Shohei Ohtani extended his on-base streak to 50 games in Saturday’s 4-3 defeat to the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. He made the achievement suspenseful by not reaching base until the ninth inning with a two-out single off Rockies reliever Victor Vodnik.
However, the Japanese superstar was also part of a special moment before Saturday’s game. Following his pregame workout, Ohtani learned the story of a woman watching him nearby from a wheelchair.
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Momoyo Nakamoto Kelley is a 100-year-old Japanese native who survived the bombing of Nagasaki in 1945. Currently a Salt Lake City resident, she traveled to Denver to see Ohtani, whom she called “the pride of Japan” in remarks to Chunichi Sports. Kelley said she watches Dodgers games every day to see the four-time MVP play.
Kelley was brought to the game by her grandson, Patrick Faust. The two traveled from nearby Fort Collins, where she was visiting family. Faust was inspired to make the meeting with Ohtani happen by his grandmother reaching a milestone age. The Dodgers star signed a baseball and posed for a photo with his centenarian fan.
“Just the idea that 100 is such a big number,” Patrick said, via MLB.com. “I don’t think there are many people [still alive from] when the atom bomb was dropped. She’s had a terrible experience, a big one. So we wanted to [do something] special. She watches all the Dodgers games and all the Rockies games.”
After surviving the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki when she was 19, Kelley and her husband — whom she met on an Air Force base — emigrated to the United States in the early 1950s.
Kelley met several other players and coaches with Japanese connections, including Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki and Tomoyuki Sugano of the Rockies.
“Honestly, you don’t get these kinds of opportunities often,” Sugano told MLB.com through interpreter Yuto Sakurai. “So I’m really happy I got to meet her and was given this type of opportunity. She said she’s really passionate and really likes watching baseball and is a fan of my former team [the Yomiuri Giants].”
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Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who was born in Okinawa, and broadcaster Stephen Nelson, whose mother is Japanese, both also met Kelley and were touched by the experience.
“It’s humbling,” Nelson told MLB.com’s Manny Randhawa. “Just being ‘Yonsei’ [a great-grandchild of a Japanese immigrant], you’re standing on a lot of shoulders.”
“For her to experience what she went through and endure that, and come here to make a better life for herself and future generations,” he added. “We can’t even fathom that, right?”
Ohtani now has third-longest on-base streak in Dodgers history
In the baseball game that followed, Ohtani went on to reach base safely for the 50th consecutive game. He tied Willie Keeler for the third-longest on-base streak in Dodgers history. Only Shawn Green (53) and Duke Snider (58) are now ahead of him.
The longest on-base streak in MLB history is 84 games, set by the Boston Red Sox’s Ted Williams.
Ohtani led off Saturday’s game by reaching on an error (which didn’t count for the streak), grounding out to first base, flying out to left field and reaching on an interference error on Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman in his four previous plate appearances.
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The loss to the Rockies was the Dodgers’ first this season against a National League opponent. Their previous four defeats were two versus the Cleveland Guardians and one apiece to the Toronto Blue Jays (last season’s World Series opponent) and the Texas Rangers.