Sports
In Ohtani's Dodger blue hometown, a shrine to his baseball talent, and humanity
OSHU, Japan — Seems Hair and Spa in Oshu, a city in northern Japan, is crammed full with Dodgers memorabilia, but owner Hironobu Kanno is adamant that he isn’t really a Dodgers fan.
It was just past 9 a.m. and Kanno, who is 63 and sports a flowing blond ponytail, had just hurried to his shop to tune into Game 4 of the World Series.
Like the rest of Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani’s hometown, he was hoping, of course, that today was the day that the L.A. franchise would complete a sweep of its historical rivals, the Yankees.
Even so, he is clear that his loyalties lie not with the Dodgers but with Ohtani, the Oshu native who has taken Major League Baseball by storm and rallied the city behind him in a way only a hometown can.
If Ohtani were to magically join the Yankees tomorrow? Would Kanno trade out his Dodgers blue for Yankee stripes?
Hironobu Kanno is surrounded by his collection of Ohtani memorabilia at his beauty salon in Oshu, Japan. Kanno started the collection with a signed ball in 2013, when Ohtani was playing in a Japanese league.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press)
“Of course,” Kanno said, without pause.
In reality, Ohtani is on a 10-year contract with the Dodgers, meaning Kanno’s loyalty is, too.
Per a rule he has instituted for the World Series, every single one of the hairdressers in his shop, including his wife, Satsuki, was tending to customers while wearing a blue Dodgers jersey.
His two customers were also watching the game — whether they like it or not — because Kanno years ago had monitors installed at every seat in order to avoid missing any of Ohtani’s games.
This, one so far, seemed to bode well.
On the main television in the waiting area, Freddie Freeman had hit another first inning homer, making Satsuki and Keiko, one of the stylists, cry out “Freeman!”
The inside of the business is only part salon and mostly museum. It is stacked floor to ceiling with Ohtani-related items that Kanno has spent 11 years and close to $100,000 acquiring, including signed baseballs, dozens of bobbleheads and figurines, jerseys, hats, cleats, batting gloves and a life-size cutout of Ohtani in his Dodgers uniform.
His favorite piece is a hat signed by the entire Ohtani-led Japanese national team that defeated the U.S. squad in last year’s World Baseball Classic. That one is priceless.
“I have a secret connection on the team who helped me get this,” he said. “I can’t really talk about it.”
And in the last year alone, around 1,000 fans — Japanese and foreign — have visited the shop to see all of this for themselves, some with religious reverence and others with fizzy excitement.
One particularly dedicated fan — a young Taiwanese woman — visits every year or so, to ooh and ah at the new additions to the collection.
On her most recent trip she asked Kanno to give her the exact haircut sported by Mamiko Tanaka, Ohtani’s wife.
“Yes, I gave it to her,” Kanno said with a chuckle, gesturing at a picture of Ohtani and Tanaka hanging on the wall.
::
Kanno started his collection in 2013, with a ball signed by Ohtani he got at a game he attended when the Dodgers superstar — then just 18 years old — was playing for his first professional team: the Japanese league’s Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
It had been a dark time for Oshu, where Kanno had been born and raised.
Bobbleheads make up part of Hironobu Kanno’s collection in Oshu, northeastern Japan, the Dodger star’s hometown.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press)
Two years earlier, the Tōhoku region of Japan, where Oshu sits, had been hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake, which killed more than 19,000 people and triggered the tsunami that caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
For the devastated people of the region, news of a local baseball wunderkind making it in Japan’s big leagues was a balm.
“It felt like Ohtani represented the hope of the region’s people,” Kanno said.
The signed ball had come when Kanno, too, was reaching for a fresh start.
As a young man, Kanno had been a successful hairstylist with a grind-all-day work ethic, winning international competitions that took him on business trips all over the world, followed by a corporate career at a major beauty company.
But sometime in his late 40s, Satsuki had told him: “All you do is work, your family is falling apart. We have money, but we are not happy. You are losing what is important to you and us.”
Shattered by the realization that she was right, Kanno left behind his high-flying life and opened Seems Hair and Spa in 2010.
“I wanted to settle down in my own space in my hometown, where I can chat to people casually and live at a slower pace than before,” he said.
And so the museum was born.
Hironobu Kanno, representative of a private fan club of Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers, speaks at his beauty salon in Oshu, northeastern Japan, the hometown of Ohtani.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press)
Oshu, a semi-rural city of around 114,000, is not exactly a hub of action. Sometimes the streets in the town known for cattle ranching, apple orchards and ironworking can be so quiet it feels like a ghost town. But Kanno’s collection has made him surprisingly well-connected to the wider world.
Among his contacts is former player and current Dodgers broadcaster José Mota.
“We chat online all the time,” Kanno said, pulling out his phone as proof.
The day before, Kanno had sent Mota a few selfies of him in a Dodger blue crowd at a World Series viewing party the city of Oshu had hosted at a local auditorium.
“That’s beautiful,” Mota had texted back.
::
It was the third inning of Game 4 and Ohtani, who had partially dislocated his shoulder in Game 2, was standing at the plate.
“His swing is better than yesterday,” Kanno observed.
A pop fly out.
“Ahhhhh,” he groaned. “Maybe his injury is still bothering him.”
Like many in Oshu, Kanno feels protective of Ohtani in a way perhaps only the people of this town can.
Few outsiders may know, for example, that Ohtani comes back to the city every year or so to visit his parents.
Many of the longtime locals are aware when he does, but there is an unwritten code of silence not to reveal this — or his parents’ address — to the media.
“For example, people from Ohsu know what restaurant Ohtani’s family goes to whenever Ohtani is here,” Kanno said.
“But they don’t tell this to the media so that Ohtani will feel safe when he is home.”
It is a rule that is sacrosanct to Kanno.
Sometimes, journalists will ask Kanno if he can tip them off to where Ohtani’s parents live. When that happens, Kanno sends them away.
And although he could find a way to ask Ohtani’s parents to help him get their son’s blessing for his ultimate goal of establishing an official Ohtani museum in the city, he refuses to stoop so low.
“Oshu city wants to support him in a pure way,” he said.
::
By the eighth inning, a customer had canceled her perm appointment with Kanno, allowing him to watch the game slip away from the Dodgers.
Following a grand slam by the Yankees’ Anthony Volpe in the third, which made Kanno hang his head and groan, New York was piling on the runs to make the score 11-4, seemingly hell-bent on avoiding a sweep.
Hironobu Kanno started collecting Ohtani memorabilia soon after he made a major change in his own life.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press)
“I have to give it to the Yankees today,” he said.
Although Kanno was confident that the Dodgers would end up taking the series, he knows that the Pride of Oshu City is destined for more than just this one championship, anyway.
“Ohtani wants to be the greatest player to ever play the game. It is an endless journey for him,” he said.
And more than the accolades, what Kanno respects most about Ohtani is that he seems to have figured out something about life that the stylist himself realized too late.
“Even at his young age, Ohtani knows what is necessary for his life, what his priorities are,” Kanno said.
From the jumble of magazines and Ohtani literature strewn about on the coffee table in the waiting area, Kanno produced a copy of Ohtani’s Mandala Chart, a list of life goals arranged in interconnected squares that the baseball phenom wrote as a sophomore in high school.
Alongside the baseball goals, like increasing the “perfect the forkball” or “strengthen the body core” are the qualities that Kanno has been relearning in Oshu: “sensitivity,” “caring,” becoming someone worthy of trust and love.
Special correspondent Momo Nagayama contributed to this report.
HIGH SCHOOL BOYS VOLLEYBALL
CITY SECTION FINALS
FRIDAY
At Birmingham
DIVISION I
#1 Taft d. #3 Cleveland, 25-23, 25-14, 25-21
DIVISION IV
#7 Maywood CES d. #4 Math & Science College Prep, 25-17, 25-17, 25-23
At Venice
DIVISION II
#4 Marquez d. #6 Narbonne, 23-25, 25-19, 29-27, 25-16
DIVISION III
#13 Birmingham d. #2 Legacy, 25-20, 17-25, 31-33, 25-21, 15-10
SATURDAY
At Birmingham
OPEN DIVISION
#3 Chatsworth d. #1 Granada Hills, 24-26, 25-21, 25-14, 25-18
DIVISION V
314 Franklin d. #13 Rancho Dominguez, 25-18, 25-19, 25-16
SOUTHERN SECTION FINALS
THURSDAY
At Home Sites
DIVISION 9
Vasquez d. Tarbut V’ Torah, 25-19, 22-25, 25-21, 19-25, 15-10
FRIDAY
At Cerritos College
DIVISION 1
#1 Mira Costa d. #3 Loyola, 25-21, 25-22, 25-22
DIVISION 4
Sunny Hills d. Royal, 24-26, 25-22, 27-25, 25-23
At Home Sites
DIVISION 5
Bishop Diego d. St. Anthony, 25-19, 25-19, 23-25, 25-23
DIVISION 8
Temescal Canyon d. West Valley, 24-26, 25-16, 25-19, 25-23
SATURDAY
At Cerritos College
DIVISION 2
Orange Lutheran d. Edison, 3-1
DIVISION 3
Windward d. St, John Bosco, 24-26, 25–21, 25-22, 25-20
DIVISION 6
Culver City d. Garden Grove, 27-25, 25-20, 19-25, 21-25, 15-9
Sports
It’s Game 7, and we have a bet locked in as the Cavaliers and legacies are on the line against the Pistons
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The NBA takes a lot of flak for having meaningless games, and I can definitely understand it, watching on a random Wednesday in January. However, the playoffs have delivered over and over to viewers and rewarded us for putting up with garbage regular-season games.
This will be the fourth Game 7 of the playoffs. Three series have been sweeps, and the other three have been six games. That shows competitive hoops. Now, how do we bet this Game 7 in the Eastern Conference?
The Cleveland Cavaliers blew it. After not winning a road game all postseason, they took Game 5 in surprising fashion. It looked like they were going to win in six games. After all, they hadn’t lost a game at home in the postseason.
Instead, Detroit came out and blitzed the Cavs, never giving them a chance to get their footing. They lost in an ugly fashion and now have to figure out a way to win a game on the road.
Cleveland Cavaliers guard James Harden drives to the basket against the Detroit Pistons during the second half of Game 5 in the second-round NBA playoffs in Detroit on May 13, 2026. (Duane Burleson/AP)
It isn’t just the Cavs’ fate that rests in this game. It is also the legacy of James Harden and, to a lesser extent, Donovan Mitchell.
We know that Mitchell is a very good player, but he isn’t regarded as one of the best players ever. Harden is. Unfortunately, Harden has struggled in Game 7s. He’s averaged 19.1 points, 7.3 assists and 5.8 rebounds. That’s not terrible, but looking at his shooting percentages, he is at 35.3% and 22.2% in those games. He actually is 4-4 overall in the games, but in his past three, he has scored a combined 34 points over 113 minutes.
The Detroit Pistons seem to like playing with their backs against the wall. They are a gritty team, so I suppose it makes sense.
Detroit Pistons’ Jalen Duren reacts after allowing a pass to go out of bounds in the second half of Game 4 of the second-round NBA playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Cleveland on May 11, 2026. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)
Cade Cunningham continues to deliver for the team, and he finally got some help in Game 6 from Jalen Duren. This was never going to be an easy series for Duren, but it feels like he is taking more time to mature than others. He definitely improved this year, but the consistency they need from him just isn’t there yet.
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Now as the team goes home they will need Duren to be a beast on the glass. If he can keep the Pistons in the rebounding battle, they should win this game with ease. They won Game 6 by just three rebounds, but that takes away a big dimension of what Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley do for the Cavs. It isn’t everything, though, as the Pistons won the rebounding battle in both losses in Cleveland.
I don’t see this being a runaway game for the Pistons. Mitchell and Cunningham likely will cancel each other out with scoring. Harden needs to establish himself as the third-best player on the floor. I haven’t seen him do that in the postseason, yet.
Cleveland Cavaliers All-Stars Donovan Mitchell and James Harden talk during Game 2 in the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs vs. the Toronto Raptors at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Ohio. (David Dermer/Imagn Images)
This is the second Game 7 of the playoffs for both of the clubs, so it isn’t like either will be caught off guard about what this entails.
If I look at it objectively, I think the Cavs have the better players. However, the Pistons have looked significantly better this season, and definitely in the playoffs overall. Both are prone to issues and slipping. The Cavs shouldn’t be as they are a veteran team.
This game has to be won by Cleveland, though. There is too much riding on the franchise and legacies of guys for them to not prepare properly for it. Maybe that’s weak analysis, but I’m taking the Cavs with the points and I do think they win outright. I expect a monster game from Mitchell, and Harden should get 10+ assists.
Either way, whoever wins will lose to the New York Knicks.
For more sports betting information and plays, follow David on X/Twitter: @futureprez2024
SOUTHERN SECTION SOFTBALL PLAYOFFS
FRIDAY’S RESULTS
FIRST ROUND
DIVISION 1
Murrieta Mesa 10, Valley View 0
Orange Lutheran 10, Millikan 0
Chino Hills 2, El Modena 1
Etiwanda 14, Agoura 13
Palos Verdes 3, Riverside King 2
Cypress 4, Fullerton 2
Ayala 11, Charter Oak 1
Riverside Poly 7, California 3
Norco 2, Marina 1
DIVISION 3
Rancho Cucamonga 9, Paloma Valley 1
Great Oak 5, West Torrance 2
Edison 8, El Segundo 5
El Toro 9, Colton 0
Murrieta Valley 9, Redondo Union 8
North Torrance 5, Beaumont 0
West Ranch 7, Trabuco Hills 6
San Juan Hills 8, Riverside North 7
Oak Park 10, Cerritos Valley Christian 4
Highland 7, Northview 2
La Serna 4, Carter 0
Dos Pueblos 5, Crescenta Valley 0
Liberty 10, Arcadia 3
DIVISION 5
Anaheim 11, Flintridge Sacred Heart 0
Patriot 11, Arrowhead Christian 9
Temple City 9, Rancho Christian 6
Grace 11, Buena Park 0
Crean Lutheran 3, Alemany 2
Shadow Hills 8, Cerritos 3
San Marcos 10, Leuzinger 0
South El Monte 7, Long Beach Wilson 5
Covina 11, Garden Grove Santiago 1
Muir 8, Rio Hondo Prep 7
Santa Monica 6, Katella 5
Ontario 6, Norwalk 2
Northwood 18, Duarte 11
DIVISION 7
Bloomington 9, Fillmore 8
Miller 11, Savanna 3
Santa Ana Calvary Chapel 11, Riverside Springs Magnolia 4
Faith Baptist 18, St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy 4
Twentynine Palms 16, Rancho Alamitos 15
Riverside Notre Dame 12, Costa Mesa 2
Firebaugh 9, Pioneer 8
Chadwick 6, Desert Christian Academy 1
Cathedral City 2, Artesia 1
Orange 9, Bellflower 3
Santa Ana 10, Hawthorne 0
Culver City 9, Temecula Prep 8
DIVISION 8
Banning 20, Redlands Adventist 3
SATURDAY’S SCHEDULE
(Games at 3:15 p.m. unless noted)
SECOND ROUND
DIVISION 1
La Habra at Murrieta Mesa, noon
Chino Hills at Orange Lutheran
Etiwanda at Westlake
La Mirada at Palos Verdes, noon
Garden Grove Pacifica at Cypress, noon
Ayala at JSerra
Sherman Oaks Notre Dame at Oaks Christian, 1 p.m.
Norco at Riverside Poly
DIVISION 2
Bonita at Ganesha, 11 a.m.
Whittier Christian at Warren
Simi Valley at St. Paul
Moorpark at Lakewood St. Joseph, 11 a.m.
Temescal Canyon at San Clemente, 12:30 p.m.
Huntington Beach at Camarillo, Monday
Saugus at Vista Murrieta, 12:30 p.m.
Mater Dei at Gahr, noon
DIVISION 3
Great Oak at Rancho Cucamonga
Edison at El Toro, Monday
Murrieta Valley at North Torrance
West Ranch at San Juan Hills
Riverside Prep at Oak Park, 12:30 p.m.
La Serna at Highland
Dos Pueblos at La Salle, Monday
Villa Park at Liberty, 1 p.m.
DIVISION 4
St. Bonaventure at Harvard-Westlake, 11 a.m.
Apple Valley at Oxnard
Don Lugo at Monrovia, 1:30 p.m.
La Quinta at Mira Costa
Rio Mesa at Mission Viejo, 10 a.m.
Oak Hills at Sunny Hills
Ramona at Paramount
Burbank Burroughs at Rosary, Monday
DIVISION 5
Anaheim vs. Santa Clara at Beck Park
Temple City at Patriot
Crean Lutheran at Grace
Viewpoint at Shadow Hills
San Marcos at Irvine University, noon
South El Monte at Covina
Santa Monica at Muir, 10:30 a.m.
Northwood at Ontario, 1 p.m.
DIVISION 6
Irvine at Lakeside
Alhambra at Heritage
Eastside at Granite Hills, noon
El Monte at St. Genevieve
Sierra Vista vs. Southlands Christian at Brea Canyon Cutoff Rd
Hesperia Christian vs. St. Monica Prep at Memorial Park, 2 p.m.
Arroyo at Lancaster
San Jacinto at Jurupa Valley
DIVISION 7
Bloomington at Ramona Convent
Miller at Santa Ana Calvary Chapel
Faith Baptist at Twentynine Palms, Monday
Firebaugh vs. Riverside Notre Dame at Ramona
Chadwick at Cathedral City
Orange at Victor Valley, 11 a.m.
Santa Ana at Culver City, Monday
Windward at Edgewood, Monday at 3:30 p.m.
DIVISION 8
ACE at Avalon
Bolsa Grande vs. San Bernardino, Monday at San Bernardino College
Workman at Glendale
Cobalt at Santa Rosa Academy
Bell Gardens vs. Brentwood at John Anson Ford Park
Pomona Catholic vs. Capistrano Valley Christian at Laguna Hills, 2 p.m.
Fontana at Banning
Hawthorne MSA at Arroyo Valley, 1 p.m.
Note: Quarterfinals May 20; Semifinals May 23; Finals May 28-30 at Bill Barber Memorial Park, Irvine.
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