Sports
Dodger blue, Ohtani Days and World Series mania in Shohei Ohtani's hometown
It was moments before Game 3 was set to begin, and the city where Shohei Ohtani was born breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“I almost cried when I saw the injury,” 50-year-old resident Ayako Oyama said, referring to a partial shoulder dislocation the Dodgers superstar had suffered on a base-stealing attempt two days earlier.
Despite fears that the designated hitter would be out for the rest of this series, he had bounced back, and Oyama, dressed in a blue Ohtani jersey, had come to the local auditorium where the city was holding a World Series watching party.
Her employer — the city of Oshu — had given her the morning off to attend. (Oshu is 16 hours ahead of Los Angeles.) She had gotten up early to mark her place in the long line that wrapped around the building with around 200 other residents and Mayor Jun Kuranari, who earlier this month traveled to California to sign a friendship city agreement with his counterpart in Torrance. A camera team from Fox was livestreaming the scene to U.S. audiences.
As part of a rice art festival, growers used different varieties of rice to create a portrait of Shohei Ohtani and his dog, Decoy, in a paddy in Oshu, Japan, the Dodger star’s hometown.
(Hidenori Nagai / Associated Press)
“I’ve never seen Oshu at the center of attention like this,” Oyama said, clutching two blue bambams.
Ohtani is, of course, a national hero in all of Japan, his image plastered over billboards, green tea advertisements and newspaper pages.
But there is something else to Oshu’s love for its native son. He is more than just a celebrity from their city, or a rare baseball talent, but someone truly one of their own.
“The people in this region are known for having a serious, diligent and persevering character,” Tomonori Toriumi, an official in Oshu’s sports promotion department, said.
“That is Ohtani. Even when he is under such pressure, he doesn’t show it.”
A colleague from the “Shohei Ohtani Hometown Cheering Team,” the city’s fan club that Toriumi leads, took the stage to rehearse several chants with the crowd: “Let’s go Shohei!”
The first inning started out strong: The Yankees walked Ohtani. Freddie Freeman followed up with a homer and drove him home.
The crowd whooped, furiously slapping together their bambams.
::
Jun Kuranari, mayor of Oshu, Japan, watches a livestream with about 200 others before the start of Game 3 of the World Series.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press)
Oshu, a semi-rural city of around 114,000, is not exactly a tourist hot spot.
The handful of hotels in the city are more likely to be booked up by businesspeople from Taiwan and South Korea visiting the nearby semiconductor factories. The streets are dead quiet and pitch dark by 10 p.m.
Among the leading local attractions is the Cattle Museum, a nod to the region’s high-quality beef. Other local specialties include a form of traditional ironware known as Nambu Tekki, and apples.
“Very few people come here,” Hidetoshi Watanabe, a 68-year-old taxi driver, said.
“For every 100 outsiders you see, maybe one or two are tourists.”
Like many of the longtime locals, Watanabe affectionately remembers a time when Ohtani was just one of the neighborhood kids: the skinny freshman who joined the baseball team at nearby Hanamaki High School, where Watanabe’s son was a senior outfielder.
A person photographs a banner supporting Shohei Ohtani near Mizusawa train station in Oshu, northeastern Japan, on Tuesday.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press)
“My son looked after Ohtani a lot,” Watanabe said.
Even then, Ohtani was already famous as a “yakyu baka”: a boy obsessed with baseball.
“I knew he was destined to become big,” Watanabe said. “You could tell he had a much sharper sense for baseball. Everybody knew Ohtani was different.”
In the years since he left home — and went on to become who many say is the most talented baseball player of all time — Ohtani’s local presence has only grown.
Arrive at the bullet train station near the area where Ohtani grew up and you are greeted by metal wind chimes engraved with messages of support and a small glass-enclosed exhibit featuring signed memorabilia.
Local elementary schools serve their students Ohtani-themed lunches, including menu items like toast with “Dodgers 17” scribbled in blueberry jam. The city has designated the 17th of each month as Ohtani Day, meaning bank workers, taxi drivers and civil servants go to work in their Dodgers garb. (Los Angeles followed suit, declaring May 17 an annual Ohtani day.)
One of Oshu’s most popular events is an annual festival featuring rice art, made from growing five different varieties of rice to form vast images on the paddies. This year’s offering: Ohtani in his Dodgers uniform, tossing aside his bat after one of his 54 regular-season home runs.
Meanwhile, nearly every trace of Ohtani’s former team has been mercilessly scrubbed from the city. There is no Angels red in Oshu.
The Ohtani posters reading “The Pride of Oshu City” — plastered across the city, in bars, train stations, government offices — are now all blue.
In the lobby of Oshu City Hall is an iron replica of Ohtani’s hand, cast while he was playing in a Japanese league earlier in his career. Visitors come in to shake the hand.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press)
“Well, we support Ohtani first and foremost, not the Angels,” Toshihide Oikawa, an official at the Oshu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said with a sheepish laugh.
Though Oshu, a three-hour train ride from Tokyo, isn’t exactly drawing hordes, city officials like Toriumi still field continuous email inquiries from foreign and Japanese fans alike looking to make an Ohtani pilgrimage.
“Nobody can speak English very well so it’s difficult to properly respond to them,” Toriumi said apologetically.
Some find their way regardless.
In the lobby of Oshu City Hall is an iron replica of Ohtani’s hand, cast while he was playing for the Japanese league’s Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, his team before the Angels.
“Around 20 to 30 people from overseas have come in the last month,” Miyoko Ishikawa, whose seat at the information desk directly faces the outstretched appendage.
“They come as a family, couple or friends — they come to shake the hand.”
::
By the time the ninth inning came around, it was apparent that Game 3 would be another win. Oyama, the civil servant, hurried off to go to lunch before she had to return to work.
The projector screen displayed Yankees star Juan Soto looking defeated.
Ohtani had had a quiet outing, but the slightly thinned-out crowd belted out one last chant for his final at-bat, groaning loudly when the ball glanced off his left toe, leading to a walk. The Japanese broadcasters had filled the lack of action by sampling a Wagyu burger from Yankee Stadium.
But Oshu doesn’t care if Ohtani wins or loses, whether he is slumping or the clutch-time hero.
“The Dodgers winning the World Series would of course be an amazing thing because we want to see Ohtani’s dreams come true,” Toriumi said.
“But even if Ohtani doesn’t win a World Series, Oshu will always love him.”
Special correspondent Momo Nagayama contributed to this report.
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
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