After the fifth edition of the World Baseball Classic, Hideki Kuriyama — the manager of Team Japan and a former teammate and roommate of Kazushige Nagashima during their days with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows — appeared on a television program.
During the show, Nagashima suddenly said he wanted to express his gratitude.
Before the WBC, he explained, conversations about baseball had become rare backstage among entertainers and television personalities.
But after Japan’s championship run, people everywhere were talking about baseball again.
And what made him happiest was that the excitement had not disappeared after a few weeks — it was still continuing months later.
Indeed, the WBC generated astonishing television ratings in Japan.
The documentary film about the tournament became a major hit.
And day after day, Shohei Ohtani appeared across news broadcasts, sports programs, and variety shows.
Whether it was truly “baseball popularity” or specifically “Ohtani popularity,” there was no doubt that the performances of Team Japan and Ohtani reignited public interest in a sport many had begun calling outdated.
The decline in baseball’s popularity was not limited to Japan.
In the United States as well, participation and attention toward baseball had been gradually decreasing.
In Japan, youth baseball participation had especially suffered due to the country’s declining birthrate.
Yet with Ohtani’s historic performances, baseball highlights once again flooded television, newspapers, YouTube, and social media.
Ohtani himself was aware of the issue.
Concerned about the decline of baseball’s popularity and participation in both Japan and America, he openly said:
“I want to contribute to bringing baseball’s popularity back.”
Today, Ohtani has become more than just a superstar player.
For many people, he represents baseball itself — a symbol of the sport’s future and, in some ways, its savior.
Source
This quote comes from a Japanese magazine published in Japan and is not currently available in English.
Number PLUS WBC2023: Complete Collector’s Edition — The Memory of Samurai Japan’s Triumph, p.34