TOKYO (AP) \u2014 This is the Shohei Ohtani effect.<\/p>\n
Ohtani hit a grand slam in the second inning on Friday at the World Baseball Classic, pushing Japan to a quick 4-0 lead over Taiwan. He also doubled in his first at-bat in the first inning.<\/p>\n
That was the early game action.<\/p>\n
He also put on a giant show in batting practice hours before the game even started, thrilling many who had traveled from afar to see him.<\/p>\n
Lia Chan and her husband How and other family members flew in from Singapore \u2014 about a seven-hour flight to Tokyo \u2014 just to watch Ohtani play in the <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd baseball is not even popular in Singapore,\u201d said Lia, who was seated a few rows behind home plate. \u201cWe know about baseball, we watch it, but when Ohtani came along it\u2019s just gone out of proportions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lia, her husband and other Singaporeans in their group were among some 40,000 in the stadium oohing-and-aahing on Friday, and this was only for batting practice hours before the <\/p>\n
Ohtani knows about drama.<\/p>\n
He kept the crowd waiting for perhaps 30 minutes as other Japanese players practiced and hundreds of reporters with cameras, phones and tripods milled around in a penned-off area on the field.<\/p>\n
Finally, Ohtani emerged from the dugout and waited his turn around the batting cage, hugged a few players, made small talk, and greeted some fans in an area for sponsors.<\/p>\n
Fans in the stands stood to get a better look. But they were asked to sit down by attendants holding signs in Japanese and English that read: \u201cPlease watch from your seats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohtani took about 25 swings, hit about 10 balls out of the park and another few against the outfield wall.<\/p>\n
When batting practice ended, he jogged out to thank the batting practice pitcher, bowed slightly, and gathered a few loose balls and tossed them into the hopper. Then with a bat in each hand, he trotted off the field to prepare for the game against Taiwan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho does things like that?\u201d Lia said. \u201cHe\u2019s in another league.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO (AP) \u2014 This is the Shohei Ohtani effect. Ohtani hit a grand slam in the second inning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-210610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}