Shohei Ohtani’s former baseball coach and teammates in Japan remember a star

Shohei Ohtani, #17 of the Los Angeles Angels, pitches during a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Angel Stadium on June 21, in Anaheim, Calif.

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MIZUSAWA, Japan — Los Angeles Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani is often described as a once-in-a century talent, especially for his dual skills as pitcher and hitter.

To understand how Ohtani became such a baseball prodigy, it helps to journey to Ohtani’s hometown of Mizusawa, in northern Japan’s Iwate prefecture, to see where he got his start in baseball.

Ohtani’s Little League team, the Mizusawa Pirates, still practices every weekend at a diamond sandwiched between a country road and a river where salmon swim upstream from the Pacific Ocean.

Ohtani played here in the early 2000s, between the ages of 8 and 14.

“He and his parents came to this field to see me,” recalls coach Shoji Asari, who founded the Pirates.

Asari thought that Ohtani might like to join his school’s softball team with the rest of his friends.

A yearbook from the early 2000s shows a young Shohei Ohtani with his former Little League team, the Mizusawa Pirates.

Anthony Kuhn/NPR

“But he looked straight into my eyes and said, ‘I want to play hardball with this team,’” says Asari. “I thought this boy could make it big, and he gave that impression, but he was very skinny at the time.”

Ohtani’s capabilities quickly surpassed his teammates’. Batting left-handed, he often hit home runs over the right-field fence and into the river….