A call to Shohei Ohtani and a gold medal: How Japan swelled with pride in baseball's Olympic return
YOKOHAMA, Japan – Earlier in the week, Team Japan’s manager, Atsunori Inaba, called an old teammate of his. American and Japanese fans alike will have heard of him: Shohei Ohtani.
In the final two years of his playing career, Inaba had overlapped with a young Ohtani on the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, several years before the two-way star signed with the Angels to play in the best baseball league on the planet. He would invite the rookie over for dinner at his house and to this day, they keep in touch. Inaba, just like everyone else who loves the game, has continued to follow Ohtani’s career with fascination.
Ohtani spent the Olympics playing for the Angels back in the states, along with all the other Major League players. Which is sort of why Inaba reached out.
“I asked Ohtani about how he handles American pitchers,” he told Yahoo Sports via an interpreter.
It’s not clear if Ohtani provided a scouting report. But given his dual allegiances, perhaps Team USA should have asked him how to handle Japanese pitching.
Inside a stadium an hour south of Tokyo that features plaques of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig on the walls of the concourse, Japan defeated a conspicuously not star-studded U.S. team 2-0 on the penultimate night of the Olympics.
The country that brought baseball back to the Olympics — via a provision that allows host organizing committees to propose additional events to complement the IOC’s core — was rewarded with its first-ever gold medal, at the expense of the country that introduced it to the game in the 19th century.
“U.S. is the home country of baseball,” Japan's starter Masato Morishita said via an interpreter right after combining with a cadre of relievers to hold Team USA scoreless.
“That’s the place I would like to play someday.”
The loss sends the baseball capital of the world into the sport’s uncertain Olympic future with a silver medal — to go with a gold from 2000 and a couple of bronzes. (It also won another gold and silver when baseball was a “demonstration sport.”) A Dominican Republic team featuring past and future stars beat Korea earlier in the day to take home bronze.
The literature distributed by USA Baseball touted its appearance in a medal game at all of the sport’s now six Olympics. But that part should have gone without saying; that it has come up short of gold so often is far more illustrative of America’s Olympic baseball program. Since Major League Baseball does allow 40-man roster players to participate in the Olympics, the team that traveled to Japan started with the 1201st best player in the country.
“Team USA is excellent and very strong,” Inaba said. “Having said that, I thought we could win if we could play our baseball.”
The game, which started at 6 a.m. ET, might not be considered the premier Olympic event back in the States, but on Saturday in Yokohama, the Japanese made their affection for the sport felt. An hour before first pitch, a nearby bar played highlights from the first matchup — when Japan handed the U.S. its only other loss of the Olympics. Throughout the tournament, locals had lined up to take pictures of the YOKOHAMA STADIUM signage peeking out over the TOKYO 2020 infrastructure that had been erected around it. After the games, they would wait to wave at the bus carrying the Japanese team, made up of members of the Nippon Professional Baseball that took a month-long hiatus to allow the best players to participate.
The break allowed Nick Martinez, who has played in the NPB since 2018 after four middling years with the Rangers, to start the medal match for Team USA. He gave his hometown squad a chance to take control, striking out seven in five innings of one-run ball. In the bottom of the fourth, he worked out of a bases-loaded jam cleanly and came back to strike out the side in the fifth.
But in the end, that solo shot surrendered in the third to 21-year-old Munetaka Murakami — who is already a two-time All-Star — was all Samurai Japan needed. Another unearned run — eked out on a single, bunt, fielder's choice and a throwing error — provided insurance they never ended up needing.
It was exactly their kind of baseball.
“We often talk about small baseball, what I say is speed and power,” Inaba said. “So steal, and hit-and-run, and bunting — those skills are included in the Japanese baseball.”
And above all else: really good pitching. Playing in the final game before the NPB resumes later this month, Japan’s arms went all out — scattering six hits to a U.S. lineup that had showcased the potential of a number of top prospects throughout the tournament.
Along with the seven minor leaguers who rank in their organization’s top 30 prospects, and the recent, reluctant not-quite-retirees like Todd Frazier and Scott Kazmir, and the guys who had found opportunities abroad was Olympic speed skating silver medalist Eddy Alvarez.
By advancing to the gold-medal game with Team USA, Alvarez was already assured a spot in history as just the third American and sixth ever athlete to medal in both the summer and winter games.
“‘It’s hard to describe it, because it’s bittersweet. But at the same time, it’s an unbelievable feeling,” Alvarez said about leaving Japan with a second silver instead of gold. “Feels like déjà vu. It’s just as heavy as the other one. Same color, little different design, but it’s still an incredible journey, an incredible experience.”
And after the final out in the ninth, Team Japan swarmed the field as the remaining relief pitchers poured out of the dugout. It lined up along the third base foul line, bowed to the 500 or so credentialed fans (staff, volunteers, even some other athletes) packing the sections behind home plate. Decorated veteran manager Mike Scioscia came out of the opposing dugout, tipped his cap and led his team down a handshake line with its hosts and competitors.
As the U.S. team made its way off the field, the Japanese players gathered on the mound and hoisted their manager up into their arms. Several times they tossed Inaba clear into the air, ebullient, jubilant, assured that by winning the gold medal, the strength of Japanese baseball would have to be recognized around the world — even by the game’s home country.
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