It was midway through the trot run at his home when Taro Abe rose from his second row seat in the Vin Scully Press Box and thrust his green scorebook under his right arm.
“Let’s go,” Abe said in Japanese.
Abe, a writer for the Japanese Chinichi Sports Newspaper, was followed by a suite-level concourse at Dodger Stadium by four reporters from his country. They were on the mission. Find someone who caught Otani’s home run ball.
There was nothing special about this explosion. This was the second of Otani on Friday to finally put the New York Yankees on top. Homer was Otani’s season 22nd, reducing his deficit at the time from 3 to 2.
“We have to do this every time,” Abe said.
This practice began a few years ago when Otani was still playing for angels. Otani’s appetite for content was satisfactory in Japan, but two-way players only began talking to reporters after the games he pitched. Sports Nippon’s Willows and full count Masaya Kotani have found a solution to their problem. They began interviewing fans who caught his home run ball.
This feature was often received by readers and gradually spread to other publications. Now, in addition to Homer landing in the bullpen and other places that fans cannot access, there is a group of Japanese reporters there, interviewing people who have caught their precious souvenirs.
Yanagihara also had not been on this particular journey to the right field pavilion, so Yanagihara temporarily returned to Japan, and Kotani remained in the press box. Both publications were represented by other reporters. I was there too.
One of the reporters, Michi Murayama of Sports Hoch, looked at me with a strange eye.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
Abe joked: “He started writing about how ridiculous the Japanese media is.”
Walking down the carpet hallway by the suite to the first baseline, Abe turns around and asks if he saw who caught the ball.
No one had it.
Before departing from the press box, reporters usually study Homer’s replays to find Ballhawk’s identification feature. But in this case the ball’s scramble was hidden by a short barrier that divided the television cameramen from the crowd.
Abe led the pack from the exit near the stadium club. When I reentered the stadium at the Loge level, I heard the familiar chant: “Fre-ddie! Freddie!”
The reporter stopped to watch the game from behind the last row. Freeman doubled in the run, reducing the Dodgers’ deficit to one, and the chaos continued. A young woman holding a beer danced. The stranger traded the high five. Others performed Freddie dance.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone removed Max Fried from the game and called Jonathan Roashga from the bullpen. It was time for us to move on.
Seniority has a major impact on professional and personal interactions in Japanese culture. That’s why, when they reached the top of the pavilion on the right field, two Junal reporters were told to find a fan to catch the ball and return with him. Sports Nippon (25 years old) Kobayashi Ida and 27 year old full count Akihiro Uno undoubtedly accepted their fate.
However, veteran Murayama realized that they had not made any progress and soon she was in the middle of the pavilion with them. She was coming back soon and saying we were in the wrong place.
“You need to go to the home run seat,” she said, referring to the seat just behind the wall of the right field in another section, just like the rest of the pavilion.
The usher there explained that the ball had hit a portable plastic wall behind the photographer, rolling under the barrier and being photographed by a boy in a grey jersey. Murayama found the boy and told him to tell the group when the innings were over.
“They usually come after the innings because they want to watch the game too,” Abe said.
While we waited, Sankei Sports’ Jeriko Takehama approached Abe and showed him a photo of a fan holding a piece of plastic wall struck by Otani Homer. The piece was broken so fans told Takehama he was bringing it home.
“Want to talk to him?” Takehama asked Abe. “He said he caught the ball three years ago.”
Abe declined.
While watching Max Muncie take a base on a deliberate walk, Abe wrote, “Everyone has a story. You ask where they live, where they work, and there’s usually something interesting. We write Ohatani on the cover.”
This story is a 14-year-old eighth grader from Monrovia, named Fischer Luginbourg. As her mother stood nearby, Little League catcher said, “It’s like the best thing that’s ever happened.”
The reporter circled the boy and filmed him holding the ball. They traded numbers with Luginbourg’s father so they could send him a link to the stories they produced.
The reporters worked together to find Luguinbour, but they were also competing with each other to post stories first. Murayama wrote her on her phone while she walked. Ueno sent the audio of the six-minute interview to Japan’s full count office. There, the recordings were transcribed by an English-speaking reporter.
My back was tired walking to the pavilion on the right field. I told Abe this and he reminded me, “It was my second time doing this today.”
Abe wrote 13 stories on Friday night. Of these, 10 have written about Otani.
When we returned to the press box, the following batters were announced in the public address system: “Shohei ohtani!”
Abe laughed and became brave for another long walk.
