By Jason Lim
The most exciting sports moment of 2023 has to be the final out at the World Baseball Classic when Shohei Ohtani struck out his Los Angeles Angels teammate and one of the best hitters in baseball, Mike Trout, to propel Japan as the world champions of baseball. It was one of those moments that only sports can produce, an impossible twist of fate that brought the two teammates together to face each other for the honor and glory of their respective nations as the eyes of the world bore into their every single frown, grimace, and, finally, transcendent joy.
That’s the word that seems to be often used when describing Shohei: transcendent. According to the Oxford Dictionary, transcendent means “beyond or above the range of normal or physical human experience.” It certainly fits. His prowess as one of the best hitters and pitchers in baseball year after year is something that hasn’t been seen since Babe Ruth. And you know that “the Babe” was special because we are still talking about him with awe decades after he last swung a bat. Just the thought of the same person potentially winning the Cy Young Award and homerun title in the same year is absolutely outrageous.
That such a once-in-a-century player is Japanese is certainly meaningful to Asian Americans. NBC quotes Stanley Thangaraj, the author of “Desi Hoop Dreams: Pickup Basketball and the Making of Asian American Masculinity” as saying, “The fact we’ve had someone become the face of MLB is an incredible move forward for the Asian and the Asian America community.” But meaningful in what way?
Growing up in the U.S., there was scant Asian American representation in the world of professional sports. My earliest memory is of Lenn Haruki Sakata, the shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles when they won the World Series in 1983. He was a utility player with below-average abilities, but he had his moment in the sun that year. His was the first Asian face that I remember seeing on TV playing professional sports, but it was just a passing observation. Not sure what it meant to me at the time. Maybe I was too young.
The next Asian sports figures that came into my consciousness were the three Park’s in the 1990’s. We had Park Chan-ho of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Park Ji-sung of Manchester United and Park Se-ri in the LPGA tournaments. The three Park’s were different from Sakata because they reached the pinnacle of their professions. Park Chan-ho was an ace for a few years, Park Ji-sung was a key cog in the Man United winning machine and Park Se-ri was an LPGA Hall of Famer. Of these three, Park Se-ri was the one who really stood out for me, since she excelled in an individual sport and was a larger-than-life golf personality during an era when golf was king. Her weekend achievements became the stuff of mainstream legend talked about on Monday around the water coolers in offices everywhere. I definitely felt a certain elevation of status through ethnic osmosis.
Then the next Asian sports star on my radar was Jeremy Lin of “Linsanity” fame. Maybe being a lifelong Knicks fan had something to do with it, but those six weeks when Lin transformed himself into a combination of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant were magical. Lin was also the most similar to my own Asian American experience since he was someone who grew up in the U.S., went through the typical tiger mom upbringing in the most competitive secondary school area in the country in the heart of Silicon Valley, went to Harvard, and then became a basketball player. In that sense, he was very meaningful to me as an Asian American since he showed that we Asian American kids have more than three career options – doctor, lawyer or engineer – when we grow up. True, he was also a one-in-a-million, but inspirational nonetheless, in a relatable way.
Now, we have the $700 million man in Shohei Ohtani. A Japanese player who doesn’t speak English is the new face of baseball. Nay, he is the reigning face of all professional sports, at least in the U.S.
Going back to what this means to Asian Americans, I have to admit that I still don’t know. Meaning is such a personal thing, contextualized by time and circumstances to an individual. Perhaps, as a contrarian, I automatically react badly to someone trying to imbue meaning to me just because a stranger who happens to be Asian does something amazing. At the same time, however, I can’t totally dismiss the importance of positive representation in mainstream media because it is impactful to self-image and self-esteem for young Asian American kids trying to define who they are in this world.
All that is to say, I celebrate Ohtani’s incredible talent, work ethic, calm demeanor, obvious passion for the game, and the countless intangibles that make him a truly unique athlete of our times. I also know that his historical success is meaningful to many Asian Americans in positive ways, even if it’s just to show that such excellence is achievable to people from all walks of life.
So, here’s to Shohei. May you never stop transcending.
Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect The Korea Times’ editorial stance
The $700 million transcendent man
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17.12.2023
By Jason Lim The most exciting sports moment of 2023 has to be the final out at the World Baseball Classic when Shohei Ohtani struck out his Los Angeles Angels teammate and one of the best hitters in baseball, Mike Trout, to propel Japan as the world champions of baseball. It was one of those moments that only sports can produce, an impossible twist of fate that brought the two teammates together to face each other for the honor and glory of their respective nations as the eyes of the world bore into their every single frown, grimace, and, finally, transcendent joy.
That’s the word that seems to be often used when describing Shohei: transcendent. According to the Oxford Dictionary, transcendent means “beyond or above the range of normal or physical human experience.” It certainly fits. His prowess as one of the best hitters and pitchers in baseball year after year is something that hasn’t been seen since Babe Ruth. And you know that “the Babe” was special because we are still talking about him with awe decades after he last swung a bat. Just the thought of the same person potentially winning the Cy Young Award and homerun title in the same year is absolutely outrageous.
That such a once-in-a-century player is Japanese is certainly meaningful to Asian Americans. NBC quotes Stanley Thangaraj, the........
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