Sho-Time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played Spiral-Bound | July 19, 2022
Jeff Fletcher
★★★☆☆+ from 101 to 500 ratings
Sho-Time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played
The story behind Shohei Ohtani’s legendary MVP season asbaseball’s greatest two-way player—dominant pitcher and DH with otherworldlypower at the plate—from his early days in Japan to his historic 2021 season,the 2023 World Baseball Classic, and more!
Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels plays baseball likeno other athlete on the planet—an electric two-way player awarded the 2021American League Most Valuable Player, the only player ever named an All-StarSelection as both a two-way dominant pitcher and elite hitter, a member of Time100’s most influential people of 2021, and now the MVP of the 2023 WorldBaseball Classic. In Ohtani’s first two-way game of the 2021 season, he threw apitch at 100 mph and hit a homer that left his bat at 115 mph, a confluence offeats unmatched by anyone else in the sport. He's racked up eye-poppingachievements throughout his career, but awards and numbers tell only part ofhis amazing story.
In Sho-Time, award-winning sportswriter JeffFletcher—who has covered Ohtani more than any other American journalist—chartsOhtani’s path through Japanese baseball to a championship with the Nippon-HamFighters, the recruiting war to bring him to the majors, his AL Rookie of theYear campaign, subsequent injury-riddled seasons, the historic 2021 season, his2023 World Baseball Classic, and beyond. Fletcher weaves in the history oftwo-way players—including Babe Ruth and unsung Negro Leagues players like“Bullet” Joe Rogan, Martin Dihigo, and Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe—and theJapanese athletes who preceded Ohtani in the majors. With insight from Japaneseand American baseball front office personnel, managers, scouts, athletictrainers, ballplayers, and more, Sho-Time breaks down the physics ofOhtani’s game, his technologically advanced training, his international fame,and the role his role leading baseball into a new era.
“Shohei is unique, obviously, someone we have never seen before. What he does and how he does it so easily is just different. But such a big part of who he is […is his] pure joy for the game and the competition. […] With all of the success he’s had, he still has that joy. […] That’s Shohei: always competing and having fun doing it.”
—from the foreword by Joe Maddon, World Series champion and former Los Angeles Angels Manager
“Shohei Ohtani was the biggest story of the 2021 season, and perhaps any season. In Sho-Time, Jeff Fletcher masterfully chronicles not only what Ohtani accomplished in ‘21, but also provides the full context to his achievements. From Ohtani’s origin story in Japan to his recruitment by the Angels, his injury-marred 2019 and ‘20 seasons to his place in history next to Babe Ruth, Fletcher’s book is the definitive look at Ohtani’s two-way majesty.”
—Ken Rosenthal, Senior Writer at The Athletic
“Historians will be talking about Shohei Ohtani's 2021 season for decades, and thankfully the baseball gods arranged for Jeff Fletcher to be there to cover baseball's best two-way player ever in the midst of a pandemic, to bear witness and mine details and write with grace about the sport's most incredible individual performance.”
—Buster Olney, ESPN
“Shohei Ohtani is a singular phenomenon in baseball, and there’s nobody better to tell his story than Jeff Fletcher. Sho-Time is the essential portrait of baseball’s most captivating player, chronicling Ohtani’s rise from child prodigy in the snowy Iwate Prefecture to two-way MVP sensation under the bright lights of Major League Baseball. Fletcher goes beyond the carefully scripted press conferences, revealing in vivid detail the challenges and triumphs of a baseball journey like no other.”
—Tyler Kepner, The New York Times
“OK, I’ll admit it. I’m obsessed with Shohei Ohtani. I missed out on watching that Babe Ruth guy, but I feel lucky to have watched this guy. I even thought I knew a lot about him until I opened my copy of Jeff Fletcher’s brilliant new book. Sho-Time taught me so much I didn’t know about the most unique baseball player of our lifetimes. From the moment I read that phrase, ‘10-tool player,’ I was hooked!”
—Jayson Stark, The Athletic
“This is one the best baseball books ever published relevant to Japan-U.S. relations. Jeff Fletcher is the most experienced of the Angels beat writers, and usually the first one to ask Shohei Ohtani questions after the game. I admire the way he has exchanged information with Japanese writers for four years. This book is the fruit of his efforts. I always follow Jeff’s work in order to find new information relevant to Ohtani or Major League Baseball.”
—Hideki Okuda, Sports Nippon
"I thought I knew everything about Shohei Ohtani because I had seen all of his games and interviewed him for the first time in Tempe in 2018, but I didn’t quite know the extent of everything he did to redesign himself on the physical and mental side until after I read Sho-Time. I really appreciated learning about Ohtani’s dedication to be the best, starting from his days in Japan. I realized how much it took for him to get to this point, to have the best year in baseball history.”
—Mark Gubicza, Angels television analyst