Professional baseball’s SSG Landers Choo Shin-soo (42) advised younger players to learn from the performance of LA Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani (30).
“I’m embarrassed to see my name and Ohtani’s name together,” Choo said in an interview before a game against KT Wiz in the 2024 Shinhan Bank SOL Bank KBO League at KT Wiz Park in Suwon, South Korea, on March 21.
Shin-Soo Choo, who has a career batting average of .275 with 218 home runs, 782 RBIs, 961 runs scored, 157 doubles, and an OPS of .824 in 1,652 games (6087 hits, 1,671 at-bats) in the major leagues, held the record for most home runs by an Asian player in Major League Baseball until recently, but that record was broken this year. Ohtani surpassed Shin-Soo Choo with 223 career home runs in the major leagues.
Oh, who is one of the best superstars in the major leagues, has a career batting average of .277/9 (3086-for-860) with 223 home runs, 559 RBI, 553 runs scored, 138 doubles, a .940 OPS, and a 38-19 record with a 3.01 ERA in 86 games (481⅔ innings) as a pitcher. He underwent elbow surgery last September and is playing exclusively as a designated hitter this year, but he still put together a historic season, batting .603 (179-for-603) with 52 home runs, 122 RBI, 125 runs scored, 52 doubles, and a 1.013 OPS in 151 games.
He became the first player in Major League Baseball history to reach 50 home runs and 50 RBIs.
“Ohtani is a major leaguer among major leaguers,” said Shin-Soo Choo, ”and I’m really proud of him as an Asian player because he did something that even players with great physicality couldn’t do. It’s not something to be compared to me. 토토사이트 Ohtani should be compared to players like Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth, not me. I think he’s an incredible player, I don’t even know if he’s human,” he said of Ohtani’s performance.
Shin-Soo Choo, who played for Seattle, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Texas from 2005 to 2020, spent seven years with Texas from 2014 to 2020. “Actually, when he told me he was pitching and hitting, I thought, ‘You’re doing two things in the major leagues?’” said Shin-Soo Choo, who recalled the first time he saw Ohtani, ”So I thought he would stop doing one after a while, but when I saw him do both, I realized that with natural talent and hard work, there’s nothing you can’t do.”
Now, beyond Japan,
Ohtani is the envy of baseball aspirants in South Korea, the United States, and other countries around the world who dream of becoming superstars. “When there are good players, it’s okay to admire them,” says Choo. But I want you to stop admiring them and see the process of how they became such a player,” he said, urging the younger generation to think more deeply about how Ohtani became such a player.
“You don’t become a player like Ohtani by just going to bed and waking up and playing baseball,” said Choo, who laughed. ‘I think one way is to think about how he worked hard and how he spent his 24 hours a day, and try to imitate him. Don’t just admire him, but look at the process of how he became such a player,’ he said, emphasizing that hard work is as important as talent.
