Speaking of Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers baseball president Andrew Friedman was full of praise, even joking that the next step was for the second-hand superstar to pitch with his left hand, and said he wanted to see him "pitch to himself." For Dodge, such an assumption is not a fantasy.

In an exclusive interview with The Athletic's Jason Stark, Friedman revealed Ohtani's most shocking detail: When the two hugged after winning last year's title, Ohtani said "nine more times" as if it would be easy to defend his World Series title.

Stark pointed out that Ohtani's words and deeds revealed an aura of "nothing difficult in the world", and Friedman agreed: "He really can do anything. The reporter laughed and asked, "Can he pitch with his left hand or change to his right hand?" to which Friedman humorously responded: "Good question, this is our next step." "

The executive also came up with a crazier idea: "I want to see him hit his own pitch with a Trajekt pitching machine." "As a smart ball machine, the Trajekt Arc can accurately simulate any ball path and even has a large screen to reproduce the pitcher's movements.

Talking about the highlight of signing a number of Japanese stars in recent years, Friedman did not hesitate to choose the "Otani signing night": he had just finished a phone call with his agent Niz Valelo that day, and he was full of confidence in the signing, but 45 minutes later, the explosive news of "Ohtani flying to Toronto" suddenly appeared. To add insult to injury, he called Valelo directly to voicemail, and it took 10 minutes to get a reply.

"Those 10 minutes were definitely the darkest moment of my life. Friedman recalls that even when his agent explained that Ohtani was just training and didn't board the plane, he would still be skeptical: "You're going to let him make an official announcement on social media, so you can't reveal it even on the plane, right?" After receiving an affirmative answer, he admitted that his "anxiety level exploded" at that time.

Now that the dust has settled, Ohtani is about to start his Dodge career as a second-class player. Asked "If you can only watch one game this year, whether to make the big league debut of Ranshi Sasaki or make a comeback for Ohtani", Friedman refused to choose one or the other: "There is no choice at all!" I have to look at both, and the child makes the choice. "