Looting in LA after Dodgers win world title

Los Angeles mayor condemns violence after Shohei Ohtani makes Major League Baseball history

Shops were looted and fires lit in the streets during wild celebrations in Los Angeles after the Dodgers won the baseball World Series.
Following a thrilling victory over the New York Yankees on Wednesday night, thousands of jubilant fans descended on the city’s downtown area to mark the Major League Baseball (MLB) team’s second title in five years.
The Hollywood sign was dimmed to show a single ‘D’ for Dodgers and there were also joyous scenes in Japan, home of Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ star player.
But some of the celebrations soon turned to chaos in parts of LA, with police donning riot gear to control the unrest.
One video posted on social media appeared to show looters removing boxes of merchandise from a Nike store.
Police said objects were thrown at officers. Photos showed fires being set in the streets and people throwing fireworks.
Another video showed a bus on fire in the street as Dodgers fans looked on.
Karen Bass, the mayor of LA, said: “As we celebrate this achievement and in the coming days, violence will not be tolerated.
“LAPD is currently on tactical alert and has activated a strategic plan to protect communities and businesses, which includes proactive deployment and a coordinated strategy with regional partners to ensure that all Angelenos are able to celebrate safely.”
Other fans gathered peacefully in celebration, waving their team’s flags and cheering.
Their delight was replicated in Japan on Thursday morning after Ohtani capped an outstanding first season as a Dodger with his first World Series title.
The 30-year-old, widely considered the best baseball player since Babe Ruth, has inspired a new generation of children to take up the sport in his homeland.
Ohtani said on Japanese television: “I want to thank my Japanese fans for coming all the way to cheer me on this season. That cheering gave me some energy so I’m glad I could return the gratitude with my winning.”
People milled around the edge of the Ginza shopping area in central Tokyo on Thursday afternoon as special newspaper editions rolled off the presses, proclaiming Ohtani’s achievement after the Dodgers secured a 7-6 win in New York.
The headline in Japanese in the Sports Nippon newspaper read: “No.1 in the world. Ohtani beats the Yankees.”
Yasuko Shibata, an 80-year-old woman who regularly watches Ohtani’s games, said: “His presence is huge. He is a source of my energy. When he doesn’t do well, I also feel blue.”
Another fan, Hideki Shinohara, standing near the Ginza underground entrance as the game finished, said: “He is the pride of Japan. You cannot describe him with just ‘amazing’. You need to invent a new word.”
Over the course of the season, Ohtani’s record-shattering success in the sport known as America’s pastime has transfixed Japan – and convinced many players that they should no longer feel inferior to the American players who have long dominated the global game.
Ohtani has pulverised Major League Baseball’s records for home runs and stolen bases over the course of the 2024 season and, had it not been for elbow surgery at the tail end of last season, he may well have broken pitching records for the Los Angeles Dodgers as well.
Ohtani became the first player in MLB history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a season, with 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases to his name going into the 2024 World Series.
He suffered a shoulder injury in the second game of the series but shook it off for game four in the best-of-seven series to help his team win the title.
Many baseball aficionados say Ohtani is the greatest player the sport has seen, elevating him above stars such as Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.
“Ohtani has done things that have never been done before on a baseball field,” said Robert Whiting, the best-selling author of a number of books that examine Japan through the lens of baseball.
He added: “He pitches at more than 100mph, which is faster than most American players, he can consistently hit a ball more than 500 feet and now he has more than 50 home runs and stolen bases in a season..
“It’s unheard of. He has already easily eclipsed all the other Japanese who have come to the US and you can certainly make the argument that he is the greatest ever player in the Major Leagues.
“For years, Japanese have been like dogs chasing a car trying to catch up with American players. With Ohtani, they have finally caught that car.”
Los Angeles and the pinnacle of baseball is a long way from Mizusawa, the rural town in north-east Japan where Ohtani was born but soon began to turn heads as an extremely capable two-way player, equally at home pitching as he was batting.
Ohtani’s mother played badminton for Japan at high school level and his father worked at a nearby car factory, playing amateur baseball in his spare time.
The youngest of three children, Ohtani joined his primary school team and quickly earned a reputation as being a “yakyu shonen” – a boy who thinks of nothing but baseball.
At 15, he moved to Hanamaki Higashi High School, which has a reputation for turning out elite athletes and where the baseball players were only permitted to return home six days a year.
His coach at the time has gone on record as saying that he regularly made Ohtani scrub the toilets to teach him humility, an approach common in many student sports teams in Japan and a throwback to samurai-era instruction in martial arts, according to Whiting.
Baseball arrived in Japan with American traders, diplomats and missionaries in the 1890s and the first match between a local team and expats took place in Yokohama in 1896.
The sport was added the same year to the curriculum of a famous Tokyo prep school that educated the sons of traditional samurai families, requiring the same degree of commitment as their warrior forebears.
“They started with the same work ethic of the samurai and simply incorporated that into baseball practice,” said Whiting. “They trained all year round, were required to practise batting strokes 1,000 times a day and when they were struck by a ball were never permitted to say it ‘hurt’ – they could only say that it ‘itched’.”
Ohtani was attracting attention from US teams even before he had graduated from high school but he announced in October 2012 that he would join the unfashionable Nippon-Ham Fighters, in Hokkaido, northern Japan, to gain experience.
He made his debut at 18 and, in five seasons, hit 48 home runs and was on every annual all-star team.
Ohtani signed for the Los Angeles Angels in December 2017 but was written off by the US media after a poor pre-season.
By the end of the season, he had answered the critics, hitting 22 home runs and a solid pitching record that twice won him Rookie of the Month in the American League.
After five impressive years with the Angels, Ohtani moved to local rivals the Dodgers, signing a 10-year contract worth a record $700 million in December 2023.
The deal was structured so that he would only receive a modest $2 million a year for the duration of the contract, with the rest being paid out at the end of the deal.
Still struggling with an elbow injury, it was decided that he would not pitch in the 2024 season, leaving him free to target the home run and stolen base targets. Barring a flare-up of the injury, it is expected that he will resume pitching duties next year.
Ohtani’s journey, however, has not been entirely smooth.
Ippei Mizuhara, a personal friend since they were 18 and later Ohtani’s translator, was in April 2024 charged with bank fraud for allegedly syphoning off more than $16 million from Ohtani’s bank accounts to pay off gambling debts.
Mizuhara pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return in June.
Mizuhara initially claimed Ohtani knew about the transfers and had been helping him pay off his debts, although that was quickly denied by Ohtani’s lawyers.
In June, Ohtani was officially cleared of any wrongdoing and the affair has not tarnished his image at home.
As Ohtani and the Dodgers took on the Yankees, sporting equipment shops across the country have been doing a roaring trade in Dodgers uniforms and Ohtani’s beaming smile is on everything from T-shirts to puzzles, sports drinks, airline advertisements and a line of high-end green tea.
His success has also inspired a new generation of Japanese baseball players.
Takashi Yoshizawa, the manager of the Negishi Twins youth team in Yokohama, said: “More and more children and parents have become interested in baseball and we have seen many join our club.
“Ohtani’s success has definitely broadened their horizons and they now realise that they do not only have to think about playing here in Japan, but that they can make it on the big stage of the majors.
“This has given them the goal of becoming the next Ohtani.”