Shohei Ohtani high-fives heckler after hitting home run

While the Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani celebrated his 45th circuit of the season on the baseball field on Sunday, he made a quick stop: jogging to a spectator who had heckled him all afternoon.

On the way to return to the dodgers canoe during the ninth round of the match against the Padres of San Diego, Ohtani set his hand to a fan of Padres, making a heckling and the tapping in the back – a gesture encountered a lot of fun.

The Dodgers won 8-2 on their longtime rival after the match at the Petco Park in San Diego.

“It was very out of character from Shohei,” the Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, added to journalists, adding that the heckling “wore [Ohtani] throughout the game “.

“It was therefore good to see Shohei to introduce a high-feve of him. It was great. It was fun. It was good to see Shohei showing his personality.”

The heckling, sitting next to the dodgers canoe, was “very boring because he is in my right ear the whole match,” said Roberts.

Ohtani, a rare MLB player because he is elite both at the time of height and strike, is known as a “unicorn” and is considered one of the best players in the sport.

He joined the Dodgers in 2023 with a record contract of $ 700 million (520 million pounds sterling). In Japan, it is celebrated as the largest baseball export in the country.

The Dodgers and the Padres share what some call the “best rivalry of baseball”, with emotions of fans that are at the top of the matches.

Last October, an eliminatory match between the two Dodger Stadium teams was arrested for almost 10 minutes when Dodgers fans launched baseball balls and beer on a paddle player. A few days later, Petco Park officials warned spectators not to throw things up on the field or make abusive comments.

In June, players and managers of the two teams cleaned the benches and went to the field, shouting and pushing themselves after the Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. was placed on the right wrist.

Last weekend, the Dodgers were subjected to many rays of the stands, which amplified when they lost the first two games. But the hoots became silent and the cheers broke out after Ohtani struck the circuit – his first against the paadres this season.

With 31 games to play in the season for both teams, the rivals are now linked to 74-57.

“We are playing exceptional baseball. So I don’t tend to be too taken today,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said on Sunday. “We could not be more delighted. We are tied for our division advance and we expect to win it.”