Shohei Ohtani doesn't want to fight? Japanese head coach Hirokazu Ibata revealed the inside story behind it

The 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC) is expected to kick off in March next year, and the defending Japanese team has already begun preparations and traveled to the United States to visit a number of Japanese stars in the United States during spring training, including superstar Shohei Ohtani. However, according to the "Weekly Bunchun" article, the visit process was not as smooth as the outside world imagined, and even once made the head coach of the Japanese team, Hirokazu Izata, have doubts about "whether Otani is unwilling to play in the classic".

Looking back at the 2023 Classic championship match, Ohtani came to the rescue in the 9th game of the championship, and the strikeout American captain Mike Trout (Mike Trout) won the championship for Japan with his own hands. However, although he has publicly expressed his intention to compete in the classics again, it has recently been rumored that he lacks interest in competing.

According to the article, a person familiar with the Japanese job revealed that Otani once said to Idata, "Wouldn't it be better to choose those two people (Yushin Yamamoto and Ronki Sasaki) than to choose me in the classic?" These words made Idata, who had contact with Otani for the first time, stunned for a while, and even doubted whether Otani was down, so he specially discussed and confirmed with the people around him.

Ibata explained that since he had no intersection with Otani's past, he couldn't be sure whether his words were humble, joking, or sincere. Unlike the previous session, which was led by his mentor Hideki Kuriyama and had a deep master-apprentice friendship with Otani, the relationship between Ida and Otani was relatively weak, so it was naturally easier to misunderstand.

The article also pointed out that at that time, Yamamoto and Sasaki came to greet each other, and Ohtani took the opportunity to mention the two, and Ibata later thought, "He said, 'Please choose those two', and I should just hope that they will also be considered."

As for whether Otani has made it clear that he wants to participate, Ida admits, "It was mainly a greeting that day, and I also mentioned in passing that the competition will be coming next year, which is probably the extent of that." He added, "I said to him, 'I hope you can participate,' and he replied, 'I'll try,' to which he replied. It's not a clear commitment, but for me, it's a great way to get a response."