Special reporting team of the Chinese Herald
Shohei Otani, a 27-year-old Japanese player of the Los Angeles Angels who has been blowing the dreamlike "Otani Whirlwind" in the United States all year this year, was elected as the MVP (Most Valuable Player) of this season on November 19, becoming the first Asian player to be selected as the MVP of the year in 20 years after the famous Japanese baseball player "Langshen" Ichiro Suzuki in 2001, and was unanimously elected, even better, reaching the highest achievement in the history of Japanese players, and also drawing a successful end to his own fortune and a miracle in 2021.
This side of the box, the hometown of Japan has long been boiling, all the media without dead angles rolling broadcast, not only Oshi city of Iwate Prefecture, where Shohei Otani was born, as a small city in northeast Japan, instantly became famous internationally, and a large number of local compatriots wore Otani's No. 17 angel jersey to celebrate when they won the MVP. Prime Minister Kishida, who had just been re-elected, also issued a statement early in the morning of the same day, saying that Otani's award was "a very great feat, and I feel very honored as a national", and frankly said that he would consider whether to award Shohei Otani the National Honor Award.
2021 is the "Year of Shohei Otani"
2021 is the undoubted "Shohei Otani Year", with a green baby face, like the boy next door, he is like a shining star in the dark clouds of the epidemic, not only the United States and Japan, but also the world is constantly shocked by one miracle after another created by Otani, who has the "two knife flow" stunts. He played a total of 158 games as a batter and pitcher this season, hitting 46 home runs as a batter, finishing no. 3 in major leagues, and almost becoming the king of home runs, with a strike rate of 0.257, 100 RBIs, 103 points, 26 steals and eight third-basers tied for the first place in the major leagues. Appeared in 23 games as a pitcher, winning 9 and losing 2 with a defense rate of 3.18.
The last time Major League leagues really played with "two knives" like Otani was the legendary superstar Babe Ruth around 1918, and after more than a century, this talented teenager from the East let modern people see this stunt that broke the time, region and race, and broke the record of Babe Ruth in 1919 with 10 main shots and 29 home runs in a single season, which is really incredible.
As the first Asian player, after being named the Best Major League Player of the Year by the 2021 ESPYS Awards, Otani won the President's Historical Achievement Award in succession, and the player voted best player and the Silver Baseball Award, when the year-end MVP Best Player Award was almost a probe for Shohei Otani. As we all know, the MVP was selected by the members of the National Baseball Journalists Association with a total of 30 votes, and Otani won the first place with a full score, that is, all other candidates had zero votes. This makes Otani the 19th player in history to receive the MVP unanimously since Bryce Hubble in 2015, and the first japanese player.
At present, Otani has returned to Japan and celebrated at home with his mother and family. From the video and telephone interviews after the award, he said that he was very happy to win the award, and he was very grateful to the reporters who voted for him, as well as the supervisors, coaches, trainers, fans and other people who have supported him for a long time, especially the Environment in the United States is more accepting of the "two-knife flow" than Japan. This year, he was able to play as a "two-knife flow" for the whole season without restriction, and Otani said that although it was difficult to complete, it was "worth doing, and I hope to respond to everyone's trust in him and the team's expectations of him." ”
As for whether he will continue to race in the two identities of "throwing two knife streams" that are difficult but not easy to be accepted by everyone, the young Otani has both modesty and rationality, but never gives up the belief of challenging the limits, "Not based on the psychology of rebellion, but purely want to try to see how far he can achieve with the two knife streams, so he has been working hard." "Like all geniuses, he already knew how to sharpen a knife—he was the knife himself.
For this year's consecutive breaking and holding of Japanese baseball legends Noshige Hideo, Matsui Hideki, Suzuki Ichiro in the American League records are not so much the back waves of the Yangtze River pushing forward the waves, but Otani looking at the backs of the predecessors to make their dreams come true, and standing side by side with them on the top. "I myself have been dreaming of playing baseball since I was a child when I saw Ichiro Suzuki win the MVP Best Player Award, and now the children should see me the same, and I hope that there will be such excellent players in the future, and one day I can play with them." 」
Otani, who just celebrated his 27th birthday in the United States this year, has more time to meet his peak in the future, and the new era he has opened for the world baseball world has just begun.
Once Japan's strongest stick: Ichiro Suzuki
In baseball, the name of Japan's Ichiro Suzuki is known to everyone. In 2001, he made a nation-shaking performance as the first non-pitcher in Asia to land on MLB, leading the Seattle Mariners to a single-season Record of 116 wins in the American League, becoming the second player in history to win the best rookie and MVP of the same year.
In 2004, Ichiro Suzuki broke the major league record of 257 george Sisler's 257 homerings for 84 years. If it weren't for the Mariners' poor team at that time, Ichiro might have a chance to win the second American League MVP of his career.
Before coming to the United States, Suzuki was already a star player who combined the best players in Japanese professional baseball, the king of dots, the king of thieves, and the golden gloves.
In 1994, he set a new Japanese professional baseball single-season homer record with 210 singles, setting a Japanese record for 69 consecutive games, and in 1995, because of his no dead ends, pitchers from various teams in the Pacific League jointly gave him a new record of 18 touch balls, in 1996 he received 26 heavy hits (more than three hits in a single game), and in 1997 it was a new Japanese record of 216 consecutive hits without three strikes. From 1994 to 1998, he played all five consecutive years, and in 1999 he achieved a record of 1,000 hits in 757 games, and in 2000, as the fourth baseman, he accumulated more than 500 RBIs. This string of records is talked about by Japanese fans.
Almost all successful athletes are inseparable from the hard work experience of childhood. Ichiro's teenage story is no less than any of his peers' lateral comparisons, and in his own words, it's simply "hell." ”
On October 22, 1973, Ichiro Suzuki was born in Toyoyama-cho, Nishi kasugai-gun, north of Nagoya City, to the son of Nobuyuki Suzuki and his mother Shue, who weighed 4,280 grams at birth. Ichiro Suzuki was the second son of the Xuan family, and the reason for the name "Ichiro" was in honor of his grandfather Suzuki Ginichi. Nobuyuki Suzuki is a baseball fanatic who was a baseball player as a student, quit due to injury, and let Ichiro join the "Toyoyama Junior Wild Team" from an early age.
When I was in the sixth grade of elementary school, I wrote in an assignment titled "My Dream": "I started practicing when I was three years old. Although the practice time from the age of three to seven is only half a year, from the third grade to the present, 360 of the 365 days have been desperately playing. So, there are only five or six hours of time to play with friends every week. I think if I practice so hard, I can definitely become a professional baseball player. ”
In addition, his father also integrated his good golf skills into Ichiro's percussion movements, completing the swing while shifting the center of gravity from the support foot to the free foot, and finally developed the free foot swinging forward like a pendulum when swinging the stick, and it seems that he began to run the base before he finished the blow.
The beauty of pendulum play is that the center of gravity movement can either drive the power of the swing or translate into the starting momentum of sprinting towards first base. So Ichiro doesn't seem to have a lot of power to swing, but the force of his body movements to the bat is enough to generate the momentum to send the ball between the inside and outside, and at the same time he can start sprinting to first base early.
Ichiro is known for his countless infield hits, thanks to the advantages of this strike form.
Active in the Japanese Legion of Major League Baseball
With the continuous activity of "pitcher Otani, hitter Shohei" in the Us Major League, more people are paying attention to the situation of Japanese players participating in the US Major League. In the Baseball Circle of Asia, Japan is the number one power. In addition to the long-known legendary players Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui, many outstanding players have challenged the Major Leagues in the past 30 years.
As early as 1964, Masanori Murakami was recorded in history as the first Japanese player to challenge major leagues. In 1995, Nomoh became a Japanese player challenging American professional baseball, beginning the japanese player's pursuit of major leagues. Since Shigeru Nobuyuki, a total of 64 Japanese players have left their mark in major leagues, and as many as 7 players are active in baseball.
Hideki Matsui (松井 Hideki, born June 12, 1974 in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan) is a famous Professional Baseball player in Japan, known for his ability to play home runs, nicknamed "Godzilla". In 2002, Matsui became home run king, hit point king and highest baseman. When the Giants defeated the Seibu Lions in a Japanese tournament, Matsui announced that he was challenging Major League Baseball. In 2002, Matsui signed with the New York Yankees and officially entered the Major League. In 2004, Hideki Matsui's home runs increased to 31. In November 2009, Matsui became the World Series Most Valuable Player, the first time in major league history that a player won the World Series Most Valuable Player MVP as a designated striker, the first Japanese player to win the World Series MVP, and the first person to win the MVP in the World Series who had never been on the field guard. Plagued by a knee injury, he served as a designated striker in the 2009 season and announced his retirement on 28 December 2012.
According to Major League records, as many as 23 of the 64 active Japanese players are kansai-born, including Nobushige Nobuki, who is known as a major league trailblazer, and active Japanese pitcher Shuuyuki Dabi.
The Nobushige Hero, known for his "Tornado Venture Throwing Method", is known for his super three-vibration ability. After traveling to major leagues in 1995 and succeeding, he was hailed as a pioneer in Japanese football. After joining the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995, he immediately won the rookie king and the three zhen kings. He also won two no-hits tournaments in 1996 and 2001, and was full of honors in the United States and Japan, and also set an unsurpassable benchmark for future players who will challenge major leagues in the United States.
Born in Osaka Prefecture, the 35-year-old traveled to Major League Baseball to sign with the Texas Rangers in 2012, and later worked for the Dodgers, Cubs, and currently plays for the San Diego Padres of major leagues, is currently the first Japanese pitcher in major leagues, and is known for having more than 10 variational balls and super three-strike ability.
Nicknamed "Son of God," General Tanaka, who is from Hyogo Prefecture, played for the New York Yankees, the number one major league player in 2014-2020, and signed the fifth-largest pitcher in major league history for 7 years and $155 million. The 2011 season was the first season for Tanaka to be close to the peak, and he not only won the "Sawamura Award", but also won the first place in important statistics such as the king of victory and defense. In the 2013 season, Tanaka's full-year record was "24 wins and 0 losses", and the 28 consecutive wins across the season were also included in the Kim World Record. In the 2014 season, Tanaka joined the Major Leagues team at a high salary, and the 7-year major league trip, although it failed to impact the success of the major league championship, it also made fans nostalgic. In the 2021 season, Tanaka returned to Japan's Tohoku Rakuten Golden Vultures to continue writing a new story.
In the last decade, Daisuke Matsuzaka, who played for the Red Sox, challenged seniors Hideki Matsui and Ichiro Suzuki. In the 2007 season, former Seibu pitcher Daisuke Matsusaka, Akihito Iwamura of Yakult, and Kei Igawa of Hanshin were given the right to negotiate and joined the American Professional League. Daisuke Matsusaka, in particular, set a record of 6 billion yen.
The New York Yankees have already had Hideki Matsui join. The Red Sox are yankees' nemesis and hope to use Matsuzaka to contain Hideki Matsui. For Matsusaka, it is not so much against Hideki Matsui that the clash with Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Marinars team has attracted more attention. Matsusaka and Suzuki's clash was included in the first place in the "2007 Major Event". In the previous year's world baseball tournament, the ace pitcher and the main hitter who contributed to Japan's victory were directly competing in the United States.
In 2007, there were 15 Japanese players active in Major League Baseball, which was the heyday of the Japanese Legion. Japan fears that the departure of top players will cause the hollowing out of Japanese professional baseball, but Japanese players are creating a peak period in the Us major leagues.
The back wave of the Yangtze River pushes the front wave. The famous Japanese players who have traveled through the Major Leagues in the United States in history can be said to be a bright star, and the baseball player who is most concerned in the world today is None other than Shohei Otani. With Otani achieving epic results in both aspects of the 2021 season, and being unanimously voted the major league MVP with his famous "two-knife flow" performance, a new "Otani era" has begun.