Dodgers news: Shohei Ohtani, Fernando Valenzuela, Walker Buehler

Some other World Series-related posts regarding the Dodgers and Yankees for you to start your Saturday morning.

Despite enormous expectations, Shohei Ohtani keeps on going with an “unflappable cool,” writes Chelsea Janes at The Washington Post.

These World Series games in Japan are on in the early morning, which makes for a breakfast and baseball combination. Also a reverence for Ohtani. From Rustin Dodd at The Athletic:

“In the global market, Japanese value and power is (becoming) a little bit weaker, year by year,” said Tomoki Negishi, a baseball marketing executive who worked for Japan’s Pacific League. “So Ohtani-san’s great performance is a beacon.”

To some, he says, Ohtani is “a symbol of Japan in the global market.”

To others?

“He is just a crazy superhero that I’ve never seen before,” Negishi says.

Ohtani’s global popularity has spawned a change from how Major League Baseball markets itself, as commissioner Rob Manfred explained to Evan Drellich at The Athletic:

“When you hear something enough, I think it takes a certain level of arrogance to ignore it, and it certainly was something that was being said,” Manfred said. “As a result, I paid attention to it. It’s a question of focus. The clubs locally did a lot of marketing, and we relied on that local marketing. I think what I’m talking about here is an entirely different focus.”

Walker Buehler talked about trying to finish off hitters after getting two strikes, among many other things, with Michael Rosen at FanGraphs.

Noah Goldberg of the Los Angeles Times had a great idea for a story, finding Dodgers fans with with the same names as current Yankees.

Carlos Torres was the home plate umpire for Game 1 of the World Series on Friday night. Two years ago he was the first Venzuelan umpire to work a World Series game, and Clinton Yates wrote about him back then for Andscape.

Here is Tom Verducci’s narrated video tribute to Fernando Valenzuela that was televised by Fox and shown inside Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

In his obituary of Valenzuela, Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs argues that Valenzuela merits the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award in the Hall of Fame:

Few figures in baseball history have checked those boxes in the manner of Valenzuela. With typical humility, he dodged the tag of “hero,” but beyond his considerable on-field accomplishments, his impact in expanding baseball’s reach, and in serving as “a beacon of hope, inspiration and pride” for Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and other Latinos, is undeniable.

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