Two-way baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani's popularity not only extends beyond the United States and Japan, but beyond baseball as well, one of the founders of his Canadian fan club said recently.
In 2017, when Ohtani was seeking an MLB team to play for, David Pollard, a 74-year-old teacher trainer founded Ohtani Canada along with other educators. Although the Japanese star chose not to play for their home team, the Toronto Blue Jays, the group became as enamored of Ohtani's character as his eye-popping baseball skills.
"Ohtani is a role model," Pollard said during his trip early this month to meet fan club members living in Japan.
After Ohtani joined the Los Angeles Angels, Pollard traveled to the team's Arizona spring training site in 2018, followed him around to the different parks in the Phoenix area. With some limited media exposure, Ohtani Canada's social media followers ballooned to around 26,000.
A teacher for over 50 years, Pollard is aware of the recent emergence of textbooks in Japan making use of lessons about Ohtani.
Pollard, a faculty advisor at Toronto's Tyndale University, said he and Ohtani Canada co-founder Jon Yeh put together a picture collection of "Shohei doing things" to help teach character-building to elementary school students in their diverse multicultural city.
"Each picture represents a different quality of the man," Pollard said of photos such as Ohtani being frustrated, crying, picking up trash on the field, cleaning the halls as a high school student.
"We show the pictures, and ask kids, 'What does this tell you about the man?' A picture of him in a kimono shows he respects and values his culture. Because it's Ohtani, it gets even the toughest kids' attention."
Pollard's main objective in Japan was to present a donation to the Japan Organ Transplant Network, a charity supported by Ohtani after he learned of a young boy named Shohei Kawasaki who needed a heart transplant in 2019.
"We have a huge fan base and we want to support Ohtani and his interests with his compassion and his big heart that he'll choose ventures that make a difference in peoples' lives," Pollard said.
"We reached out to teachers who follow us, and in three days we had $500."
With Ohtani poised to become a free agent at the end of the current MLB season, there's a good chance Ohtani will leave the Angels and be playing somewhere else next season.
"Wherever he goes, we will support Shohei," Pollard said.
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