The most mysterious man in baseball mostly remained that way on Thursday. Shohei Ohtani, speaking at his Dodgers introductory press conference, which included his first public comments in more than four months, didn’t reveal much about himself—but he did reveal something about the Dodgers.
Fans had been clamoring to hear from Ohtani for nearly a third of a year when he took the stage at Dodger Stadium. He had not addressed the media since Aug. 9, before he tore his right ulnar collateral ligament, costing him the 2024 season on the mound; before he decided to leave the Angels, the team he joined when he came to the United States from Japan before the ’18 season; before he agreed to a 10-year, $700 million deal with the Dodgers on Saturday to become the highest-paid athlete in North American sports history.
On Thursday, in a 19-minute session split between English and Japanese, the 29-year-old two-way superstar took 14 questions, and answered about half of them. (He finally broke his silence on the name of his dog, which he had initially instructed his camp not to reveal. Rumors spread that he was not sharing the moniker because it offered a clue to his free agent destination. The dog’s Japanese name is Decopin and its American name is Decoy, Ohtani said, adding that the Nederlandse Kooikerhondje came with the name.)
