Q 01/05

What nickname is Shohei Ohtani known by?

A) Shotime

B) Sho-Gun

C) Godzilla

D) Big Sho

Answer · why

A) Shotime

Shotime. The 'Sho' in his given name was chosen to evoke the soaring leaps of the samurai hero Minamoto no Yoshitsune; the 'hei' is the first characte...

Q 02/05

In 2023 Ohtani donated about 60,000 of which item to Japan's 20,000 elementary schools?

A) Bats

B) Gloves

C) Caps

D) Helmets

Answer · why

B) Gloves

Gloves. He sent youth gloves to every elementary school in the country, writing that he looked forward to one day sharing a field with someone who gre...

Q 03/05

In which Japanese prefecture was Ohtani born?

A) Hokkaido

B) Osaka

C) Iwate

D) Kanagawa

Answer · why

C) Iwate

Iwate. Winters there bury the fields in snow, which may be why the prefecture was long seen as a baseball backwater that rarely produced stars.

Q 04/05

Ohtani's mother Kayoko was a competitive player in which sport?

A) Volleyball

B) Swimming

C) Softball

D) Badminton

Answer · why

D) Badminton

Badminton. Kayoko later handled his pro salary too, paying about $1,000 a month into his account to teach him to budget, and his old coach said he bar...

Q 05/05

Who coached Ohtani's boyhood baseball teams?

A) His older brother

B) His grandfather

C) His father

D) His mother

Answer · why

C) His father

His father. Toru, a car-plant worker and former corporate-league outfielder, felt he had given his elder son's baseball too little time and resolved t...