The Los Angeles City Council is recognizing baseball’s biggest star by officially declaring May 17 “Shohei Ohtani Day.”
The Los Angeles Dodgers slugger, who wears No. 17, received the official honor Friday morning at L.A. City Hall.
Ohtani, 29, was given a framed copy of the order to commemorate the occasion and posed for photos alongside city council members and executives from the Dodgers front office.
It’s the second time in as many days that Ohtani was recognized and celebrated by his new home city.
On Thursday, the Dodgers hosted its first Shohei Ohtani bobblehead giveaway for a packed house at Dodger Stadium.
A total of 40,000 bobbleheads were given out to fans, including 1,700 which featured Ohtani in a gray away jersey. The bobbleheads were immediate hot items on eBay, with some listed for hundreds of dollars; the away jersey variant were particularly sought after by collectors.
More than 53,000 fans were in attendance for Thursday’s game, the highest attendance Dodger Stadium has seen since 2019.
His first bobblehead night was not one to remember on the field, however, as the Dodgers fell 7-2 to the Cincinnati Reds. L.A. was shut out through the first eight innings of the game, and Ohtani went hitless with one walk and one strikeout.
Despite his struggles Thursday night, Ohtani remains one of the betting favorites to be named the National League’s Most Valuable Player.
Through the first 46 games of the season, he leads the Dodgers with 12 home runs, a .360 batting average and an absurd .669 slugging percentage — which represents the number of bases a player records per at-bat.
The Japanese phenom signed with the Dodgers in December on a record-breaking 10-year, $700 million deal. He spent the first six seasons of his MLB career with the Los Angeles Angels, but failed to make a single postseason appearance or have a single winning record during that span.
“It’s been in Ohio as early as the mid-1850s at least, brought in as an ornamental plant because of its unique foliage and white flowers,” Gardner said. “It was actually planted in people’s landscaping, and it has been spreading.”
In addition to being the game’s most fearsome hitter, Ohtani is also an accomplished pitcher with a career record of 38 wins to 19 losses with a 3.01 ERA.
Ohtani will not take the mound for the Dodgers this season after he underwent his second “Tommy John surgery” to repair a torn UCL in his pitching elbow.
The Dodgers are still more than satisfied with their big offseason investment, and the city is clearly happy to have him.