Shohei Ohtani grew up naturally surrounded by sports, in part because both of his parents were athletes.
As a child, he played badminton with his mother and attended swimming school. He was also capable at soccer and basketball, but more than anything else, he loved baseball.

“When I was little, I only practiced about twice a week, but I really couldn’t wait for the next weekend to come,” he recalls.

Ohtani has also said that he feels fortunate to have encountered baseball in the environment of Iwate, rather than in youth baseball systems that resemble the intense, highly disciplined culture of high school baseball.
In regions such as Kanto or Kansai, there are teams that train very rigorously and even compete in international tournaments at an early age. While those environments can produce strong teams, Ohtani personally values the fact that he was able to play baseball in a relaxed and enjoyable way as a child.

The reason is simple.
Because baseball was fun, he never once came to dislike it.

At the same time, he never lost his desire to improve.
Believing that there were surely far better players across the country, he continued to think, “I want to get better,” and “There’s still so much more to work on.”

Some professional players look back on their high school years and say they never want to return to that time.
For Ohtani, however, baseball was always something enjoyable — a sport that continued to help him grow.

Source

This quote comes from a Japanese book published in Japan and is not currently available in English.

Opening a Path, Crossing the Ocean: The True Story of Shohei Ohtani, p.100