Angels’ Shohei Ohtani Wins AL MVP Award

Few people beyond Ohtani’s inner circle may be happier about his achievement than Tomoyuki and Kaoru Iwase. They have never formally met Ohtani, 27, but they have watched him play perhaps more than anyone outside of his family.

This season alone, Kaoru attended 136 of the Angels’ 162 games to watch Ohtani play (not including the Home Run Derby in Denver in July). Her husband, Tomoyuki, said he attended roughly 10 fewer games. The superfans used to fly to Japan to see him play for his former team, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Nippon Professional Baseball. Tomoyuki, 49, estimated they went to 15 different M.L.B. stadiums to see Ohtani play this season. Kaoru, 38, posts about the travels on her Instagram page.

They own roughly 300 Ohtani memorabilia items, from his Fighters and Angels jerseys to his bobbleheads to balls he tossed into the crowd. (No autographs, though.) A few years ago, they had a wedding photo shoot at Angel Stadium while donning — naturally — Ohtani jerseys. They used to live a 30-minute drive away from the stadium in Anaheim but last year moved to an apartment a five-minute walk from the ballpark.

“Even in the off-season, we take a walk to Angel Stadium,” Tomoyuki said in a video interview. He added laughing, “It’s our main home.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/sports/baseball/shohei-ohtani-al-mvp.html