How Shohei Ohtani is fulfilling a 'childhood dream' this October

LOS ANGELES — For the past six years, Shohei Ohtani's postseason memories came only as a spectator. 

He remembers working out in Seattle when the Dodgers celebrated their 2020 short-season title. He remembers watching some playoff games last year after elbow surgery wiped out the end of his final season with the Angels. He remembers the disappointment of witnessing other teams do what his team could never accomplish. 

"Overall, it's just really a mixed, complicated feeling," Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton, "not being able to participate in the postseason." 

That feeling is finally gone in 2024, as he gets set to play postseason baseball for the first time in his major-league career Saturday night. 

Twenty-four hours ahead of his first playoff game, Ohtani was asked if he was nervous. His interpreter, Will Ireton, had translated the first two questions to begin Friday's press conference. On this query, though, the reigning National League Player of the Month decided to take it himself. 

"Nope," Ohtani responded succinctly in English before Ireton could even begin the translation. 

"It's always been my childhood dream to be able to be in an important situation, to play in important games," he elaborated later in Japanese. "So I think the excitement of that is greater than anything else that I could possibly feel."

Eight years ago, at just 22 years old, Ohtani's two-way skills helped the 2016 Nippon Ham Fighters win NPB's Japan Series. This winter, he made a change to try to reach his sport's pinnacle again. 

Thirty miles northwest of Anaheim, Ohtani joined a Dodgers team that had made the playoffs 11 straight seasons. Even more enticing, he appreciated that the club's leadership considered that decade, which