAT

shohei is the goat

The real life Goro Shigeno

The catcher knew right away that was 100 as well by his body language if you watch.

Japanese high school baseball players have shaved heads and are dedicated to sports, so they have very few relationships with women. I think Shohei Otani was also a virgin without a girlfriend when he was a student. His parents also said that Shohei Otani was a virgin without a girlfriend when he was a student.

Me watching this with a growth plate fracture from pitching….. 😐

I gotta get this kids jersey before it’s too late

The Goat

What a ball player

He's definitely the real life Goro Shigeno

It's just Fighters. Not Ham Fighters

2023 Season WAR Ohtani　5.4（1/1272） Fujinami　-2.3（1272/1272）

I can’t wait until 2 way players are normal

The video seems very informative and provides a strong background on Ohtani's rise to glory. I have two suggestions based on complaints about this video presentation. First, your script is fine but you talk too fast and without enough verbal emphasis on the words. It's a breakneck pace to the narrative, with words delivered without much tonal variation. Second, the lengthy promo coming midway through the video is annoying--too long and breaking the momentum of the video.

Great video. Manga is pronounced mah-n-ga, not may-n-ga though lol

Did you say rookie ball in Modesto?

I am Japanese. I love eating ice cream and watching high school baseball games on TV on extremely hot summer days.

If any of you find koshien tournament a cool idea and you're into anime watch Ace of the diamond you won't regret it

You are brave for using NHK's footage without permission.

Then losing shows that baseball is a team sport even when you have a generational talent like Shohei you have 15 other kids who will probably never pick up a bat after the season ends senior year he can only do so much. When they hit it, somebody else has to field it. So it’s strikeout everyone or risk losing.