Robert Whiting, winner of the 2023 Henry Chadwick Award for contributions to the understanding of baseball, is the author of books including "The Samurai Way of Baseball," "Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys ... and Baseball," and "Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies."
It's impossible to live in Japan and not know who Shohei Ohtani is. The baseball star of the Los Angeles Dodgers dominates the media. His in-game exploits usually occupy the front page of Japan's ubiquitous sports dailies, whose combined circulation runs in the millions. Most of the time he is the lead story on the TV sports news shows, especially the widely watched 7 p.m. NHK flagship news program. His face is plastered on billboards all over Tokyo, endorsing the Mitsubishi MUFG banking group, Japan Airlines, Seiko Watches and others.
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