Compare him to the reaction people had when Puig came over. I think Puig was bigger, but Ohtani is doing stuff we’ve never seen before. He should at least be generating somewhat more juice than Puig did.

I mean, it feels like a pretty big story! Deadspin has had ~10 articles (+1 podcast) tagged here on Ohtani since the season began. Last year through April, Aaron Judge was tagged in 5 Deadspin articles, and while what Ohtani’s doing IS more impressive, he’s also not doing it every single day, nor is he playing on the…

Another factor is the Angel’s being a late night team for much of the sports media; if he was on a NE team the media coverage would be overwhelming.

Yup, my whole child hood I wanted to be the New Babe Ruth. Pitch great and hit over 62 hr’s in a year. It’s what you wanted to be.

No I don’t think so. Baseball has a pretty lengthy track record of foreign-born fan/media sensations. This is the Angels in April, that’s all.

We all lost our minds when Pat Venditte was good for a bit. I think you’re right- the Japanese interest is almost irrelevant. Top level pitching and top level hitting have been mutually exclusive for about 100 years now.

It’s a pretty big story as far as baseball stories go. Now if he played for the Yankees or Boston it’d splash the front of ESPN daily, but outside of that, you won’t get that kind of MLB coverage nationally.

Nah. Ichiro and other Japanese players have been huge stories. As big as Bryce Harper and more heralded than Trout when they made their MLB debuts. The only reason it would be a bigger story if he were American is that American baseball fans would have heard about him before last year because he would have either been…

Not sure if it’d be a bigger story if he were from Kansas. Or even Nebraska! It’s possible. But I definitely think if he had signed for the Yankees or Red Sox there’d be even more talk about this guy. Going to the west coast - and then going to the Angels! - is definitely muting the story a bit.

It’s absolutely insane that he’s living up to the impossible-to-live-up-to hype train he came into the league with. The only thing holding him back is the whole east-coast bias thing.

Ohtani really needs to up his social media game and do things like send ambiguous shade to his teammates or get in an alleged beef with another player. Maybe hire a shady trainer who thinks water will cure everything. It’s hard to get noticed in the sports world these days if you’re just a great player.

I think it’s just that he plays for one of the most anonymous teams in baseball. This team has Ohtani and Mike Trout and nobody cares. And they’re doing well! They’re 16-8, as you might expect from a team with Ohtani and Mike Trout. And absolutely nobody cares.

Yes. But!...

If he was from a media savvy state, we’d be hearing about this 24/7 and it would be played to us in our sleep as well.

um, Alcohol? Drugs? Nah. Trump really is that bad of a Pres. 

People who say “it can’t get any worse” are hopelessly naive.

Grading on a curve?

I agree with your current assessment, except that he’s also a coward.

I couldn’t stand Mitt Romney in 2012. Now he seems like a kind and wise man who just has political views that differ from mine.

i do think the spontaneous reaction ads value. One could see how LeBron, despite being a wealthy athlete is human and reacts like others would.