The 2024 MLB season — and even the several weeks preceding it — was essentially The Summer of Shohei Ohtani.
The Japanese superstar was the center of attention for almost a full calendar year during a season straight out of a Hollywood movie. He was the leading man in a blockbuster featuring unprecedented riches, love, betrayal, professional milestones and, most of all, a storybook ending with Ohtani achieving his goal of winning the World Series.
His high-profile move to the Los Angeles Dodgers — one of MLB’s most storied franchises — turned up the spotlight on him, and the 30-year-old responded with one of the best seasons in MLB history.
Ohtani did not falter under the weight of attention or the burden of expectation — he thrived.
“His ability to make each and every day go at his pace ... the game, the day never speeds up on him,” said Stephen Nelson, one of the play-by-play announcers for the Dodgers. “We hear that cliche in sports all the time, ‘Oh, you’ve gotta slow the game down.’ It is always going at Shohei’s pace. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t struggle. That doesn't mean he can’t go 0-for or strike out. But he’s never over his skis. He’s never off the rails.
“He has been in command of his life going back to when he was a child and a teen, and that’s true to this day. His compartmentalization is better than anybody ever.”
Normally a two-way player, Ohtani was prevented from pitching in 2024 due to elbow surgery the previous year. So he reinvented himself as a slugging base stealer — playing as if someone mixed Barry Bonds’ hitting prowess with Rickey Henderson’s legendary skill at stealing bases.
He hit 54 home runs and stole 59 bases, marking the first 50-50 season in MLB history. He led the National League in home runs and RBIs (130) and nearly won the Triple Crown after a late flourish left him with a .310 average that was second only to the San Diego Padres’ Luis Arraez.
Ohtani reset his record for the most home runs by a Japanese player in a single MLB season and broke the stolen base mark that had been held by Ichiro Suzuki, who had 56 with the Seattle Mariners in 2001. He passed Hideki Matsui for the most career homers by a Japanese player in April and became the first Japanese player to reach 200 in July.
“He is doing what he has the potential to do,” Mike Scioscia, Ohtani’s first MLB manager, said in November during the Premier12 tournament in Tokyo, where he managed Team USA. “This is not a fluke.”
The conventional wisdom in baseball was that a full-time designated hitter could not win an MVP award. Ohtani, though, has made a career out of defying convention. So of course, he was the unanimous choice as NL MVP, becoming the first DH to win the award.
“To me, the greatest player I’ve ever seen, played with, watched,” said Australian outfielder Aaron Whitefield, who played with Ohtani briefly. “He’s very professional. He goes about his business. It’s like a work day, you clock in, and he’s got everything going. When you see him do all the little things, like even the baserunning and stuff like that, it shows why he’s No. 1.
“He’s the best. I tried to tell everyone who was like, ‘Oh he can’t win the MVP because he’s a DH.’ l was like, ‘No he will.’”
Ohtani is hopeful of returning to pitching and resuming his two-way role in 2025. In August, he threw from a mound for the first time since his surgery.
“Of course I want to focus on returning as soon as possible,” Ohtani was quoted as saying by Sports Nippon earlier this month. “The start of the season is the earliest possible time, so I want to focus on that, but there are also things I need to be careful about to avoid (the injury) happening again. I want to find a balance and aim for the shortest time possible.”
Whatever the expectations were for Ohtani in his first year in Dodger Blue, he probably surpassed them.
“I joined a new team, with a new coach, a new front office,” Ohtani said in the same interview with Sports Nippon. “I discovered good things in the middle of all the new things. It was not just one thing, but I think I was able to experience many different things this season.”
It was a whirlwind of a year.
Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million deal with the Dodgers last December after spending his first six seasons with the Los Angeles Angels. The deal was the most lucrative ever in North American sports before being surpassed by Juan Soto’s $765 million contract with the New York Mets earlier this month.
Ohtani has been a star attraction for Japanese fans, who flocked to Dodger Stadium by the busload, some even coming from Japan despite the weak yen adding to overall costs. In Little Tokyo, in downtown Los Angeles, a 150-foot (46-meter) mural of Ohtani was unveiled in March.
On May 17, the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution declaring that day as “Shohei Ohtani Day in the city of Los Angeles for the duration of his Dodger career.”
His star power is readily evident in Japan, which Dodgers manager Dave Roberts saw firsthand when he visited earlier this month.
“Shohei texted me and said, get ready because you're going to see a lot of pictures of him all over and he was right,” Roberts said during MLB’s Winter Meetings.
Ohtani had personal success with the Angels — he was the American League MVP in 2021 and 2023 and the runner-up in 2022 — but never had a winning season with the club. The opportunity to compete for championships helped lead him to the Dodgers, a perennial contender.
He dropped a bombshell in February when he revealed he was married, news that quickly spread around the globe. Ohtani and his wife, former basketball player Mamiko Tanaka, were photographed together for the first time in March when the Dodgers left for Seoul for the MLB season opener.
That photo, which Ohtani posted on Instagram, also showed Ohtani’s interpreter at the time, Ippei Mizuhara, whose role in the star’s life was about to take a shocking turn.
While the team was in South Korea, news broke that Mizuhara had been involved with an illegal bookmaker and had been using wire transfers from Ohtani’s bank accounts to pay off his gambling debts.
The wire transfers put Ohtani at the center of a gambling controversy — considered one of the sport's gravest sins. The player denied any involvement and was quickly cleared of any knowledge or wrongdoing in the case.
Mizuhara, accused of stealing more than $16 million from Ohtani, was charged with bank fraud in April. He pleaded guilty to the charge in June.
If Ohtani was distracted by the case or the betrayal by his longtime friend, it did not manifest in his play. He hit .316 and had 29 homers in the first half of the season.
He also had 23 stolen bases in those 94 games, just three fewer than his previous career high over a full season. Since he was not pitching, Ohtani poured more effort into his work on the basepaths. He worked to refine his approach in the running game to sterling results — he was caught just four times in 63 attempts.
Ohtani’s massive star power was on display again in July when fans lined up outside Dodger Stadium for over seven hours before a game for a chance to get a bobblehead of Ohtani and his dog, Decoy.
He was also named to the NL All-Star team for the first time — after three straight appearances in the AL — and hit a three-run home run during the All-Star Game on July 16.
A 20-20 first half put Ohtani in prime position to become the sixth member of baseball’s exclusive 40-40 club. He reached the mark in style, recording his 40th stolen base in the fourth inning of a game against the Tampa Bay Rays at home on Aug. 23. He hit his 40th homer later in the night with a walk-off grand slam.
Ohtani became the fastest ever to a 40-40 season, and it put 50-50 in his sights.
He then established the 50-50 club by going 6-for-6 with three home runs, two stolen bases and 10 RBIs in a jaw-dropping performance against the Miami Marlins on Sept. 19.
“The greatest day in baseball history,” announcer Joe Davis exclaimed as Ohtani’s third homer of the night soared toward the stands.
The milestone was met with much celebration in Japan. It was massive news with special editions of newspapers handed out for free and TV news broadcasts conducting man-on-the-street style interviews to gauge the response. The phrase “50-50” was later a nominee for the 2024 buzzword of the year in Japan.
Ohtani also had his first team success in MLB, as the Dodgers went 98-64 — the best record in the league — and won the NL West title.
Ohtani blasted a three-run homer against the San Diego Padres in his first postseason game, in the NL division series in October, and hit another against the New York Mets in the NL championship series.
He did not hit against the New York Yankees in the World Series, and also hurt his left shoulder in Game 5 — an injury that later required surgery. Nevertheless, Ohtani played in all five games and finally achieved the ultimate success when the Dodgers won the World Series.
The 2024 season was just Year 1 for Ohtani with the Dodgers, and he’ll begin penning the sequel to his Hollywood blockbuster at Tokyo Dome in March, when the Dodgers open the 2025 season against the Chicago Cubs.
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