The chants were loud. They were clear in dictation — and intent.
Oh, yes, Shohei Ohtani heard them.
"Come to Seattle!" Mariners fans packing T-Mobile Park chanted in unison during each of Ohtani's two plate appearances. The Angels slugging and pitching phenomenon was the American League's starting designated hitter batting second in the 93rd MLB All-Star Game Tuesday evening.
He struck out in the first inning. Leading off the fourth, he walked on a close, 3-2 pitch high out of the strike zone. Ohtani checked his swing, as the AL lost a 2-1 lead and the game to the NL 3-2.
Remarkably in a sport where players routinely toss equipment around without thinking about it, Ohtani then took off his white arm guards. He placed them with his bat neatly in line with the first-base foul line. Then picked them up and handed them carefully to the AL bat boy who had jogged to meet him on Ohtani's way to first base on the walk.
He is, in every way, unique.
Of course he was asked after he left the game midway through it about the "Come to Seattle!" chants.
"Every time I come here, the fans are passionate," Ohtani said after he left the game midway through it, via his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara.
He spoke in the main interview room beneath the main level of T-Mobile Stadium's seating area.
He could have spoken inside the mammoth, new Washington State Convention Center across downtown. It still may not have housed all the people that sought to hear him speak about Tuesday's game. Reporters, Japanese-, English- and Spanish-speaking alike, crammed into Ohtani's press conference and spilled into the hallway down toward the teams' clubhouses.
Ohtani was the first player introduced to walk down the red carpet along Pike Place Market at a uniquely Seattle pregame event earlier Tuesday.
"Sho-HEI!" fans yelled as he strolled down Pike Place.
"There he is!" others yelled.
"I've actually spent a couple offseasons in Seattle," Ohtani said after his All-Star week here was done. "I like the city. It's good."
Heck, he even played the game wearing the Mariners-green jerseys the American League had for this All-Star Game.
The context: If you haven't heard — which is to say, if you don't know what a baseball looks like — the AL's leading home-run hitter AND ace pitcher becomes a free agent at the end of this season. It's going to take the largest free-agent contract in baseball history, maybe at least $600 million, maybe $1 billion, for a team to sign him.
Many around baseball saw Ohtani's choice to sign with the Angels in 2018 as his preference for a smaller marker. That was after his Japanese League team posted him for millions to come to MLB and the U.S. A smaller market, that is, in Orange County instead of Los Angeles, New York or Chicago.
Seattle is a gateway to Asia with natural and cultural links to Japan. But it is not Los Angeles, New York or Chicago.
"It doesn't really matter to me if it's a bigger or smaller market," Ohtani said. "The Angels fans, they come watch the Angels because they love the team. I want to perform my best for them. The stuff that I can control, whatever I can control, I want to do my best at it."
He has 159 home runs in 5 1/2 seasons in the majors. His career on-base-plus-slugging percentage is .910. That's better than Mike Schmidt, Ken Griffey Jr., Mo Vaughn, Willie Stargell and Willie McCovey had in their careers.
Oh, yeah: Ohtani is also 31-15 as a starting pitcher the last 2 1/2 seasons. He'd have pitched Tuesday in the All-Star game — he's 7-4 this season — if not for a blister he got recently on his pitching hand. He lled the American League last season with 11.87 strikeouts per nine innings pitched.
All for an Angels team that hasn't made the playoffs with him and Mike Trout playing for them.
That, he said Monday, is what he values most in wanting from his future in the majors: Winning. Playoff games. The World Series.
"Those feelings get stronger year by year. It sucks to lose," Ohtani said.
"I want to win," Ohtani said. "It gets stronger every year."
The Mariners spent relative pennies in free agency last season.
Or do you think A.J. Pollock is a big splash?
That has all of the Pacific Northwest wondering if the M's are saving their biggest bucks for what this winter will be baseball's biggest prize.
"He's the most incredible athlete I've ever seen in baseball," American League manager Dusty Baker said. "Runs like the wind."
Baker is 74 years old. He played the first eight seasons of his major-league career as an Atlanta Braves teammate of Hank Aaron, beginning as a rookie in 1968.
Monday, during another of his crammed media availability session, this one on the warning track of the stadium's outfield, Ohtani made it obvious Seattle isn't just another MLB stop for him.
"I actually spent two offseasons in Seattle, a total of, like, four months, maybe," he said.
Then he said what he basically repeated Tuesday, what obviously has become his standard line about the city: "I've felt it's a very nice city. Clean. I've really liked it."
When he got to T-Mobile Park Monday for All-Star workout day and went into the home clubhouse for the first time in his six-year career as an AL West-rival Angel, Ohtani sought the old locker spot of his hero.
"Obviously, I've played at this field before, but I'd never gone on the home side," Otani said. "I just checked it out a little earlier."
He found Ichiro's spot, along the front, right side of the M's clubhouse. Ohtani and the American League All-Stars used Seattle's clubhouse as the home team at T-Mobile Park this week.
"I was kind of wondering where Ichiro was sitting," Ohtani said. "So it was kind of cool seeing the home side.
"Obviously, I've played here a few times over the past few years. Sometimes I see Ichiro and I'll say hi to him," Ohtani said. "I remember the first time I came here I was like, 'Oh, this is the place I always watched on TV.'
"So that was very special."
It was called Safeco Field for Ichiro then.
Could it be called Ohtani's next home field?
