MLBcom, the official website of the U.S. Major League Baseball, and Yahoo Sports, the Japanese media, reported on the 25th (Korea Standard Time) that Otani gave a sports car to express his gratitude to his wife after being handed over his number from Joe Kelly (35), a pitcher of the Dodgers. Joe Kelly is a veteran bullpen pitcher who will mark his 13th year in the Major League next year. After joining the St. Louis Cardinals in 2012, he moved to the Los Angeles Dodgers in December 2018 after playing for the Boston Red Sox. After playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers for three seasons from the 2019 season, he headed to the Chicago White Sox ahead of the 2022 season. Then, in July, he returned to his former team, the Dodgers, and played No. 17.
Joe Kelly pitched in 42 games during the 2023 season, winning two games and losing five with a 4.12 ERA. After returning to the Dodgers last summer, he played in 11 games, recording one win, no loss, two holds, and an ERA of 1.74. He still showed off his strong pitching by recording 19 strikeouts in 10 ⅓ innings. As a result, the Dodgers renewed his contract with him for a year worth 8 million dollars, allowing him to play in the 2024 season. As a result, he played 450 games, recording 53 wins and 37 losses with an ERA of 3.95.807 innings, he had 762 hits (969 home runs), 339 walks, 732 strikeouts, 390 runs (354 earned runs) with a batting average of 0.248 and 1.36 WHIP (on-base-plus-slugging percentage). As his performance shows, he was a veteran with a lot of backbone in the Major League.
However, Joe Kelly’s number is 17. It was the same number that Ohtani wore when he joined the Los Angeles Angels in 2018. When he played for the Nippon Ham in the Japanese professional baseball league, Ohtani wore the number 11 but started his career as the number 17 in the Major League. Ohtani also played with the Los Angeles Angels for six seasons without changing his number 17. However, as Ohtani joined the Dodgers, the situation became subtle between Joe Kelly, the original owner of the number 17, and Ohtani, who is creating a myth in the Major League. 사설 토토사이트
Major U.S. media such as MLB.com and The Athletic reported on the 10th that “Ohtani has signed a 10-year, $700 million (about 924 billion won) contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.” It was the largest-ever contract in North American professional sports as well as in sports around the world. Previously, the largest-ever contract in the history of Major League Baseball was 426.5 million (about 556.4 billion won) for 12 years, which was signed by the Los Angeles Angels and Mike Trout ahead of the 2019 season. In terms of FA, it was Aaron Judge’s nine-year, $360 million (about 469.6 billion won) contract with the New York Yankees last year.
With such a big shot coming to the Dodgers, even Kelly, who has gained considerable experience in the Major League, couldn’t help but think about giving up his number. After making his Major League debut, he wore No. 58 and No. 56, respectively, and after playing with the Dodgers in 2019, he wore No. 17 on the mound until the 2023 season. Joe Kelly was also playing with the Chicago White Sox.
In the end, it was Kelly who moved first. “I played in the Major League for 11 years. I was twice as good as Ohtani,” Kelly said on a recent appearance on a podcast on Odaisy Sports in the U.S. “I survived for 11 years. If you give me a nice car, I will give up my number 17.” Of course, that was a joke for fun. “Even if they don’t give me a car, I will give Ohtani my number,” he continued. In an interview with other media outlets, Kelly said. “No. 17 was a number that I grew attached to, as I had never given up on anyone. However, it is an honor to give Ohtani my number. If Ohtani continues to perform well, he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Then I will be able to make my number permanent.”
However, Joe Kelly’s joke for fun became a reality. His wife, Ashley Kelly, started the “#OhTake17” campaign to give up her number 17 to Ohtani through her social media. In the video, she threw away her Dodgers uniform with the number 17 written on it one by one. She then revealed her new uniform for the 2024 season by writing “99” directly on the back of her husband wearing a white t-shirt with nothing written on it. She was just as cheerful as her husband.
Ashley Kelly then released another video on Monday. A silver sports car was parked in front of her house, which was a car that Ohtani gave her. When she saw Ohtani’s gift, she said with a disbelief face and expressed her joy. “That’s your car. Ohtani gave me that car,” her husband said to his wife. “Otani has expressed his desire to give you a car.” On social media, she said, “The moment I opened the door, I had the most wonderful moment of my life. Thank you, Ohtani.”
There is another teammate who is paying attention to the identity story of Ohtani and Joe Kelly. It is Yoshinobu Yamamoto (25), a Japanese pitcher with the same nationality as Ohtani. The LA Dodgers have not officially announced their contract with Yamamoto yet. However, joining the team is already a given. On the 22nd, MLBcom and ESPN reported that “Yamamoto signed a 12-year contract with the LA Dodgers for a total of 325 million dollars (about 423 billion won).” The Dodgers, which invested 700 million dollars in catching Ohtani earlier, poured an astronomical amount of 1.025 billion dollars into recruiting two Japanese pitchers.
Meanwhile, Ohtani played in 701 games as a batter during six seasons in the Major League, marking a batting average of 0.274 (681 hits in 2,483 times at bat), 171 home runs, 437 RBIs, 428 runs scored, 86 steals, a 0.366 slugging percentage of 0.556 and an OPS of 0.922. As a pitcher, he started all 86 games and posted a 38-19 record with a 3.01 ERA, while recording 608 strikeouts, 173 walks, and 1.08 WHIP in 481 ⅔ innings. Ohtani, who won the 2018 American League Rookie of the Year award, was unanimously awarded the MVP in 2021 and 2023. In the 2023 season, Ohtani played 135 games at bat, batting .304 with 44 home runs, 95 RBIs, 102 runs, 20 steals, on-base percentage .412 with a slugging percentage of 0.654 OPS of 1.066 and 23 games on the mound, leaving him with a 10-5 record, an ERA of 3.14 and 167 strikeouts in 132 innings, respectively.
