Sports
How Shohei Ohtani's 'mystique' is transforming the Dodgers' future
Shohei Ohtani’s stardom has made an immediate impact among Dodgers players and staff, who marvel at the level of attention the team is receiving.
(Dave Murray / For The Times)
You got him.
That was the message that Shohei Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo, delivered to the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, Andrew Friedman, right around noon Pacific time on Dec. 9.
Three little words to end one of the biggest free-agent sagas in recent baseball history.
Three magic words likely to shape the next chapter of the Dodgers’ storied history.
For years, the Dodgers had dreamed of signing Ohtani, baseball’s first two-way star in roughly a century. For months this winter, they strategized ways to woo the two-time American League MVP to Chavez Ravine.
It all reached a head in early December, when a wave of online speculation and incorrect media reports — most of them centered on a private jet flight to Toronto — tested the Dodgers’ confidence, turning thoughts of missing out on Ohtani into a seemingly legitimate possibility.
“It was like watching election returns,” team president Stan Kasten recalled. “You really don’t have any inside information, so you’re just sitting at home watching on TV, following on Twitter or X. Because we didn’t know any different.”
Finally, on the Saturday afternoon following the league’s annual winter meetings — and the day after Ohtani-to-Toronto rumors reached their peak — Balelo was ready to inform the Dodgers of his client’s actual decision.
The agent called Friedman, who was sitting in his car at an Orange County soccer field where his son was playing in a youth tournament.
Friedman quickly answered, taking Balelo’s call just as he wrapped up a Zoom meeting on his iPad with another player the Dodgers were pursuing.
“I think [it’s about Ohtani’s decision], but I’m not sure,” Friedman recalled recently, sitting in his office at the Dodgers’ Camelback Ranch spring training facility. “So I get off the Zoom. Put my iPad away. And I answer as I open the car door and am walking out to the field.”
Three words later, everything changed.
“You got him,” Balelo informed Friedman.
“Excuse me?” Friedman responded.
“You got him,” Balelo reiterated. “Shohei is a Dodger.”
Shohei Ohtani stands on the field during spring training workouts at Camelback Ranch in February.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
In the three months since that day, the franchise has quickly learned all that reality entails.
The Dodgers knew signing Ohtani would expand interest in the club exponentially. They knew it would attract an influx of international media, casual fans in their home market and attention from every other corner of the baseball world in between.
But what they couldn’t have imagined, even in their most fanciful dreams, is how intensely Ohtani’s presence would drive buzz over the course of the offseason — or just how beloved he’d be to his new fan base before even playing his first regular-season game.
“It has transcended anything that came before,” Kasten said of the fan response Ohtani has received so far, and the spectacle his arrival has created for the franchise. “And yes, it has transcended even our rosiest projections.”
When Mark Langill thinks of the most iconic Dodgers of all time, the club’s official team historian thinks of a commonly shared, difficult-to-define but singularly recognizable trait.
“The one word that comes to mind is mystique,” Langill said. “There’s only a couple players I can think of that would have that type of mystique.”
Jackie Robinson had it, of course, not only for breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers but also for his seven All-Star appearances, 1949 MVP Award and veteran role on the club’s first World Series-winning team in 1955.
Sandy Koufax did too, emerging as the preeminent figure of the team’s early Los Angeles years with his three Cy Young Awards, five ERA titles and four World Series rings before an early retirement at age 30.
“‘You only get one Koufax in your lifetime,’” Langill recalled the late, legendary broadcaster Vin Scully saying. “That always struck me, in terms of how he put Sandy in a special category.”
Plenty of other celebrated names have achieved similar superstar status at Chavez Ravine since then, from Hall of Fame pitchers Don Drysdale and Don Sutton to heroes of the 1980s such as Orel Hershiser and, perhaps most notably, Fernando Valenzuela.
Clayton Kershaw has taken up that mantle for the most recent generation of Dodgers fans, serving as a cornerstone piece for one World Series and an unprecedented decade-long run of regular-season success.
And now, only three months removed from his signing, Ohtani is already showing signs of possessing the same potential, animating the fan base in ways that extend well beyond his talents on the field.
Shohei Ohtani warms up near the batting cage before taking some swings during spring training in February.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“When he walks into a room, there’s a presence. Like, ‘That’s Shohei.’”
— Dino Edel, Dodgers third base coach
“I think that’s what we’re seeing now,” Langill said. “Everybody has a different description of [why they’re drawn to him]. Everybody is excited, but for different reasons. … That’s why I think of that word ‘mystique.’ It’s just something you can’t define.”
Indeed, ask around the Dodgers organization about the early impact of Ohtani’s presence, and answers will vary widely.
Players have marveled at the international attention the 29-year-old attracts, felt most acutely by the masses of global press members — most of them Japanese — who have descended upon their Camelback Ranch facility in Arizona this spring.
“When you bring in the Japanese culture, how much they love baseball, and just from talking to other people about how much he means to their country,” Kershaw said, “it’s pretty amazing.”
“I definitely think there is that mystique, that aura that follows him being the international superstar he is,” closer Evan Phillips added. “I think that’s where a lot of the extra attention comes from.”
Other members of the organization have noted the overwhelming crowds for spring training practices at the Camelback Ranch complex, where the sight of Ohtani simply walking from one backfield to another has sent patrons sprinting for a glimpse of the $700-million signing.
“When he walks into a room,” said third base coach Dino Ebel, who previously crossed paths with Ohtani during his rookie year with the Angels, “there’s a presence. Like, ‘That’s Shohei.’”
The Dodgers’ merchandise and marketing departments might have the best insights into the player’s instant popularity.
Fans wearing Shohei Ohtani jerseys arrive at Camelback Ranch for a game between the Dodgers and Chicago White Sox on Feb. 27.
(Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
According to Kasten, there has been a “run” on Ohtani gear at the club’s in-stadium team store, both from local fans eager to get a No. 17 jersey or T-shirt as well as from a wave of Japanese tour groups that have visited the ballpark since Ohtani’s signing.
Online sales have also been so robust, Kasten said the league’s merchandise manufacturer, Fanatics, has been “challenged” trying to “keep up with our demand.”
“We think we have enough [merchandise] to get through the early part of the season,” Kasten said. “But we need to reload as fast as they can do it. … It’s just so much.”
Ohtani’s presence has had a similar impact on ticket sales. Prices for the Dodgers’ March 28 home opener skyrocketed on secondary markets following the two-time MVP’s December signing. Tickets for Ohtani-related promotional nights, such as a bobblehead giveaway in May, have also spiked in cost.
“There are very, very few players in all of sports who literally drive ticket sales on their own,” Kasten said. “Jordan was one. LeBron. Maybe some quarterbacks. … But I think Shohei has that extra dimension, where people will come out just to see him personally. And that is extremely rare.”
Dodgers fan Alberto Valenzuela attends DodgerFest at Dodger Stadium wearing a batting helmet with a Shohei Ohtani bobblehead on top.
(Kyusung Gong / Associated Press)
To Langill, each of those extra dimensions is what make the interest level surrounding Ohtani unique.
He can have the on-field impact of Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, the Dodgers’ most recent star acquisitions before Ohtani.
His reserved demeanor and private personal life — epitomized by the shock of his unexpected marriage announcement this spring — give him the “curiosity factor” of a Koufax or Kershaw.
Yet, his celebrity profile could also cause a stir reminiscent of Fernando-mania in 1981, or the craze that accompanied Manny Ramirez’s arrival in 2008 — when a stadium that “before didn’t sell personalized jerseys and things,” according to Langill, renamed a section of the ballpark “Mannywood” and started selling Manny wigs to an enamored fan base.
“The history book of the Dodgers is already filled to the brim with so many things,” Langill said. “But this chapter [with Ohtani], I think so many people are excited about because you just don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s the great unknown.”
To Friedman, Ohtani’s first three months with the team have mostly felt like one big blur.
As soon as Balelo delivered the news on that Saturday afternoon in December, Friedman had just minutes to alert Kasten, owner Mark Walter and the rest of his front office before Ohtani made the announcement publicly on Instagram.
In the days and weeks that followed, there were introductions to make, news conferences to organize, and other marquee players — including fellow Japanese star Yoshinobu Yamamoto, whose recruitment included an in-person meeting in which Ohtani took part — the team needed to add around him.
“It prevented me from feeling the elation of [the signing],” Friedman recalled. “I’m not sure it ever really set in.”
Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani smiles in the dugout before a spring training game against the Angels on March 5.
(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
That remained the case through much of the winter. The sight of Ohtani around Dodger Stadium (where he worked out during the winter) and Camelback Ranch still seemed strange to Friedman. The fact he was under contract with the team for the next 10 years — barring Friedman or Walter leaving the franchise, at which point the two-way star could opt out of his deal — still didn’t feel real.
“It was just like he was visiting,” Friedman said. “It just hadn’t quite hit me.”
That finally changed once Ohtani played his first Cactus League game.
That day, on a sunny Tuesday afternoon last month, No. 17 jerseys filled the concourses (outnumbered only by fans with “Kershaw,” “Freeman,” or “Betts” displayed across their backs). A lively weekday crowd serenaded the new designated hitter with ovations and cheers.
Then, in his third at-bat, Ohtani launched an opposite-field home run as Friedman and Co. looked on, eliciting regular-season-level reactions from the stands.
“Until then,” Friedman said, “I hadn’t fully appreciated that Shohei was a Dodger.”
Now, it’s impossible to imagine the franchise’s future without him — on the field and beyond.
“I’ve said this a couple times, but our goal is for this period of time to be looked back on as the golden era of Dodger baseball,” Friedman said. “That is an incredibly high bar. But obviously, signing Shohei, and what that potentially means as we look out, definitely increases the chances of that.”
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After five years out of the Octagon, Conor McGregor’s return barely lasted one minute.
McGregor opened his Saturday fight against Max Holloway aggressively, attempting a running kick before throwing a head kick moments later. However, he slipped both times because it was apparent he had suffered a knee injury.
He tried to power through it, but nearly two minutes into the fight, he grabbed at his right leg again, and referee Mike Beltran called the fight after just 69 seconds.
Conor McGregor reacts after losing to Max Holloway in a welterweight fight at UFC 329 on Saturday, July 11, 2026, in Las Vegas. (John Locher/AP)
In his first post on Instagram since the bout, McGregor vowed to return from the injury.
“We’ll be back,” McGregor said after showing off his new energy drink.
Prior to that, McGregor showed off the “Mac” drink, enjoying it alongside his wife. McGregor then shared his faith.
Conor McGregor of Ireland reacts after an injury stoppage in a welterweight fight during UFC 329 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nev., on July 11, 2026. (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
WWE’S PAUL HEYMAN TAKES SWIPE AT CONOR MCGREGOR INJURY ON ‘MONDAY NIGHT RAW’
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. We’ll be back. Let’s go.”
McGregor made an emotional post the day after the fight, saying his “head gasket is gone.”
“Destroyed. I had no injury / injuries going into the fight. I was throwing kicks, planted and jumping, all throughout camp as well as backstage before the fight. This came out of nowhere. I am beyond dark here. I can only describe it as hell,” he said on X.
UFC president Dana White said he assumed McGregor suffered a “blown ACL.”
Conor McGregor kicks Max Holloway in a welterweight fight at UFC 329 on Saturday in Las Vegas. (John Locher/AP)
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McGregor was participating in his first bout since July 2021 when he lost to Dustin Poirier due to a devastating leg injury. He’s only won one fight since 2020.
Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos, Chantz Martin, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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While every World Cup introduces viewers to new young stars, this tournament featured eight players who were older than 40 — one more than the number of over-40 players in the previous 22 World Cups combined.
Among them were Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, 41, and Mexico’s Memo Ochoa, 40, who were playing in their sixth World Cups alongside Argentina’s Lionel Messi, a relative youngster at 39. No one has played in more men’s World Cups.
But while Ronaldo and Ochoa have gone home, Messi will be playing in his third semifinal in four tournaments Wednesday when Argentina, the reigning champion, faces England at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
The newfound longevity of elite soccer players has been made possible by advances in sports medicine, diet and analytics that measure everything from biomechanics and heart rate to muscular output and sleep cycles, all in real time. And injuries that once ended careers can now be repaired through outpatient procedures.
Argentina star Lionel Messi holds his jersey up and celebrates with teammates after a World Cup quarterfinal win over Switzerland on Saturday in Kansas City, Mo.
(David Ramos / Getty Images)
“Over the past 10, 20 years, the sports science within the game has changed a lot,” said Liam Anderson, an exercise physiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, who has worked as an applied practitioner in top-flight professional soccer for more than a decade.
“Players are now definitely more aware of their bodies and I think the professionalism has changed quite a lot as well. But they’re also in tune with the things which are helping them recover, manage their training load and ultimately stay fitter and healthier for longer.”
Gone are the days when chain-smoking Dutch legend Johan Cruyff would light up a cigarette on the bench, French world champion Zinedine Zidane would smoke in the locker room and George Best would party and drink so hard he would disappear for days at a time.
“There’s a couple of reasons,” Dr. Michael Joyner, a specialist in the physiology of elite athletes at the Mayo Clinic, said of the growing lifespan of soccer players. “The first is that people just make a lot more money and as a result, there’s tremendous incentive to keep playing. The second is people are taking much better care of themselves.”
“You just don’t hear about people like George Best anymore,” said Joyner, speaking for himself and not the clinic where he works.
“Diet is huge,” Anderson added. “High-protein diets and fueling with carbohydrates for matches. Nutritional strategies have changed considerably in the last 10-15 years.”
And those diets are tailored by position since a midfielder, who may run more than seven miles in a match, burns more calories than a goalkeeper.
As the eldest player in Major League Soccer, Diego Chara has had to make some concessions to age.
“It’s a little detailed,” said Chara, a midfielder with the Portland Timbers. “Talking about recovery time, it maybe takes a little bit longer than before. Nutrition. Working in the gym, it’ll be longer than other players.”
But if Chara, 40, is an old man in a league where the average age is younger than 26, he would have been something of whippersnapper in this summer’s World Cup.
The Portland Timbers’ Diego Chará passes the ball under pressure from the Columbus Crew’s Wessam Abou Ali on Feb. 21in Portland, Ore.
(Amanda Loman / Associated Press)
Soccer isn’t the only sport in which 40 is the new 30.
Serena Williams returned to Wimbledon this summer at age 44 and at least half a dozen athletes 40 and older showed up at the Milan-Cortina Olympics last February hoping to medal. Four of them succeeded, including American Elana Meyers Taylor, 41, who became the oldest athlete to win an individual gold in Winter Olympics history in the women’s monobob.
It isn’t unheard of for athletes to be golden in their golden years. Ted Williams hit .316 at 41 and Gordie Howe played 80 games and had 41 points in his final NHL season at 52. Nolan Ryan threw a no-hitter and pitched 173 innings at 44 while Tom Brady quarterbacked the Tampa Bay Bucs to a Super Bowl title at 43.
But if those age-defying performances were outliers, playing into your mid-40s and even early 50s may soon become, if not common, at least less unusual.
“People are just staying in better shape, taking care of themselves,” Joyner said. “Career-changing or career-ending injuries are no longer career-ending injuries. It just goes on and on, all of this stuff combined.”
American Serena Williams, 44, serves against Australian Maya Joint during a match at Wimbledon on June 30.
(Cameron Spencer / Getty Images)
State-of-the-art training centers and access to top-line sports medicine have also become more accessible, even in poor countries.
“The elite level has spread and really become global, as opposed to where there used to be pockets,” Joyner said. “The opportunities to compete are so great.”
Few team sports are as physically demanding as soccer, though, which makes both the growing number of seasoned citizens and their performances noteworthy. Messi has averaged nearly a game a week for club and country during the past 23 years, yet he entered the semifinals of this tournament tied for the scoring lead with France’s Kylian Mbappé, who is 12 years younger.
Ronaldo has played even more games yet he became the oldest player to score in a World Cup knockout game when his penalty kick helped eliminate Croatia and midfielder Luka Modric, who will be 41 in less than two months.
“They’ve probably lost a little bit off the top, but their experience and their mind make up for that,” said Scott Trappe, a professor of human bioenergetics at Ball State. “So the overall package of them as a sports person is really they’re contributing at a high level. I think we’re going to continue to see this movement.
Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates scoring a World Cup group stage goal against Uzbekistan on June 23 in Houston.
(Charlotte Wilson / Getty Images)
“They like playing the sport and as long as they can and contribute and they make these teams, they’re going to do it. I don’t see the trend going away.”
And that will not only change the way we think of sports and athletes, it will completely rewrite the record book. Messi, for instance, entered the semifinals of this World Cup as the tournament’s all-time leading scorer with 21 goals. But that was just one ahead of Mbappé, who could appear in another three or four World Cups.
“No question,” Trappe said. “You look what’s going on in pro cycling. We’ve got some guys in their upper 30s competing in the Tour de France, but we also have a teenager competing. So this lifespan, what used to be a five- to eight-year period for cycling at the at the highest levels is turning out to be, you know, double or triple that.”
Both Messi and Ronaldo have benefited from how they play as well, walking rather running for long stretches of the game to conserve energy for the burst they need to lose a defender. It’s a strategy Mbappé, Norway’s Erling Haaland and other young players have adopted and if they do that over enough games, the wear and tear it saves could add years to the end of their careers.
“We are expanding. The age will start moving up a little bit further up and players’ careers will definitely be longer,” Anderson said. “The sort of normal distribution of playing age will begin to move forward and that experience within the squad will be key.’
Argentina’s Lionel Messi dribbles the ball during the World Cup quarterfinal match against Switzerland on Saturday in Kansas City, Mo.
(Charlie Riedel / Ap Photo/charlie Riedel)
Consider Wednesday’s semifinalists. In its quarterfinal win, Argentina used six players older than 32 and two — Messi and defender Nicolas Otamendi — who are over 38. The spine of England’s team runs from goalkeeper Jordan Pickford through defender John Stones to striker Harry Kane, who are all 32.
“We’re coming up with new ways on how to improve and maximizing potential,” Anderson said. “God gave us what we are and it’s maximizing that, not necessarily changing that.”
That knowledge won’t stay in the stadiums and locker rooms for long, expanding to others who choose to adopt the same wellness discipline as professional athletes.
“It cycles down,” Trappe said. “We’re studying that in the lab at a pretty high level. This sort of healthy lifestyle in terms of functionality and extending into our later years and having a higher quality life, there’s data starting to emerge there.
“These types of things are going to trickle into that for sure.”
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The 2026 MLB All-Star Game arrived in Philadelphia with the feel of a 250th birthday bash for the United States, complete with plenty of red, white and blue and a roster full of stars who had earned their stripes.
But Citizens Bank Park, long known as a hitter-friendly backdrop, produced fewer fireworks than expected as the American League shut out the National League 4-0 in the 96th Midsummer Classic.
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A general view of Citizens Bank Park during the 96th MLB All-Star Game presented by Mastercard on, July 14, 2026, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Rob Tringali/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Dylan Cease struck out the side in the first inning, setting the tone for a dominant AL pitching performance as 10 relievers helped finish a three-hitter in Tuesday night’s shutout of the NL.
New York Yankees outfielder Cody Bellinger hit a two-run single and Ben Rice followed with an RBI single in the first against Cristopher Sánchez of the host Philadelphia Phillies.
Chicago White Sox infielder Miguel Vargas added an eighth-inning home run off the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Justin Wrobleski, who was pitching on his 26th birthday, for the game’s only extra-base hit. The AL won for the 18th time in 23 games and holds a 49-45-2 advantage overall.
Singles by Juan Soto in the fourth, Pete Crow-Armstrong in the eighth and Otto Lopez in the ninth were the only hits by the NL, which failed to advance a runner past first.
Pitchers combined for 27 strikeouts, 15 by AL hurlers.
MLB ALL-STAR GAME SCARE AS RAYS SLUGGER JUNIOR CAMINERO EXITS AFTER TAKING 98 MPH FASTBALL TO HAND
Tampa Bay Rays’ Yandy Diaz loses control of the bat in the fifth inning during the MLB All-Star Game between the American League and National League on July 14, 2026, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Matt Rourke/AP)
Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber, last year’s hero in the first-ever swing-off tiebreaker, led off for the NL. Schwarber replaced designated hitter Shohei Ohtani, who skipped the showcase to undergo a knee procedure ahead of the season’s second half.
Philadelphia Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber bats during the third inning of the 2026 MLB All-Star Game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 14, 2026. (Al Bello/Getty Images)
Detroit Tigers outfielder Riley Greene and two New York Yankees, first baseman Ben Rice and Bellinger, gained American League starting spots because of injuries.
Tampa Bay Rays’ Junior Caminero was hit on the outside of his left hand by a 97.6 mph sinker from St. Louis Cardinals closer Riley O’Brien in the third inning and immediately left the game. The 23-year-old, fourth in the major leagues with 28 home runs, stayed down for a few moments before he popped up and ran straight into the clubhouse. X-rays were negative.
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Players across the majors will have the day off Wednesday before the Phillies host the New York Mets on Thursday. Action across the rest of the league resumes Friday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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