Shohei Ohtani and a lesson on the power of listening

Baseball has a knack for reaching out and touching you in ways you would never expect. This happened to me last week in the midst of a tragic event in my life.

My wife passed away at the tender age of 36. It has been devastating to me. There are so many emotions that happen in a short amount of time, not to mention a ton of decisions you have to make that you do not want to make. One of the many tasks is making phone calls to not only loved ones, but people and businesses she had contact with.

An unexpected connection to Shohei Ohtani

A few days after it happened, I grabbed her phone to look at some texts and some calls she got during this time. One of them was from the drugstore, so I had to call them to cancel all of her prescriptions. I don’t know the number, so I open up the browser on her phone and start to do a Google search. One of her previous searches stopped me dead in my tracks … she Googled Shohei Ohtani.

My wife was not a big baseball fan. She liked the local boys when they are playing well, and maybe knew a player or two by name. But Ohtani? He plays on a team over 3,000 miles away from our home. Why would she Google him? Well, here’s the story:

I was looking around Facebook and the baseball groups I am a part of. Ohtani is (obviously) a topic of many conversations. “Is he the best of all time?” “Do you think Ohtani is going to win MVP this season?” Things like that. I was telling her and she just sat on the couch not saying a word. I’m thinking she’s listening, but not really listening. She’s letting me rant. Well, she told me four days after she left this earth that yes, she was listening and, yes, she was interested in what I had to say.

Because of baseball, I got that message that my wife was interested in my ramblings and it was Shohei Ohtani that brought it all together for me to cherish.

Thank you, Shohei.

Thank you baseball.